Western Australia 2001

Driving across the nullarbor- 4000km's from sydney to perth

Day 1
trip of a lifetime. crossing the aussie continent from east to west. heck of a long drive, helluva lotta black ribbon to cover. started out from a quiet sydney suburb at two in the morning, car piled up with enough stuff to last world war III. gotta cover 1000+ kilometres from sydney, new south wales, to renmark, south australia, in the first day, will probably take twelve, thirteen hours, including petrol-refill breaks. took hume highway/highway 31 outta the city, nosing south then turned west onto stuart highway. this is the riverina, heart of farm country, land of the good ol' bush pub where you can get a good meal with friendly locals at prices that won't burn a massive hole in your wallet.
dark in renmark, south australia, on the banks of the murray river. town has changed in two years. new houses where there was once farming land. new vineyards and boutique wineries had sprouted up in the chase of the big grape dollar. aussie wines have taken over the californian stuff in the middle-market wine industry in europe now, little wonder that any farm with a spare bit o' land is sticking a few vines in the dirt and hoping to come up with a golden drop. the murray's still the same- slow and brown. sat in a beach chair and dangled a line in the water, watching a coupla kids swing off a rope hanging off a tree into the river. sun sets over the water and turns it gold like the sunsilk shampoo commercial. this is life, mate.

Day 2
3:00am. sun's not up yet, but we were. hurriedly piled everything back into the car- getting really good at packing and unpacking super-quick. hit the road again. crossed the murray at the bridge. high beams on, worried about insomiac kangaroos who share our sleeping habits. mini light on at the back, trying to follow on the map the route the car is taking. highway numbers all blending together. route turns from west to north west, heading from renmark to burra. sun rises- turns blacks and greys into yellows and greens. vast distances on either side of the road, grasses with more shapes and colours than could be made up by an artist's imagination. the 'roos are up now, out in force to feed and do whatever their daily routine dictates. some neared the road, stared at the car, their looks made us feel like aliens in their world. continued north west, up to crystal brook. small town, no brook to be seen. north to port augusta, gateway to the outback and the last major town we'll see for a while. a large green road sign tells us that the highway splits here. west towards perth, western australia, or north to alice springs, northern territory. we turned west. the eyre highway starts at this point. traffic thins out to a bare minimal. the traffic light-regulated streets of port ausgusta gives way to isolated highway. dense bush replaces suburban houses and the road shoulder once again becomes brown dirt. heading south west towards iron knob, birthplace of the aussie steel industry. the earth is martian-red here, a reminder of both the colour of the outback and the metal that drove people out here in their thousands, digging up the ground and mining out the precious ore to be sent to the cities and made into steel. heading south west. the road takes us to kimba then poochera then ceduna, past penong with its windmills till we reached our stop for the night at the nullarbor roadhouse, rising up out of the flat plain like a secret military base in an american movie. nothing but a petrol station-cum-motel, really. prices for everything is exorbitant here- $1.10/litre for petrol. guess the cost of truckin' stuff out here is high. motel rooms are decent, plenty of room for campers and caravaners. plenty of road trains (trucks with >2 semitrailers joined together) coming in to fill up their tanks. out of bread. went into the roadhouse store and had a brief chat with the woman at the counter. friendly lady, asked where i came from. sydney, i said, long way. admired and wondered if she was crazy to work out here, truly in the middle of nowhere, nearest neighbour at border village (at the south australia/western australia border) about 200 kilometres to the west. schools out here are called 'school of the air', covers areas hundreds of kilometres wide. medical services too, available only through the flying doctors, whose light planes use the eyre highway as a landing strip, as the warning signs spaced regularly along the road tells us. human contact? plenty of colourful characters, actually. out here, you meet aussies (and foreigners too) from all walks of life, all out here because they all wanted to see The Real Australia, stuff as different from the usual harbour-bridge-opera-house combo as you can get, stuff that's more likely to appear in an issue of the australian geographic than in a brochure trying to cajole overseas tourists to come visit this country. nighttime on the nullarbor. ventured outside, crossed the road to the other side. this is the nullarbor plain, not a desert, but a gi-normous chunk of limestone a couple of billion years old and running hundreds of kilometres in all directions, ending in a vertical drop at greaat australian bight facing the southern ocean. no trees here- hence the name "nullus arbor". just prickly grey-green low-lying shrubs and grasses growing on a bed of hard rock bed and crumbly white limestone pieces. one piece went into a pocket. sky is the purest of blacks here, the grey rug of smog that is a regular sydney astronomical feature pleasantly absent. astronomy has never been simpler- the stars in their formations are actually obviously visible. used to think that those old-time star-watchers who could see all those shapes in the sky are heavily stoned, but don't doubt them anymore. silence, too. the number of road trains rumbling past on the highway being inversely proportional to the lateness of the hour. not a single sound, no human voices, no traffic noises, not even the ruffle of leaves. isolation just took on a whole new meaning.

