Chapter 12: Walpole

We had never heard of Walpole before we got to Western Australia. And then, the moment we were in Western Australia, we could not stop hearing about it — around the campfires on the Gibb, mostly, where the intelligence gets traded. Walpole, people kept saying. You have to go to Walpole.

Walpole, you need to understand, is the belly button of the world. That’s the local billing, and you have to say it with the correct degree of importance, which is an entirely excessive degree of importance. There is the North Pole. There is the South Pole. There is Wal-pole. And then a small dismissive wave at the rest of the globe. Belly button of the world.

But what we actually kept hearing about was Gary. Gary, and Gary’s boat trip.

And Gary’s boat trip is — an experience. I want to be fair to Gary. It’s worth doing. Once. I’m not certain it’s worth doing twice, but it is genuinely worth doing once, and here is my theory as to why it’s the way it is: Walpole, when you get down to it, isn’t actually that interesting. It’s pleasant. It’s mild. And Gary, who has clearly worked this out over many years, compensates for the mildness of Walpole by being, himself, a tremendous amount. The tour is ninety percent Gary. He’s a showman, a character, a one-man festival, and he is by some distance the most famous individual in Walpole, and after twenty minutes on his boat you understand completely why. You do not go on Gary’s tour to see Walpole. You go on Gary’s tour to see Gary. He has made himself the attraction, in a place that needed one.