After adelaide there is not much to see. just the nullabor plain, the longest straight road in australia. We took a long long drive from adelaide leaving early in the morning and stopping as the sun set at the nullabor road house. the only civilisation for about five hours one way and a day the other way. cant really call it civilisation though, the owners were strange people that should be in horror films. the accomodation we stayed in (because we didnt fancy pitching our tent around the wild dingoes) was a demountable tin shed with messages from all its previous customers about what they had got up to in the room. really freaky vibe about the whole place, none of us slept well that night even though it was the first time id had a room to myself in over a month.
we discussed how much of our journey we had left to do. the distance left was 1600kms. We wondered if we could do it in a day! we had time zones on our side which would give us an extra two hours driving!
we set our alarms for six am. i got up, looked outside, it was dark, really dark so we decided to have another half hour in bed. two and a half hours later, we woke up and found that every other soul had left the place and took on the journey. we jumped in the car and shot off into the neverending never changing horizon. taking it in three hours stints we would swap driving. averaging at about 130kmph we made good progress. its unreal out there, being that far from anything. the distance is apparantly like driving from london to moscow! but there is nothing to see the whole way, the occasional dip in the landscape, plenty of burnt out cars and huge flattened kangaroos in the road. somehow it was really enjoyable. but thank god the car was going strong because to break down out there would be big big trouble.
we drove on and on, deciding not to stop at kalgoorlie the gold rush town a few hours outside of perth. we had been driving for about two weeks almost every day always for at least six hours. we just wanted to get to perth now. so we pushed on and on, it got dark and carried on. i was driving in the dark. when a car comes into view, it is still about ten kms away, so you dim your lights and cant see if anything is in the road and have to slow right down until ten minutes later the car the passes you or just disapears maybe turning off. that last couple of hours was probably the most i have ever had to concentrate and after 14hours on the road already i was a wreck.
finally at about 10.30 at night we got into the city. phoning backpackers they were all full up if they even answered! so we had to stay in a motel. i was kind of happy about that although it was expensive i needed a nice room and a chuck norris movie to recover.
the next day we managed to find some accomodation eventually. Sally was job hunting and i was going to but then greg suggested that he was going to take the car while we still had it and head up the west coast. i couldnt resist the oppurtunity to put off working so i went with him.
The west coast is amazing. so undisturbed, tiny one street towns are several hours apart and all are built up alongside the most stunning beaches. WE got up to Sharks bay area and saw all we wanted to see in one day so thought we would just move on and get ahead of schedule. so at about four o clock in the afternoon we were flying back down the long road off the great northern highway, passing the amazing shell beach (no sand just tiny shells, and the water is no more than 10cm deep for about 1000m out to sea. again we were the only people there, such an amazing place and we had it to ourselves!) suddenly the car overheated. we spent the next hours pouring coolant in, starting her up, mmoving 100m and overheating again. luckily we were only about ten k from the nearest people in a place called nanga bay. we grabbed our essentials out of the car and stared walking in the baking sun hoping the emu we had chased in the car earlier wouldnt be seeking revenge. some guys picked us up and took us to nanga bay. everyone was drunk because it was australia day! so they were not to happy to have to sort us out and there was massive confusion over who was going to tow us back. eventually we got the car off the main road, grabbed some noodles out of it for dinner and slept in another demountable. not knowing how long we would be stuck there in the middle of nowhere.
the next mornign we rang the nearest tow truck guy in denham. about 50km away. he came and picked us up pretty quickly and took us back to denham. we unloaded our camping gear and set up camp at the local campsite while he took the car away to assess the damege. we knew already we wouldn not be able to afford to fix it. we got very drunk and discussed ways to do a runner so we wouldnt have to pay for the tow or repairs or leaving all our camping gear there, we just wanted to run and hitchhike. we never got the balls to do it in the end. we decided camping was shit so we sold all our gear to the campsite for about a quarter of what it was worth and checked into the local backpackers.
