ROAD TRIP!!

The Grey Box

Well, after a sound night's sleep in my grey box (all electricals fully charged and food kept in the fridge, ice in the ice-box overnight), I was raring to go on the remaining 750km of my overland trek to Karijini National Park. I set off at about 7.30 and put my foot down and turned the volume up on a bright, clear morning. With the tunes pumping, the open road ahead of me and not a car in sight, it was hard not smile. I had the windows down, fist pumping in time to the music cackling with glee, whooping and hollering my delight for the bush to hear.

I was staggered once again by the sheer emptiness of the countryside - no dwellings, no signs of human impact except the interminable hard-top, stretching mesmerically into the distance. Several times, the arrow-straightness of the road ahead and the concomitant visible distance took my breath away. Around me the muted, natural shades of the bush, above me a gazillion square kilometres of clear blue skies, punctuated only by the bright orb of the sun, slowly climbing from the north-east towards due north. (This took a lot of getting used to, believe me…the sun has always been a southerly thing in my mind!)

As the morning lengthened, I began to come across the occasional vehicle - mostly travelling in the opposite direction. The sparsity was more than made up for by the sheer size of the infamous Australian Road Trains - think 40-tonne truck…but with four trailers instead of the usual one. The air-turbulence as each one passed was like being tackled by shoulder-checked by an NFL linebacker and the Orange Trance Bubble (OTB from now on) swerved and ducked under the blows. She's a feisty little bugger though and soon recovered to continue on her way. Most of the traffic consisted of these lengthy leviathans or, increasingly as I headed north, of 'Oversized' low loaders carrying mining vehicles, equipment or mobile buildings. From the road-use alone, one became very aware of the importance of mining to the Western Australian economy.

 I stopped at every available petrol station (there were precisely 3 on the entire journey!) in order to avoid the reserve-tank roulette of the previous day. Sometimes I only added 10 litres and, as time went on, I became aware that the OTB was producing a very frugal return on my input. The more I thought about it, the more I realised what a maligned and misunderstood car the Nissan Micra really is. Obviously, it's never going to set the world alight with performance or looks! It's obviously not practical for families, load-lugging or towing a trailer / caravan. However, it is comfortable (even for a chap of the slightly larger persuasion), has a pretty decent sound-system and runs very economically over long distances. Clarkson's only complaint might be that the road-noise is particularly overbearing…but I would have to point out that he was at fault if he made such a statement because this minor irritation can be easily overcome by playing some trance music at aggressively loud volumes…which, killing two birds with one stone, also puts a fat grin on your face! ;-)

So, apart from the car and my fellow road-users, what else was there to pay attention to? Well, only the Great Australian Outback. While the selection of colours on the palette was mostly quite limited (variations of ochre/red, green, bleached straw and inescapable sky-blue), the many subtle combinations and slowly-unfolding landscape meant that there was never a dull moment along the way. As with my previous sojourn down the Exmouth peninsula, I believe the surroundings were a good deal more lush than should be expected at this time of year. The spinifex still displayed a verdancy far beyond its texture and level of moisture but was also in full flower for much of my journey with spindly, bleach-white stems wafting gently above the spiky mass of its leaves. The bush ran from dense, ground-level scrub, through acres of endless shoulder height shrubbery to vast orchards of miniature trees, mostly of the gum or cork variety. The trees became larger, sturdier and more recognisable as such when the route passed by/over water courses.

Of these, there were literally hundreds and, but for the very largest, almost all were bone-dry: red-sand highways, lined with thick bush and trees, bridged by viaducts of varying stature, all pointing to the fact that, in the wet season, these would be formidable obstacles. Just as regularly as the rivers (but not necessarily correlating with the bridges), were ubiquitous yellow warning signs stating 'Floodway', which I took to mean that great stretches of the road (National Route 1 - the Great Northwest Coastal Highway, no less!) would, at times, be driven through like the fords found on sleepy lanes in the British countryside.  In the Wet, it was plain to see, Australia was happy to cede the land to that most-implacable enemy: Mother Nature. I can't imagine travelling this way during the great deluges and steamy humidity of that dreaded season - the weather Gods of Oz had been exceptionally good to me so far and I was quite happy to stick with the wall-to-wall sunshine and clear skies. Occasional flashes of bright colour - only yellow or purple, as dictated by the preferences of the local species of pollinating insects - offset the muted surroundings: the bright blossom of a gum tree; a stray spray of violets on the verge; always few and far between.

Eating up the miles in the OTB, I slowly saw changes in the landscape as well as the vegetation. Piles of huge, iron-red rocks dotted the landscape, as if ploughed out of enormous fields that had long-since been left fallow. Soon these piles became enormous, lumpen mounds and, eventually, mountains - great rock-ramparted fortresses - rose out of the endless sea of greens and red earth. The timbre of the soil began to darken too: to a deep rust-red, indicating the iron-richness of the land…the source of all the mining activity noted earlier.

The sun began to drop inexorably towards the horizon and I spent my last 40 kilometres on the highway, driving into its pleasing warmth as I headed down Karijini Drive and into the heart of the Pilbarra region. I arrived at the Dales Gorge camping area at about 4.30pm, giving me enough time to register, pay and pitch up before dusk began to settle in earnest. I then carted my food and cookware over to the bench table beside the free barbecue and set about making dinner. Now, it would seem churlish to complain about the free barbecuing facilities when such things are unheard of in Blighty (I'm talking about gas-powered here, not just a brick-built stand with grills). However, if such facilities are provided and advertised as part of the camping facilities, the least they can do is work properly. My neighbours and I (a German father and his two sons) spent a long time staring at the lit barbecue, which was pumping out about as much heat as a 40 watt lightbulb for the first half-hour, waiting for our food to cook…but we did get there in the end. I made burgers with steak mince, chopped onions and seasoning, accompanied by vegetable skewers. The burgers were rare (i.e. uncooked in the middle) which is just the way I like them anyway and the vegetables were 'al dente' (i.e. uncooked in the middle), which is just the way I like them too! The key to being happy most of the time is, I believe, to be easily pleased. Now some might argue that I am not one to be easily pleased…but I like to choose my battles wisely. In this situation, my food was not going to become any better-cooked, any time soon…so I just enjoyed what I got! ;-)

It was pretty nippy by the time I'd finished washing up and packing away, so I decided to sit in the car for a bit and write my journal (pen and paper job this evening, to ensure the laptop battery lasted until my return to civilisation) and then went to bed in my clothes to begin with, knowing full-well that I'd be up at some point in the night to go to the loo and not really fancying it in my underwear in the chill air. At 2am, that particular mission accomplished, I stripped down and clambered inside my cotton liner and 4-season sleeping bag, which I was surprised to feel the urge to zip up. There was a pretty stiff breeze coming in under the fly-sheet and I was glad to have the warmth of Snugpak hollow-fibre technology - it had cost me an extra half kilo in pack weight and some considerable space in the rucksack…but it was well worth it tonight.