I was laying down in the dirt, Dehydrated, no water, 4kms from known source.


Repeating this phrase to myself ;

"you've done it this time simon, You've really gone and done it this time"

26.7.09

A plan is to take the tarmac road. I prefer the dirt and it unpredictable path.

A plan is to take the tarmac road. I prefer the dirt and it unpredictable path.

The plan was to get to Darwin with the three girls I had picked up in Perth. Sina and Silvia from Germany and Charlotte who is from France. I picked them up on Saturday 30th May and we set of on our voyage via the supermarket and petrol station. The idea of a ride share is that the fuel and food are shared evenly between all. We drove north and set up camp in one of the many free camping spots that are found around Australia. The following morning we set of to the pinnacles. We got a bit lost on the way but we finally made it around lunch time. It was like most top Australian attractions, Overcrowded and overrated. I believe the guide books about Australia take all to the same disappointing places so the magic places stay free of mass tourism. Armed with our 4week national park pass we drove an hour north to some tunnels that were only accessible by 4x4. They were an unexpected surprise as the landscape above was very flat and dull. But this dried out river bed had carved out an impressive bit of landscape. The drive onwards was slightly tough on Kate (the car). The corrugations on the road had broken the roof rack and snapped one of my spotlights off. So we tied them down and continued.
As I have been so bad at updating this blog, the exact dates and order of events are a bit confused, but the general route was through Geraldton and into Northampton for a very quick photo under the signpost. It was a quick one as for 10mins it decided to rain (1 out of the 5 times I have seen rain in Australia) Then we travelled west via the pink lake (it really is pink). In Gregory the girls had to push the car so I could jumpstart kate as I had stupidly over filled her with oil. I empted the excess oil while camping near Kalbarri before we headed off to Kalbarri national park and the amazing Natures Window.
The next major stop was Monkey Mia. Another of Australia overrated tourist attractions. But I was able to get close to the ‘wild’ Dolphins that are regularly fed by the park rangers for ‘research purposes’. Denham was a nice town and we were able to spend a couple of hours there before continuing to Coral Bay. We stopped briefly in Carnavon on the way so I could get a new roof rack and battery. We also walked part of the one mile jetty that was closed half way along as it had recently been on fire. So we reached Coral bay over a week after leaving Perth. I believe it was here that many of the plans started to change. All will be made clear in the next update that I will be posting over the next week. I have decided to leave this farm sooner than expected as I’m missing the road much more than I expected. And I’m not enjoying the commercial size of it here either. But the water melons do taste great even if they have been grown with the aid of many chemicals.