triplog

On Saturday Jane and I left Perth and headed south again (Jane drove most of the way) to pick up the keys of our new (rental) house in Dunsborough. A real, live, honest to goodness house, with walls and doors that don’t zip up and real plumbing and hot water and power…

Anyway, so this is where we’re settling until at least well after the baby arrives - what d’you reckon? It’s a massive house, all on one level, surrounded by trees in the older part of Dunsborough - older, but more character than one of the soul-less new estates, where they cleared all the trees and the houses are built almost on top of each other. There’s terracotta tiled floors throughout (except in the bedrooms, which are carpeted), a big open kitchen (gas), a woodfire in the living room, 4 bedrooms plus a study plus 2 living rooms - and a shed out the back. The only downside so far is the colour of the blinds - they’re an off-pink (Jane insists they’re apricot, but I still reckon they’re pink).

Now we’re just waiting for all our stuff to arrive… lucky we’re fully equipped for (and dare I say it, kinda good at) camping.

Ok, bit of a delay in writing this - sorry. Anyways, back to the road trip. After the last post, which I wrote at around 8am at the SA/WA Border Village after already covering 300km, I kept on trucking for the day. I’d fueled up at the Border Village, and this saw me through the rest of the Nullarbor to Norseman, WA, where I stopped for fuel and a greasy spring roll (a man can’t live on Chiko rolls alone, you know) then turned right and headed north towards Coolgardie.

The Nullarbor had been flat and straight, until Balladonia, where it starts heading uphill into the Fraser Ranges - however, the most boring part of the drive was this stretch from Norseman up to Calgoordie and then west into the setting sun. As compensation though, the moonrise seen through my rearview mirror was magical.

Anyway, long day much abbreviated, I made it as far as Southern Cross, where I stopped for a feed at another truck stop (chips and gravy, washed down with an iced coffee milk). Still feeling chipper, I pushed on to a rest area about 80km out of Southern Cross, where I pulled over, crawled into the back of the troopy and passed out. I’d covered a long, boring 1408km since setting out pre-dawn - that’s from point C to D on the map above .

A brief 4 hours later (3am WA-time) I was on the road again - trying to nail the last 340km (D to E on the map) to Perth before peak hour set in on the approaches to the city. I didn’t manage to avoid peak hour totally, but shortly after 7am Friday morning I pulled up outside Janes mums place in Claremont.

So just for the record, I’d managed to cover just under 1750km in just over 24 hours - woohoo! Again, if you wanna browse the map, click here.

Overall, the worst part was probably the sheer mind-numbing boredom of some of the remote stretches of road - and it’s made worse by not having access to radio stations. I found that when I was getting radio reception (particularly ABC Radio National or their news radio service) time went a lot quicker, as you get to occupy your mind a bit. The best part of the whole drive was probably having the sheer size of our country brought home to me in a big way; other highlights included the 3 wedge-tailed eagles by the side of the road, the road trains, the sky, the sunsets, the moonrise, and the roadhouse diet (mmm, Chiko rolls - but seriously, the best quality roadhouse food I found on the trip was at a place called Mozies at Ceduna).

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.