Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Late yesterday afternoon we took a short drive to Balingup to play some pool (snooker) and have dinner at the Blackwood River Tavern. Near Greenbushes we got ‘flashed’ by a car heading south, so we figured that some police were up ahead. A couple of kms further on there they were – police car in a parking area, and two boys in blue with their fluoro jackets pulling over vehicles heading south, away from Balingup.

I guessed that this wasn’t a random breath test stop, or even a speeding driver stop – none of the things or behaviours you normally see with those offences were evident. I *thought* it might be because the forests around Balingup are reputed to have ‘magic mushrooms’ growing wild, and each year the police and the mushroom hunters bang heads over this substance. The dead giveaway was a slightly beat up car further up the road at the crest of a hill – the driver had stopped on the side of the road, probably because he could see the police in the road ahead (and they had seen him), and I guessed that he was contemplating what to do! Turn around and get chased by the police, drive on and hope they don’t stop him, get out of the car and run into the forest… Of course, my imagination assumed that all this was the case whereas maybe he’d just broken down (yeah, right!).

When we got to the tavern, we asked the barman if it was magic mushroom time (all sorts of other mushrooms are sprouting now, so I expected it was). He grinned and said it was and that there police stopping traffic on all roads leading out of Balingup – South West Highway heading north to Bunbury and south to Bridgetown, Balingup to Nannup road heading west, and Grimwade Rd heading east. And they would be doing so for some weeks.

Makes you wonder whether chasing hippies and other thrill seekers through a forest is the best use of police resources. Personally, I wouldn’t know one mushroom from another!