Over the years I've accomplished what I call the "Triple Crown" of Western Australia (WA) hitchhiking adventures: the Nullarbor (the easiest), across the top through the Kimberley and Pilbara regions, and via the Great Central Road (the most difficult of the three). Now I'm crossing the Nullarbor again. Flying from Johannesburg to New Zealand would have cost an absolute arm and a leg so I opted to make a true adventure out of it. 10 days in Thailand and Cambodia allowed me to go to Angkor Wat, and then I decided to fly to Perth, hitchhike across, and then fly to New Zealand from Melbourne. Since I haven't seen Anikka since before the pandemic, I'm also going to visit her, and I'll also be filling in some more local government areas (LGAs) as part of my goal to find a geocache in every LGA in Australia. I've found caches in more than half of them.
For the past few days I was visiting my friend, Rachel, who lives in Albany. When I finally got COVID-19 last year I self-isolated at her home for a week. This time, however, we were completely free to do what we wanted. In addition to the usual stuff at home like cooking and baking, we went geocaching and then did a few drives. The weather would turn foul and then in Esperance I was stranded. The town's only backpacker hostel closed during the pandemic and it was bucketing down, so camping wasn't an option. When I called the number of a holiday park asking if they had any backpacker accommodation the lady was very rude with "don't you know what time it is? Call back tomorrow!" before hanging up. I called back about five minutes later explaining that I was looking for accommodation for that evening, she yelled at me and then hung up again. When I stopped at Domino's, a couple of guys from Papua New Guinea (PNG) were all excited when they saw I was wearing my shirt with the flag of PNG on it. It was one of those very rare situations where I was really in a dilemma, and I asked if I could stay at their flat for the evening. They agreed, and we spent hours discussing my time in PNG.
The weather had cleared somewhat in Esperance but it remained fickle. Before long I'd end up in Norseman, which is the provision stop before the long slog across the Nullarbor. Before long I was picked up by a guy named Fred driving to a place a bit south of Port Augusta. We would make it just over the border into South Australia where he decided to stop for the evening. It also gave me an opportunity to fill in the largest LGA of all in Australia, which is unincorporated South Australia. A geocache lay just over the border. Full steam ahead, we'd stop at Bunda Cliffs.
The Nullarbor may not be the most spectacular drive in the world but there certainly is an allure to it as it has the world's longest golf course and Australia's longest straight stretch of road. Eventually we'd end up in the town of Wudinna where, whilst Fred slept, I went for a late-night walk in search of some geocaches. I've managed to check off a few more LGAs on this journey.
Port Augusta beckoned, and in Port Augusta I was sheltering from the rain before a few more lifts would get me to Adelaide and into the arms of Anikka.
