Let's Not Meet: A Collection

the moonlight motel

This encounter takes place several years ago in a remote part of the Australian Outback. For a bit of background, I'm a pretty built, 6'2 dude, and I was around 26 years old at the time. Now, on to the story!

I was on a road trip with a mate, travelling around the Central Queensland outback in my old, semi-reliable Nissan X-trail. We're both science/zoology nerds and had heard about this amazing 'dinosaur trail' out this way, which is basically a grouping of three areas (Winton, Richmond and Hughenden) that have had previous dino bone discoveries, still have fossils as well as a seriously awesome dinosaur track with preserved foot imprints.

We were staying at a place three hours from Winton for a couple of days, and were pretty keen to check out this trail. So we made the decision to do the six hour round trip in a day. We were pretty ambitious (and stupid) back then.

We left at 9am the next morning, car packed with lunch, several litres of water and my trusty GPS, and off we went. It was a long drive, and halfway through my aircon decided to cark it. If any of you live in/have visited Australia in the Summer, you would know its brutally hot. So, I'm sure you can imagine the three hour trip there without aircon (with the eventuality of the six hour round trip), was hell. To make matters worse, my GPS also stopped working as the maps software didn't recognise the area we were in.

Luckily I had an old refedex in my backseat, but it was pretty tough to revert to map reading when you're used to a computer screen telling you where to go. Especially given we're talking the Australian Outback here, complete with dirt tracks for roads and very limited signage. But, I digress.

Finally we make it to the trail, and kick around there for a couple of hours (not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome), then decide to make the trip back as it was starting to get later in the afternoon and we didn't want to be driving back in the dark. As we're about to leave, this gnarly old guy, who appeared to be an employee of the trail company, dressed all in khaki/camouflage gear asked us about where we were from and where we were heading. He gave me the stink eye when I was vague with the details, but my mate told him the name of the town where we were staying.

He took a real liking to my mate, and he laughed when he told him about our lengthy journey in. Apparently we had taken the 'long route' and there was a much quicker way to get back, that would shave about an hour off the trip. We jumped at the directions he gave us (ain't nobody got time for an extra hour in an aircon-less oven), all verbal, which we wrote down. Off we went on our merry way, thinking how lucky we were to have met this old dude who gave us some sweet intel on a shortcut home (but I can't deny there was definitely a creep vibe coming off him).

Based on the directions he gave us, we went winding along several roads in an area I had never been in, and eventually settled straight on this narrow dirt road. We were supposed to reach an intersection after about half an hour, take a right and continue on that road until we got to a main highway that would take us back.

After an hour and a half of driving on this dirt trail, though, we still hadn't reached this 'intersection'. I was starting to freak out a bit, thinking we'd missed the turn, but my mate was completely chilled out and was sure we'd get there eventually (I think he thought I was driving too slowly, but there are kangaroos out there, man, and those things are seriously dangerous if you hit one).

We had been travelling for a while now, it was getting later and later in the day, and it got to the point where the petrol in the tank was only a quarter full. There were no houses, other roads or cars in sight and I was really not comfortable with where this was headed. The middle of nowhere. In a remote area in the wasteland that is the Australian Outback. There weren't even any trees. Only this dirt road and desolate, dry bushland/shrubs as far as the eye can see.

I stop the car and tell my mate to get the binoculars out of the back to take a look around in case he can see a land mark. Yes, I carried binoculars in my car (still do!). He obliges, and can just make out a house like structure not too far in the distance, so we made the decision to head for that. We figured it could be a house and maybe the people would be nice enough to give us some petrol to top us up (and some better directions out of there).

As we neared this structure, it became apparent that it was not a house at all. We pulled up out front, and see that it's an old caravan that has been burned to a shell from the inside out. It's still got three blackened partial walls up though, so we can't see all the way in, and it looks like someone's been there recently because there are animal bones strung up all over the place, and a cow skull at the entrance to the caravan. Some of the animal bone things even have grass or horse hair woven into them, and they were arranged like decorations. Then we see this hand painted sign that's been staked into the ground, with the words 'Moonlight Motel' on it. My alarm bells are ringing loud and clear.

I nudge my friend to say let's GTFO, but he's distracted by something in the distance. It's a car. Coming in the direction we had just come from (would have been only ten minutes behind us the entire time we were driving, but I didn't see it once). It's kicking up a tonne of dust, which indicates that it's coming towards us fast.

It is at this point that we both hear this creepy scratching sound coming from the burned out caravan, like someone is scratching at the wall from the inside. I move a little closer to try and see what it is, and there is a person in there peeking out at us from a hole in the damaged wall. Then, this child like voice, that is obviously a grown man imitating a little girl, giggles and says "Are you here to play with me?".

My mate and I both look at each other and book it out of there, back to the inner sanctum of the X-trail. Just as I am about to reverse out, the other car stops just behind my car with the high beams on. I can't see the driver, but they're in my way so I can't reverse out from where I'm stationed. I have no choice but to drive forward, and turn around that way, narrowly missing the staked Motel sign. As we're turning to leave, the driver starts blaring the horn. Just hammering it, for no reason at all. I just speed off, back in the direction we came, and the other car doesn't follow.

It's getting to twilight at this stage, and pretty dangerous to be out on these country roads once it's dark (because of the kangaroo situation). But we're feeling a bit better as we manage to navigate our way back to where we came from, the dino trail, and even start to joke around about what happened. The person in the other car was probably just honking at us to get our attention to help with directions, or something.

I pull into the parking lot and go to the front desk area of the company that runs the tours. I explained that we had gotten lost on our way back to the town we were staying at, and the lady there is kind enough to give us just enough petrol for the ride back.

I couldn't help myself, and mentioned to her that her work mate is a real jerk for giving us those weird directions (we figured that there was no way we messed up the advice he'd given us). And she gives me a weird look and asks me to describe the guy. I do, and her face goes funny and she says "That man does not work here. I saw him talking with the tourists today, and my boss had to ask him to leave. He kept trying to get the details of where people were staying, and telling them that he had vacancies at his place and they could stay there. The Moonlight Motel."

So, creepy old dude, pretending to give helpful directions to a couple of city folk to trap (and potentially murder) them in your lovely 'accommodation': Let's Not Meet!

TL;DR: Lured down a lonely dirt road, and nearly ensnared by some freak(s) in the Australian Outback, narrowly escaped.