HERE I GO AGAIN

HERE I GO AGAIN

I have completed the barista course at William Angliss TAFE, so I am now qualified to know why I make bad coffee. My car is serviced and I leave very early on Thursday morning to drive to Adelaide in time to make dinner with friends who go on holiday to NZ the next day. Then, on Friday the approach to the Nullarbor Plain crossing begins, taking in the longest coastal cliff lines in the world and enabling me to enter the far south of WA in early March.

What happens after that depends upon my Daemon and the winds of fortune but I will be generally tracking north with the Kimberley in the far NW as my ultimate destination, where I will walk, camp and possibly 4 wheel drive to see both the geophysical wonders of this ancient land and its early aboriginal rock art.

Why am I doing this?
I am continuing to pursue my doctorate inspired strategy of working more for love, working to put back and working less just to live.Many of my friends and readers of my GoingNorth2 blog have urged me to write more and so a main focus of the trip will be doing on the ground research (Perth in the 1920s and the Kimberley at that time and now) and seeking inspiration to complete two novels, one three quarters written and the other stalled after chapter one. One finishes in the Kimberley and the other is completely located there.

What will I do?
I will have all my camp gear aboard-big, longer-stay tent and swag for overnight stops,gas cooker and a mini Weber,table, chairs and my mountain bike and so I will be prepared for anything.Amazing what you can fit into a Honda Jazz. The first few days in WA will involve drifting up through the Kari forests and vineyard areas towards Perth.

Perth is not likely to hold me long, time enough for some historical research at the Battye library and from there I will go north, taking in the great mines that feed China and India’s economic miracles and bolster my superannuation coffers, on the way to the tropical north, Broome and the Kimberley.

So, here I go again. Should you be likely to cross my path-there is room and spare beds in my large tent, I cook a mean bush roast, there is always plenty of red wine and of course the coffee should be better.

See ya later or on the Songlines Road.

ADELAIDE IN A DAY

Uneventful first day out, driving the 800klms from Melbourne to Adelaide,if my Adelaide friend is right about the speed cameras, I may get one or more speeding ticket as I was unaware of being clocked on the final 200klms or so.Perhaps I will be on a fugitive run into the west.The countryside on the way across was fairly green in Victoria but dried out markedly in South Australia.Adelaide looked lovely-sunny and mild and about to go en-fete with the opening of their world famous arts festival.

Have had a delightfully luxurious night compared with where I am headed. Geoff is a leading business educator at Melbourne Business school and the Darden school in Virginia,USA.I have known him professionally for 20 years , he contributes to my Onesteel program and we have consulted to a number of organisations together and have become good, lasting friends.He and Mardi have a gorgeous federation house verging on to the grounds of St Peter's college.We dined at a very good Yakatori restaurant accompanied by their son who works at Dan Murphy's, when not studying Mandarin, and his visiting American girl friend.

ADELAIDE TO KIMBA 29 FEB 2008

GATEWAY TO THE OUTBACK
One has to run almost 300 klms north to the top of the Gulf before starting to go west. It was a much easier 400klm day than yesterday's dash.Went out through Adelaide's awful northern industrial wasteland-an aspect little known to the festival ravers of North Adelaide, but all too well remembered by me as I drove that way everyday in 2002 when working with the Michell company in Stirling.
Things start to pick up as one approaches Port Augusta(gateway to the outback)The foothills of the southern Flinders ranges march along beside the road and an accompanying trans continental freight train(or was it going to Darwin) with double decked shipping containers,made a fine contrast with the iron red cordillera alongside the tracks.


I had driven this road before on my way to Wilpena Pound in early 1999 under much less happy circumstances. It was 40c and as I had recently split with my wife,there were a few fractious phone calls along the way to settle the division of our assets.

Port Augusta hadn't changed much-one was immediately aware of an aboriginal presence such as one never encounters in Melbourne. Women and children were at most city centre street corners and extended family groups gathered under parkland trees. much as they do in Broome. It was cooler than last time but plagued with bush flies-one even accompanied me into the bank.

At a Coles supermarket I stocked up on unmentionably unhealthy canned food in case of emergencies in foodless locations.



