Highway to Hell

Yet another interesting day in Oz. Today Georg (Austrian), Rainy (American), and I (also American) put it upon ourselves to go see Bon Scotts’ grave. For those who do not know, Bon Scott was the original lead singer of AC/DC. He was from Fremantle (a suburb of Perth). So the three of us took a train this morning to Freo (Fremantle). It took us about an hour to get into Freo and when we got there we realized that we had no clue where the cemetery was. Georg went about being our navigator. He started accosting unassuming vendor with the question “could you please tell us where Bon Scott's grave is?” While waiting at a bus stop we discovered a Didgeridoo shop. Georg had been in search of a didge for some time so we entered the shop. This is a very very cool shop. Most of the free space is lined with didgeridoos of all styles imaginable (and some quite unimaginable). The space not filled with didges was taken with aboriginal art. This was not however some musty hole in the wall. This was a sleek and clean operation. We were greeted by a guy who looked very similar Bret of Flight of the Conchords. This store was unlike any music store I had ever been to before. Customers are encouraged to play as many of the instruments they would like. No dirty looks are given for touching the very expensive piece on the wall. On the contrary, I found myself enthused to play a $750 didge. And even more amazing no pressure was put on me actually buying said instruments by the clerks. The guys working their just seemed happy to jam out. I was able to demonstrate, the amazement of my friends, my abilities on the didge. There was another guy in the shop who was doing some serious didge playing and was at the side making surreal noises that I have only heard before on meditation CDs. The Bret lookalike showed the three of us how to do circular breathing, which mostly involved making silly raspberry sounds while inhaling. This came very much in handy later, when waiting in buss stations, much to the puzzlement of onlookers. By the end the other two were able to make passable buzzing noises on the didges.
From the store we made our way by bus to the cemetery. As it turns out it is very hard to find Bon Scott’s grave. There are no signs up and with the surprising number of people mulling about, all of whom knowing exactly who he is, none know the whereabouts of the actual grave. This led to many conversations that went as follows.

Georg walks over to a person either tending to a grave or paying their respects.
Georg (being a very blunt Austrian): Do you know where the grave of Bon Scott is?
Mourner/volunteer: We get that question a lot. You know, they just built an archway for him.
Georg: Do you know where it is.
Mourner/volunteer: Sorry I have no idea.

This was when they were being polite. On several occasions we found ourselves accidently causing car to speed off as we walked up to their window. And dirty looks were made at us more than once. In the end we spent two hours searching the grounds and bumped into two other tourists on the same hunt. This is a very large cemetery. In the end it was a woman that had just finished paying respects to a relative and who mistook us for muggers that showed us where that grave was. We knew that she thought we were muggers when she said “I thought you were fucking muggers!” Petulant is a word that would accurately describe her demeanor. When Georg first asked her the directions her response was “all I know is that he died thirty years ago of alcohol. I know that sound cold but it is true.” Surprisingly she knew exactly where it was, that is roughly one out of thirty people asked. And yes there was an archway in his honor. As it turned out we needed to walk on the side walk outside the cemetery to its side. This is where a large bronze archway stood reading “Bon Scott” and displaying the AC/DC emblem. His plot is actually very small and surrounded by many others. I was curious what the reaction would be for all those non AC/DC fans buried in such a flamboyantly heavy medal laden area. We showed our respect for the deceased by getting some snapshots and made our way back to the bus stop. At this point the bus very stubbornly chose not to come. But a fleet of out of service busses did pass us every few minutes. This just worked to add insult to the injury of us spending or entire evening waiting for a bus. In the end it took us two hours and walking to three different bus stops before we found our bus. But I still found the entire experience quite amusing.
Yours truly,
Ryan