triplog

The second day of the drive back towards WA went a bit smoother - maybe I’m getting into the long-haul zone. Could be the fact I’m wearing a filthy blue singlet, swearing at traffic a lot and living on Chiko rolls and roadhouse sustenance (Gray, you must have snuck a camera into the car).

I left Lake Benanee around 7am Sydney time, and managed to get as far as the rest area just east of Yalata Roadhouse, 300-odd kms short of the WA border - a total distance of 1260kms. Again, if you wanna have a closer look at the map and my route, try this link.

I’m writing this from the roadhouse at the WA/SA border village - I got up pre-dawn and have notched up another 3 hours/300kms. Here’s me at the border - I’m not grumpy, just squinting into the dawn:

Here’s a few more shots from the road:

I’m on my way back to WA and Jane! I finally finished up in Sydney - apologies to all the people I didn’t have a chance to catch up with - and hit the road this morning around 9am. It’s been a long day. I’m now camped at a little rest area off the Sturt Highway at Lake Benanee, with a small pack of grey nomads around me. 950 odd kms down, just over 3000 to go.

If you wanna see closeups of the map of the route I’ve taken so far, try this link.

Talk about culture shock. Probably why I haven’t updated anything for a while, I’ve been sitting in a corner curled up in a foetal position and twitching spasmodically.

Not really.

Well, almost. I arrived in Sydney on Monday night previous, after catching up with Craig and Liza in Coffs Harbour on Saturday night and then spending Sunday night and Monday up near Newcastle, sorting through the container-load of stuff Jane and I have stored up there, in preparation for moving it all across to WA. Seven a.m. Tuesday saw me on a bus to Surry Hills, crammed like a sardine in amongst all the other commuters. I’ve pretty much just worked since then, bar another trip to Newcastle last weekend to drop off more furniture and get everything ready. While Sydney can be beautiful, the shock of the commute and the hectic nature of the city made me realise why I left to start with. It wasn’t until yesterday (Thursday) that I managed to get a surf in - scored a nice 3-hour session out at Long Reef with Marty in the morning, then managed a late out at Curlie.

Jane’s been in WA (working in Perth and down south) for the last few weeks while I’ve been doing all this, and she’s found us a house in Dunsborough. While still in the general Margaret River area, it’s not as far south as the block was - it’ll be a bit of a luxury being able to walk or ride into town for dinner and a few beers, not to mention Jane can now walk to work. And the surf breaks are a similar distance away as they were when we were staying at Spence’s block, we’ll just be driving in from the other direction.

The plan now is to finish up here this weekend and hit the road across to WA to rejoin Jane by Tuesday at the latest - according to Google, it’s 3970km door to door.

Does it get any better?

… and I surfed in boardies. Sorry, Jane.

I ended up staying the night in Byron, but the pulse of swell from the afternoon before didn’t hang around until morning. So I started making my way south, stopping in to check first Tallows (nothing doing - still some size, but very messy) and then Broken Head - bingo! It looked pretty good when I first got there so I went out for a wave, but it rapidly deteriorated - mainly closeouts.