I've never woken up in Longreach sober

Some events in our lives change us, sometimes quite dramatically. Not catching that flight, taking the wrong turn, or just missing a set of sliding doors. Come to think of it, someone should make a movie about that to show how things work out each way; they could get Gwyneth Paltrow to star in it.

Anyway, here’s a story about mine.

23 years ago today, I was on a long drive back to Mount Isa from Toowoomba. I’d driven down for a friend’s son's christening and was headed back. If you’ve never done that drive, it’s not exactly exciting, particularly on your own. We’re also talking early 2000s, so mobile phone reception in Western Queensland was patchy at best.  

About 20 minutes out of Longreach, Kate, my old work partner at the Drug Squad, called me. They asked where I was, and I told them I wasn’t far from Longreach. It was late in the afternoon, and I’d had a few drinks the night before (it was a christening, remember). She suggested that I call in and say hi to her sister Sue and fiancée Travis, who were police officers in Longreach. I said I didn’t know her sister, and she reminded me that I had spoken to her on the phone.

To be clear, the previous conversation I’d had with Sue was when she had rung the drug squad office looking for her sister, and I said, “Hang on, I’ll just get your sister”.

I could do with a break, and then I could decide whether to stay in Longreach or push on a bit further. Kate said she’d ring ahead and let them know I was going to call in; she gave me their address.

Unbeknownst to me, there was a conversation between Travis and Sue prior to my arrival about whether to offer me a place to stay the night. After all, they didn’t know me, and what if I was weird (if you’ve read this far, you already know I’m a bit weird, but let’s move past that).

I arrived, and we talked, and within an hour it was like we had been friends for years. They offered me a place to stay for the night (so their bar for who is acceptable to stay is obviously low). Early in the evening, Sue got word that her aunty had passed away, so that put a bit of a downer on things. We had chicken and peach bake for dinner, and alcohol.

A lot of alcohol.

The following morning, I dragged myself out of their spare bed and got back on the road to Mount Isa.

Over the next two years, it became routine for me to stop in Longreach and stay with Travis and Sue. It was between 7-8 hours between Mount Isa and Longreach, so a nice halfway stop if I was traveling to Brisbane. The consequence was that in all those years, since meeting Travis and Sue, I have never woken in Longreach without a hangover.

Over the years we both moved; in fact, until last year we had never lived in the same town or worked together. Yet they stayed great friends. We shared good times, weddings (ok, well, I didn’t get an invite to their wedding, but that’s a whole other story), the births of our children, concerts, and other positive life events.

They have also been there through the hard times, the deaths of friends and family, relationship breakups, or just the challenges of life and work. When my Dad died, Travis didn’t hesitate to come up for the funeral, even though he’d barely known Dad.  Last year, when we were moving back to Queensland and I needed somewhere to stay until we bought a house, Travis and Sue opened their home to me for 7 months. It was a tremendously generous act, but if you know them, that’s the sort of people they are.

There are family we are related to through birth, and then there is family that we choose. I am so grateful that I got the phone call from Kate; I’m grateful that I was normal enough for Sue and Travis to invite me to stay with them that first night, and I’m grateful that I’ve never woken up in Longreach sober.

NOTE: Anyone from the Longreach Tourism Association: your town is lovely. I really enjoyed every aspect of it, and I also appreciated making amazing friends.

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If you'd like to learn more about my family, here's another good story about my wedding day.