I had expected a seven-foot-tall hybrid of Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee. “It’s a well-known fact,” said Alan, “that he is the world’s toughest trucker.” Every time he stops to change a flat tire or replace an axle, he’s bait for leeches, wild boars, taipans and giant crocs. He has to plow through jungle rivers, chain-saw through downed trees and shovel his way out of truck-gobbling mud holes. The 1,500-mile round trip-not a single foot of it on paved roads-takes him through the continent’s most inaccessible wilderness. There, he fills the tanker with diesel for the cattle stations and aboriginal settlements in the distant north, and for Pajinka.

Three times a year, Alan told us, “this bloke Garry” pulls his full-size tractor-trailer rig out of Cairns and heads up the peninsula to the fuel depot at Weipa.

To get fuel to The Top…you need Garry White. To get electricity, you need fuel for the generator. For good conversation, he said, you need cold beer. In a place where the temperature rarely dips below 90 degrees, a place far too remote for electrical lines, how is it that the beer at Pajinka is always cold?Īlan answered with a tropical syllogism. Someone brought over a round of XXXX (Queensland’s home-brewed beer, pronounced “Four-X”) and asked Alan a question of essential interest: Locals call this spot simply The Top.Īfter a day in the sun deep-sea fishing with Pajinka’s manager, Alan Geary, a few guests cooled off at the lodge’s outdoor bar. The lodge lies just short of the northernmost point in Australia, at the tip of a slender green finger that stretches up from the wide brown continent toward New Guinea. Hidden under the rainforest canopy at the top of Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, Pajinka Wilderness Lodge is a tropical retreat for wildlife lovers, bird watchers and fishermen. It’s still one of my favorite pieces, and I often feature it in my keynote talks. Garry White’s torture trek fuels the fridge.Īuthor’s note: I stumbled onto this fun story on my first visit to Oz. Warm beer won’t make you any friends up here, mate.

Wakey wakey hands off snakey movie