This turned out to be a great move. we met some great people there. the owener of the hostel took us all out one day 4WD through the national park, along a beach and waded out through shark infested waters to a deserted pearl farm hut floating on the ocean. We all sat out there watching fish go by in the crystal clear water and got pretty damn drunk. as the sun set we drove back through the bush to a natural hot spring and had a few more beers while skinny dipping watching the shooting stars. an amazing day ill never forget.
eventually the Greyhound bus turned up to take us away, we had paid the tow truck guy and he kept our car. the camping gear money just about paid him off so in a way we broke even. (in another way we lost our fucking car and all our camping gear and various other stuff we had no room for in our bags and we were gutted)
The greyhound took us to Coral Bay, near exmouth. another tiny commumity around a beach. we were here for a week and i was so glad about that. it was the nicest beach i have ever seen in my life. bright white sand turqoise water, just undescribable. even better was that just 100m off the beach was ningaloo reef. cheap snorkel hire and a little swim and i was looking at more coral than i had ever seen and so many fish i couldnt beleive it, also saw a pretty large reef shark which panicked me a little. (so much i turnead around and swam away)
the main thing to do in coral bay is check out the reef. i went on three dives and one of them was the best dive ive done, swimming through canyons of reef and a never ending school of big silver trevally.
also we went on a manta ray tour, we were unbeleivable lucky, the spotter plane saw a shark. a whale shark! after the boat caught up with it we got the chance to swim with this amazing creature. once in a lifetime experience. two months before they were due to arrive this one was a little lost. swimming next to this six metre whale and almost looking into its eye wondering what he thought of us was the best experience i have had in my life. its really gonna take some beating. Also to make the day even better we did end up finding some manta rays, about four metres wide they look like dinasours, cannot describe either of these animals its something that has to be seen to be understood.
the rest of the time in coral bay revolved around alcohol largely, we met some girls from perth who were great fun. i cut my head open trying to dive into an empty mug and smashinga bottle of bacardi with my face. defintaly hope to return to coral bay one day. its an amazing place, so unspoilt by tourism, so beautiful.
the next greyhound took us all the way to broome. it picked us up at 12midnight at night one day and dropped us off at 7.30pm! immediately broome seemed a little dodgy, a green filled with aboriginols all drinking goon, shouting, singing, pretty disgusting sight.
not much happened in broome, we were running out of money and trying to get a job on the pearl boats. the more we spoke to peopl who were doing in the more we got put off, they all had open infected cuts on their legs which never got time to heal before they went back out on the boats for up to two weeks at a time. and the money wasnt as good as it first seemed. we decided to cut our losses and fly back to perth to find work.
By the time we got back to perth i had a job interview lined up the next day. they offered me the job straight away and i started on the monday. i was still in hostels and greg didnt have a job, sally was staying with a friend and working in the city. Chloe and ben had arrived now and then ben chloe and greg all went out tree planting for a month in the countryside to earn some cash. i was frantically searching for a place to live becasue i was so sick of dorm rooms, listening to other drunk people and snoring and the endless bullshit about where youve been adn what youve done. its the last thing you need after a day at work. and to make it worse, everywhere was full and i couldnt get accomodatio for more than one night. i was basically homeless. spending days at work and nights looking for a place to shower and sleep.
eventually i responded to an advert online and got a place in bicton right near my work. living with a girl my age, emma, she is great, couldnt ask for a better housemate.
the other four have now gone over to the east coast and are working in brisbane. Im working in perth still happy with my house my friends my car and my job. My job is offering sponsorship for residnecy, perth is such a cool place with so much to do and great weather and people. its certainly more appealing than anywhere i know in england.
not finished travels yet htough. so im saving up here. hopefully my sister is coming out in july. then perhaps in august i will be packing my bags again ready for hostels and goon once more. at the moment im thinking East coast Oz, then NZ, then back to asia, see cambodia, laos, more of vietnam, and a bit of china. but who knows. .... . . ...
