Tuesday 13th May
I was up shortly after 06.00 and got myself together before making the short walk to the 'Easy Rider' office on William Street. I was given all of the information that I would need and told how the trip would work. There were about twenty or so people who set off on the bus at about 08.00. My first sight of the bus was slightly shocking as it looked like it had seen better days a long time ago. But, it was comfortbable enough once inside and we set off through the early morning traffic northwards out of Perth. We were already an hour behind schedule but nobody seemed to mind.
Our bus driver introduced himself as Evo – you're not a fair dincum bloke in Australia unless you have an abbreviated first name – and told us that we had a trainee along for the ride, and that was Jimmy who I had met in the hostel the night before. I was sitting beside a guy called Brian who was from Galway, and some of the others on the bus were Sam (a girl from Kerry), Becky & Pete (from Somerset) and Phil (from Perth, not Australia, but Scotland). All of us introduced ourselves and it turned out that most people were from Europe, with a large contingent coming from Germany, while there was a sole Aussie in the larger and older form of a guy called Peter from Sydney.
The great thing about something like the Easy Rider tour – compared to the Greyhound – is that it stops off at places of interest along the way, instead of bombing it straight from A to B. Our first stop on this first day (about three hours drive from Perth) was at 'The Pinnacles Desert' in the Nambung National Park. The area is so-called because the erosion of land over the course of thousands of years has exposed thin limestone formations in the earth that resemble large stalagmites. It was quite interesting with the whole sandy area dotted with stone towers, the tallest of which has a height of 5m.
However, it wouldn't have been worth the trip if you were coming from a reasonable distance away, and definitely not from Perth, which Mum & Dad and myself had considered when we first got there. It would have been a disappointing trip and I was now grateful to their friends for advising us against it at the time. Despite this, it was a good opportunity to get chatting to some of the other guys on the bus. We walked through this area for about fifteen minutes before the skies opened up and the rain lashed down, forcing us to make a quick dash for the bus. Whether we ran or walked, we were going to get soaked, and we got back on the bus absolutely drenched but able to laugh it off.
We moved further on up the road, stopping at a supermarket to stock up on food and water. This was another aspect of life on the road in Australia that I would have to get used to: eating out, even at the cheapest of places, isn't conducive to the average backpackers budget, and the alternative is to cart around a bag of groceries and make your own food at each hostel. This was quite a shock having been used to eating out for the last six months in Asia, where it was cheaper to do so, and facilities to cook your own food rarely exist.
It wasn't the best day that I had seen since arriving in Australia, but we nonetheless drove to Dynamite Beach and had lunch overlooking the sea. The beach got its name due to the suspected activity of Japanese submarines in the area during the Second World War, and the reaction of the Aussies to protect this part of the coast was to blast these potential enemies out of the water.
The rest of the day was spent driving. We stopped in the seaside town of Geraldton to drop off an Italian guy and pick up a Chinese girl who had been working in a fish factory for a few weeks and was now making her way further up the coast. Our destination for this first night was in Kalbarri, and we arrived at the 'Kalbarri Backpackers' after dark, and it was a decent enough place where a dorm bed cost $26 per night.
We relaxed for a while and met some of the other guys who were going to join us on the ER bus the following morning, before we got back on the bus and headed for a special discount dinner at a restaurant called 'Finlays'. It seemed to have attained cult status, at least amongst the backpacer community, not surprising considering the feed that was put in front of us: for $10 per person, 'The Main Event' had two types of fried fish, mussles, calamari, prawns, chips, rice, unlimited salad and freshly baked bread. It was really tasty and it proved a worthy adversary when pitted against my appetite but there was always going to be one victor and my hunger won the day. The staff were also a great laugh, the type to make fun of the customers but still get away with it and they contributed to a really good atmosphere at the end of our first day together. We all left 'Finlays' with big smiles on our faces, everyone was start to get on really well.
We got back to the hostel at 22.00 and we hung about for a bit and got talking to a few of the other backpackers (more Germans!). I went to bed at about 23.00 as we had to be on the road by 07.00 the next day, which meant a start not too long after 06.00. It had been a good day and a nice start to the trip, with any concerns that I had being largely allayed.... it was going to be a lot of fun!
