On the road

Not much to report: just driving south. There is a lot more traffic going north, very little going south. Somebody once advised me to avoid the inland route because of all the road trains and trucks with massive “oversized loads” and their pilot vehicles which clear the way for them. This is true, but there are far fewer caravans which makes life easier.

I only took one photo: it’s called a Camel bush:

Meekatharra is not a place you’d choose to visit unless you had to. All of the possible accommodation looked pretty grim. I selected the Royal Mail Hotel. Was it the best choice? Maybe not! All these former hotels now have little units round the back, as opposed to the main building which just has a bar and fast food. My little room was cold and miserable. The temperature was forecast to drop to 2 degrees overnight, but fortunately I had my down sleeping bag in the car to supplement the bedding provided. The TV did not work: there were two of them, but I couldn’t fathom either of them out. There was no microwave. The shower was really hot, though.

I went to the bar and ordered a seafood basket and a glass of white wine. When the food arrived, it was a big plate of chips and a salad! The young manager soon sorted this out and brought me the seafood. He turned out to be from England and working in the regions as a way of obtaining Australian residency. Then the white wine ran out before my glass was full. He said he hadn’t ordered it this week as wine was not very popular round here.

I slept quite well in my cosy Camino sleeping back, till the departure of a truck woke me at 6.30 am.  It was too cold to make breakfast in my room as I normally do. My hands were freezing after clearing the heavy dew off the car windows. I needed to get fuel, and again there was no 95 octane. The woman charged me for diesel by mistake. This costs less than unleaded petrol, but I said nothing as I was eager to get away from Meekatharra asap! She did make me a good flat white, so I was able to warm my hands on the takeaway cup.

I’ve just stopped at Paynes Find to make myself a cheese sandwich for lunch. I first came here years ago with 3 girlfriends when we were looking for wildflowers. At the roadhouse, they unearthed a bottle of Mateus Rose for us, but had no idea what to charge as it had lain in their fridge for so long. It was on the way back from this trip that we heard about the crash that killed Princess Diana: that’s how long ago it was.

Auski to Capricorn

Capricorn Village is a rather superior roadhouse just south of Newman. It has lots of accommodation, mainly leased out to workers on mine sites. You can even place a sign on your door that reads “Night shift”. There is a swimming pool, but even with a big improvement in the weather, it might be a bit too cold to give it a go. The wi-fi is brilliant, unlike Auski’s which was non-existent. Its name comes from the fact that it’s on the Tropic of Capricorn.

When I woke up early this morning, the temperature was only 6 degrees, but in no time at all it had reached 16 and now (just after lunch) it’s 23. Leaving Auski, I only had a 2-hour drive, so I had plenty of time to stop and take photos:

Driving south, the scenery is as dramatic as that inside Karijini.

Spinifex: this is as close as you want to get!

A bit further south is the Albert Tognolini lookout, a rest stop on top of a hill:

From here, you can look down into the gorge and the road through it.

Albert Tognolini was a friend and colleague of JL. He used to organise annual gatherings of the civil engineers who had worked together in the early days:

I’m not sure that JL ever saw this monument to him.

Lovely views on all sides.


When I reached Newman, I went to the shopping centre to pick up a few supplies. Everything is expensive up here but the price of blueberries is astronomic:

P.S. As I was driving south this morning, I heard on the radio that the highway at Fitzroy is cut again. The heavy rain over the past view days has caused river levels to rise above the temporary low level crossings. Some of the gravel footings have also been washed away. Grey nomads and others trying to get to Broome are now stranded on the wrong side of the river and may be there till the weekend. The Gibb River Road is also still closed. So it looks as if I made the right decision to turn back.

Karijini

I’m coming home on the so-called “inland route”, in order to take in Karijini NP. On the plus side are spectacular gorges; on the minus side, having to stay in the most basic roadhouse accommodation and steer clear of the long, long road trains that ply this road.

This monster is parked outside my room.


Karijini itself is just down the road from Auski Roadhouse. Everywhere you look in the park are sights worth photographing, so that’s what I did:

Approaching Dales Gorge Lookout.

Looking down into Circular Pool.

People regularly fall over the edge!


Lovely trees.

Moon rise at Auski.

Broometime 2

I stayed at Beaches of Broome, an up-market backpackers, in a private room. The big plus is the location: very close to Cable Beach. The drawback this year has been the other clientele: a big group of (I think) Indonesians who take over the kitchen every night at 6.00 pm . They all have their own personal rice cooker, labelled with their name, and spend a long time preparing the accompanying dishes, frying and boiling up stuff for ages, so that no-one else can get a look in. I’m assuming that they are working somewhere in Broome for the season. This morning, Sunday, was obviously their day off. Two of the girls were all dressed up and were collected by a minibus labelled Diocese of Broome: a free ride to Church!

On my last night in Broome, I decided to avoid the competition in the kitchen and went across the road to dine at the Cable Beach Club. It proved to be no more expensive than other Broome restaurants. I had some delicious chilli mussels:

They were served with roti bread and contained a generous amount of fresh red chillies (more than my system is used to, I discovered later!)

View from my table in the restaurant on a rather chilly evening ( in more ways than one).

Walking through the grounds of the Cable Beach Club earlier, I came across a tiny little creature hopping around. I was told it was a new born wallaby: