Odds are your expectations will not be very high when you book a room at place named the Turkey Creek Roadhouse. Yet, thanks to a series of misadventures that I won’t bother to detail at this time, Jamie and I spent two nights here on our last trip to Australia and quite enjoyed it.
In one direction Turkey Creek is about 500 miles from Broome (population 16,000) and in the other direction it’s about 100 miles from Kununurra (population 5,000). There’s not a major city for thousands of miles in any direction.
It customers include local stockmen, long haul truckers, dirt poor aborigines from the community down the road, and of course, the occasional tourist wanting to stretch his legs and get an ice cream.
We aren’t staying at Turkey Creek this trip, but we were driving past and decided to stop in for a short break. The clerk had a thick French accent, so as I was paying my bill I said, “”How does a Frenchman end up working at a roadhouse in a place like Turkey Creek?”
“I wanted to learn English,” he said, “but not in Kununurra or Broome because too many people speak French in those places.”
I nodded and smiled, but thought that was one of the oddest things I’ve ever heard. We’ve spent days in both towns and never heard anyone speak French. Not one word.
As the say in the French, “Le huh?”