The road west to Iron Knob was much more dramatic, with sweeping plains carpeted with salt bush which rucked up against iron stone outcrops. Iron Knob(Pop 200)was where BHP started the Australian steel industry and mine tours are still available



It was a ghost town on this Friday afternoon and in the deserted pub I only got service when a crawliing child howled for her parents (so much for my Santa Clause look) In conversation with the publican I gathered that the bowling and tennis clubs were the social hubs of the town and only available to those born there.Tourists and blow-ins not welcome.I asked him what he did, as well as running the far from busy pub. In response to which he sighed and said that keeping his cars going kept him flat out. Much Holden technical talk ensued, sufficient to glaze my eyes over. I looked at his worn-out wife, who had made me a toasted sandwich and who seemed to be doing all the bar restocking, said cheerio to the wild and unkempt child and left.



The road west is good and rolls up and down hills that afford great views across the barren bush.Cars and trucks coming east were never at less than half hour intervals and only one overtook me in 100+ Klms.

I had been advised to stop in Kimba(which claims to be the cross roads of Australia) and as road fatigue was setting in I gave up pushing on for three hours more to reach Ceduna.Dodging kangaroos at dusk is no fun and it's then the intimidating road trains come out to play in great numbers.

The smart town pub served excellent salt and pepper squid and I even entered the Lions club meat tray raffle-would have been pretty high steak by Perth if I had won.

The campsite ground was too hard for the swag's pegs and I had to pull up two wheelie bins to secure both ends, on a dusty dry windy night.Not had much rain here in a while.

SLEEPING WITH THE SOUTHERN CROSS

SLEEPING WITH THE SOUTHERN CROSS

All night and into the dawn, the Southern Cross star formation, a trusty guide to pioneer navigators, stood watch above my swag. It was comforting to look up at it through the insect screen before going to sleep and awaken to its steady gaze in the wee small hours of a Western Australian morning.

What scenes of human folly, triumph and tragedy it has seen. Early aboriginal nomads foraging the plains, Eyre losing his mate and himself striving almost unto death to establish the east-west route along the Great Australian Bight, he called the Nullarbor. Now it is largely the preserve of the lordly road trains and the lesser but increasing lines of grey nomads, proud in their spanking new Akubras, at the wheel of glossy four wheel drive monsters, motor homes or towing caravans and even the occasional car.

What could it make of a single, white, Honda bullet, dodging suicidal kangaroos and clean up teams of carrion crows, blistering west as though for its very life.
What might be the driver’s mission? Licence plates speak of where it has come from but where is its driver bound? To the stars it might readily seem no different from his forebears yet another, albeit 21st century, pioneer in search of a dream.

But yet there was something different about this latter day wanderer. He had found his dream and needed no guiding star for he was travelling his songlines road.


But still nice to sleep with the Southern Cross, just in case!

STREAKY BAY TO EUCLA (ACROSS INTO WA)-2 MARCH 2008

Set off in the dark for Ceduna-not a wise move as one is less alert so early and the last of the night road trains, festooned with their Christmas tree lights, sure were intimidating.As the light breaks the bush had a uniformly almost colourless grey look about it-like a zinc coated tableau.
Ceduna is just a bigger version of Streaky Bay and after a welcome truck stop breakfast I confronted the start of the real Nullarbor challenge.

Only 1053 Kilometres to go

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

I was soon distracted by the side road to the all but abandoned fishing village of Fowler's Bay, which turned out to be of surprising historical celebrity.
SO MANY EXPLORERS

The Dutch, Flinders and Eyre came by.Now there are just a few houses and a guest house.All is backed by sandhills of Arabian style and proportions. Very suitable for Foreign Legion movies.

Anybody seen Beau Geste?
IF THE ROAD DOESN'T GET YOU THEN THE WILDLIFE WILL


There were lots of wildlife warnings along the way, with good reason.The roadside was littered every few hundred metres by the night road trains toll of dead kangaroos.Missed a large one by about 50 metres and fortunately there was no companion animal following behind it. It's often the secondary one that gets you.I was surprised on two occasions to come upon wedge-tailed eagles squatting on kangaroo carcases surrounded by crows, all having a piece of the clean up action.I stopped and tried to creep up for a photo but the Eagles were too wary and canny to oblige and flew away as I crept up on them.

