Driving any distance in the UK is nasty. Heavy traffic, constant roadworks, bad weather, idiots hogging the middle lane. It’s a pain and I hate having to do it. Despite that I opted for the 10 hour drive to my next hotel instead of the 3 hour route I could’ve taken. Australia must surely be better.
It worked out well. Three minutes into my car the satnav told me to keep going on that road for another 99km. It wasn’t a straight road, just 12km later there was a gentle curve to the left, and half a dozen others in the next 30km or so. That pattern remained all day, after that road took me into a tiny town I had to stay on the road out of that town for 69km, the next road 60km, a couple of stretches in the 40s. Cruise control on at 100km/h and watch the landscape pass by.
The landscape was flat. Nothing happening, just red dirt, scrubby trees. The early arable fields rapidly transitioned to grazing which then stopped being farmland at all. Two hours into the journey the tarmac ended and the road turned to gravel, loose stone over a dusty unpaved base. Cattle grids delineated property boundaries, the road crossing private lands, signs demanding people stay on the road.
By then I’d seen a flock of parrots, grey wings and red bodies. If three is a flock? They flew off as I stopped, preventing me taking a photograph. More flocks, 15 parrots in one of them, all shy, fleeing before I could photograph.
Eventually on a dirt road two parrots flew away from the car, I didn’t bother to stop. They landed again on the road behind me so I did stop, took out my camera, took a long distance photograph. It’s clearly a parrot, just a grainy fuzzy one.
Not long after that success I ran over a lizard. I stopped, reversed right back up to it, got out and found out that my gentle swerve had done the trick and it had passed unharmed between my wheels. It was sunbathing in the middle of the road and took little interest in me. I took photographs of it then was watched amiably as I walked around it to take some more. A couple of kilometres further another one, also black, squat, around 18 inches long, stubby tail and no care that a car was passing.
I’d stopped after 100km because I saw a fuel station. I only needed 6 litres to fill the car but knew I was on dodgy ground to reach my eventual destination on a single tank. While stopped for fuel I noticed the sky a curious orange colour, wondered if it was normal. A local nudged his friend, pointed up at it, held up his phone and took a photo. I’m guessing it wasn’t normal.
It turned out to be nothing of note, after a brief splatter of rain the sky before me was blue once more, the clouds fading and disappearing entirely.
I’d researched a fuel stop midway but when I did reach that town I could see just one house, one all-purpose store, nothing else in sight. Certainly no fuel station.
To get there I’d crossed the edge of a nature reserve. It was dull, a red verge with low thick trees, no wildlife in sight unless you count magpies. I skipped that nature reserve, went through the hamlet and quickly reached the second nature reserve of the day. Just a short distance in a parking area so I stopped the car, got out, got lost. Nobody in 30 miles, couldn’t see the car, no tracks, no road, no signs. I stopped to take photographs.
I decided it might be sensible to find the car so I used the bearing I’d taken on the sun, ended up exactly back at the car. Getting back in it was still only noon, being on the road before 8am giving me plenty of time to take the scenic route through the reserve.
That entire route was unpaved but safe to drive at speed. That did inhibit animal spotting, but eventually I saw some dark shapes bouncing away from the road through the trees. They were goats, something I’d see a lot of today.
The trees thinned out, a semi-arid landscape of red clay, scattered trees and occasional tufts of green on the ground. I saw more dark shapes, realised they weren’t goats, stopped the car in excitement.
They were kangaroos, or wallabies, and for the first time all trip they were alive too. This meant that they could easily flee and they did exactly that, disappearing away into the distance before I could change my camera lens. I got out of the car anyway, hopefully searching for a shot.
A 4×4 truck drove past, the lady driver smiling and waving at me as my hat blew off. The red dust proved hard to shift. She was the last person I saw for the next 150km or so, 120 of that on unpaved roads. I didn’t see any houses or cars, even parked up.
The gravel roads had given way in the nature reserve to compressed clay, the weight of vehicles forcing it into a fairly flat surface, firm enough in the sun to offer good footing for the car and nice traction. Not much further on I found more kangaroos, unless they were wallabies. Marsupials, deer like faces and ears, curious, cautious. They hopped away but I finally had photographs. A few kilometres later some more, more photographs.
I had to use my proper camera, my mobile struggled with the distance. For instance, there are (at least) two kangaroos in this shot:
I saw a red kangaroo, immediately obvious, not just its fur colour but its size and shape easily distinguished from its smaller cousins. It crossed the road ahead of me, paused as my car approached then hopped off into the trees by the road, out of sight as I drew level.
More hoppy creatures, more wild goats, more lizards. A big one that ran from me as I stopped the car, disappeared behind a tree, started climbing it. I now have pictures of a four foot lizard up a tree. A smaller one sunbathing until I stopped, quickly into some grass and crouched down, pretending I couldn’t see it. I pretended I couldn’t either but my camera could.
The goats are very cute but surprisingly scared of my car. Even as it approached they’d flee away from the road, little goaty bottoms bouncing in the air.
I’m staying tonight in a town called Cobar. It’s a tiny place, smaller population than my village, built to support the mines. There are mines everywhere, vertical shafts, open cast and the big one, open cast with a tunnel heading horizontally at the bottom, large enough for supersized mine trucks to enter before they re-emerge, loaded with copper or gold. Maybe both. I found a road up a hill, entered what appeared to be the mine’s property, at the top a viewing platform that let me look down into the pit, the whole hill dug out and the laden trucks taking several minutes to drive up from the bottom. I have photographs.
I stopped for coffee in the Memorial Services Club. They’re a membership club but let me in anyway, charged me too much for what tasted like instant coffee. I decided not to start a fight over it.
Even the hotel has a mine shaft in the car park, fenced off with a grill over the top, a sign declaring it historical shaft #224.
It’s only 3m deep though, an exploration shaft from the 19th century, abandoned because of water. Isn’t that called a well?
For dinner tonight I took a walk down the street to a different hotel, ate at their restaurant. I had a definitely Australian dish, its European roots apparent but its name native to this continent.
A Parmi is the Australian version of the Italian equivalent of Hunter’s Chicken, a thin layer of ham instead of bacon, the chicken cooked in breadcrumbs and called a schnitzel, a thick layer of crispy chips underneath. It was rather good.
Sat in the car for much of the day only 4km was walked. Today’s drive didn’t however take 14 hours.
I think Google expects me to do 20km/h on the unpaved roads, but I averaged around 80. The only one with a speed limit sign said 110 so I was really going quite slow.
Tonight’s hotel isn’t great. I checked before booking, it did offer ‘free wifi’ except there’s no signal, my room too far from the router and nowhere sensible to sit in between. (Since typing that the fluctuating signal has strengthened enough that I’m now online. Hurrah! Albeit with the bandwidth of a 1994 era modem.) The room is basic, the bed too soft but the people running the place friendly, sarcastic, nice enough to leave a jug of water in the room’s fridge.
All of the Australians I’ve spoken to have been friendly, happy to chat, keen to help when needed. This isn’t the reputation they come with, other travellers reporting taciturn grumpiness. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
(Due to distrust in the Internet link I’m posting this now, early evening. No internet access tomorrow, will post updates on Tuesday)