Another story from the Northern Territory.

South of Tennant Creek, the Davenport Ranges have a beauty and serenity that makes them an ideal camping spot. Being just an hour down ‘The Track’ and another hour and a bit on the dirt to the east, they’re just right for a night or two away from home.

Whistleduck Creek was our favourite place with its deep water holes and majestic rocky hills rising out of rolling valley plains of spinifex and snappy gums. We were on our way home after another relaxing long weekend of eating well, sleeping under the stars and doing little else.

Approaching Tennant Creek our car was stopped by a police roadblock. This was not your average, “Did you know one of your tail lights is out?” type of check. No siree!

The officer who came to the driver’s window had a drawn hand gun at his side while his offsider waited at the patrol car next to the shotguns leaning against its door.

“Who are you, where have you come from and who’s in the car?”, he wanted to know. Lucky for us we looked like your average family returning from a weekend out bush and so we were waved through.

After arriving home we heard the news about the tourist whose boyfriend had been shot and then vanished, presumed killed, just down the road from where we’d been camping. The whole saga of Joanna Lees, Peter Falconio and the mystery killer was continually in the news as the story unfolded bit by bit. The police were warning everyone to be on the lookout for a white utility with a canvas back.

Some weeks later, three women friends, an artist, a doctor and a politician, made the call to go camping at Whistleduck Creek as their trip had been planned for some time and they’d all arranged for time off work.

So there they were at the end of day one and what did they hear? It was the sound of the entry gate to the camping area as it squeaked open to let a vehicle drive in. The three friends looked at one another anxiously.

The artist says, “We’d better go and check”. The doctor grabs a big shifter and the politician uses her satellite phone to ring her electorate officer. She alerts him to their fears and tells him, “If I don’t get back to you within the hour, call the police”.

Off they drive to see who has come in and what do they find? Gasp! A white utility with a canvas back parked next to a freshly lit camp fire – but no person. Oh no, could this be the missing murderer?

Then a little voice says, “Hello?”. It’s not the killer, it’s another woman camper hiding in the bushes until she can see whether the campsite intruders mean her harm.

The mightily relieved trio invite the newcomer to join them and she initially declines but later in the evening moves camp to the security of her new-found friends. Her arrival prompts the politician to remember the safety call she made to her minder many hours earlier.

Fearful that men in black may be about to drop from helicopters, she makes a frantic phone call to say all is well – only to discover that he’d been watching TV and had forgotten all about it.

TV has a lot to answer for so tune in again next week, same time, same station.