Whilst fairly featureless the landscape varied from treeless in places, to medium density bush in sandy soil and for a spell a ridge of sandy rock ran parallel to the road for about 50 Klms.

Covered about 700 Klms in the day and nobody overtook me.I was surprised by the number of people coming the other way who waved-must have been fellow Victorians because the farm truck types didn't.


A LONG AND LONELY ROAD


CROSSING THE BORDER

The quarantine check was more thorough than any I have encountered in Australia. I even had to surrender an unopened jar of honey. Well at least he didn't confiscate my nail scissors and Swiss army knife, like that hijab wearing security detail at Heathrow.Strange thing at the border was the fact that one didn't jump immediately to WA time-this only came into play a few hundred kilometres farther in. There is a sort of twilight zone between SA and WA time.

Stopped the night in a very hot and dusty camp site at Eucla-a very forgettable place.First encounter with WA police in the bar there. Big affable country boys of a rather pedantic disposition. No wonder when one reads signs like this about their responsibilities.
WIDE AWAKE IN WA

So what do they do? Tuck lonely travellers into cell bunks for the night. strange state this.
In SA on the way across, the road safety focus was intense. Instead of white crosses and individual shrines to road death victims,they erected black and red posts to indicate a fatality or serious injury.They really impact you, especially when you come upon a cluster meaning multiple death and mutilation.A large roadside poster showed a young man flying over the front seat of a car (No seat belt)about to collide, head first, with the female driver. The caption read-The last thing to enter her mind was her boy friend.The more conventional white crosses beside otherwise benign spots on the Nullarbor also served to remind me to stop and sleep at intervals.

EUCLA TO KALGOORLIE-3 MARCH 2008

NO DEVIANTS ALLOWED HERE
The sign said it all.It really felt as though one could lock the wheel and read a book. But you have to be careful of that strange feeling of wanting to drift into the path of rare oncoming vehicles which you can see coming from far away.
Up at 5:30am-wonderful crescent moon and super star display. Big drive today to get through the Nullarbor-800klms to kalgoorlie.

At an all night road house, the trucker's breakfast was welcome-the sausage component was even a decent bratwurst, unlike those dreadful Aussie beef snags that just cry out to be burnt on a barbie.It was as well I had brought my West coast eagles cap as this turned out to be an entrenched Eagles lair.The toilet sign intrigued. They usually say-keep door closed to stop insects getting in. This one added a caution about snakes!!Made one sit on the seat rather carefully and only after thorough reconnaissance.Ladies seemed to contemplate this caution with studied interest.

KALGOORLIE, LEGENDARY HEART OF THE GOLDEN WEST

After a very long hot day’s driving,I was glad to find a pitch on grass in a caravan park, in Boulder, sister city to kalgoorlie whose gold finds in the 1800s, as with the discoveries in Victoria’s Ballarat and Bendigo, secured the colony's economic future and influenced WA’s decision to grant the early enfranchisement of women and eventually opt for membership of the Commonwealth of Australia.

So I entered the city with high hopes which were satisfied ,at an architectural level, by the fine hotels and civic buildings of the gold rush period but somehow the existence of contemporary mining in the city seemed to have encouraged a lowering of social tone that did nothing for its image. I refer to the surprise of entering what I perceived to be a superb example of a goldfields pub only to find myself surrounded by a group of even dirtier old men, who were purving at the “skimpies”, barmaids whose attire left nothing to the imagination and who when they bent down (which they did frequently) revealed a profile likely to put even the reddest blooded man off his beer. I was called darling 5 times in the course of having one beer served and I must say I missed the gruff demeanour of some of the English barmen who recently served me pints of real ale.

On the other hand there was something amusing about the brothels in Hay street with their stable doors-which offer tours for tourists at $20 a session (no sampling of the wares)-and which were rammed, recently, by a disturbed female motorist.

HAY STREET BROTHEL

YOU'RE BETTER OFF IN VIC
My advice for tourists seeking to see the best of Australian gold fields history is go to Victoria where the visual, presentational and story telling is handled with style and wonderful interactive opportunities for adults and kids.