Day 3
up early again, well before 6:00am to wait for the sunrise. which didn't happen until a little bit past 7:00. and this was in summer, too. remembered suddenly then that the nullarbor roadhouse lies at the far-western edge of the time zone. a few hundred klicks down the highway, at border village, it's the central western time zone- 2hrs and 15mins behind south australia and 2hrs and 45mins behind sydney.
quirky road signs start to appear here- bright yellow reflective squares printed with the black silhouttes of a koala, a camel and an emu- wild animals sometimes wandered onto the highway. but the only such creature i saw was a dingo, running along at the edge of the road.
the first sightseeing in three days. turned off the main highway onto signposted lookout points at the great australian bight. not your usual touristy lookouts with nice bitumen carpark and boardwalk-plus railings but just a crumbly dirt track leading to the cliff face. lookouts #1 and #4 aren't so hot, but #2 and #3 spectacular. flat, unbroken earth one minute, a hundred-metre-drop of a cliff to the raging ocean the next. gives an edge-of-the-earth feel to the whole scene, all the more exhilarating because there was not a single human, other than our group, to be seen nearby. legs a bit shaky, wandered close to the edge for a look down. wave wild and angry, pounding at the base of the rock like a drunk raging to be let back inside the house. camera out, took a few pictures of the cliffs of the great australian bight, with its layers of white-cream-brown like a giant cappunccino.
on the road again. "border village"- nice new roadhouse opened only in 2000, guarded by a two-storey tall fibreglass kangaroo "Rooey II" holding an american-brand-name free can of soft drink, Rooey I having been dismissed from office since the powers-that-be felt that he sent the wrong message to trans-continental motorists with the can of beer (?VB) in his paw. plaque with the western australian tourist bureau logo welcomes us. we're there! border quarantine. huge multi-lane structure reminiscent of the US-Mexico border seen in movies, but manned by nice friendly officials working for the WA dept of quarantine or agriculture, dunno which. frantically checked car for remnants of fresh fruit/vegetables/plant material. good day, on our way.
1st stop in WA, eucla- the usual roadhouse/motel/petrol station combo. drove behind motel and followed sign down 1km dirt track covered with limestone chunks the size of golf balls and wondered about rattling noises at the back of the car. headed for the dunes to see the famous eucla telegraph station now buried by sand. not a soul to be seen anywhere. not a shack, not even a power pole. place looked unchanged since the jurassic era. flat plain with prickly green stuff ending at a border of dunes, then an impossibly blue ocean. then, there, a lone rotting wooden jetty jutting out into the water like a demented finger. a relic of the first european settlement here, perhaps? suddenly a white shiny new cop car appears out of the haze. (?!?) a family of emus crossed our path, oblivious to our presence. parked the car in a sandy/rocky clearing. climbed dunes towards the single large tree inhabited by a hundred squawking pink galahs. found telegraph building without any trouble. lucky today. often it's covered in sand up to its crumbling chimney. trying to squeeze into rooms, climb over sand piles and over walls. place looks surrealistic now- walls collapsed, roof gone. hard to imagine it once held workers and equpiment that helped give the only link between the people of western australia and the outside world (aka the east coast). climbed a tall dune with a nicely peaked summit. one step forward, two steps back. finally reached the summit and felt as if mount everest had just been scaled.
on the road again. west past madura, cocklebiddy, caiguna. "ninety-mile-straight" start at caiguna- 149.9km's of unbroken straight road without a single turn or deviation. longest straight road in australia. (probably the world?) straight road ends at balladonia.. set watches back another 45mins. time zone border actually at a roadside rest stop somewhere along ninety-mile-straight, but who could be bothered stopping at that particular longitude and changing the time?
eyre highway ends abruptly at a T-junction in norseman. turn right to head north towards coolgardie/koolgarlie and the goldfields region, turn left for esperance and western australia's south coast. norseman is the rest stop for the night. once a busy gold mining town, norseman is now like all other ex-mining towns in the region. a sad little place trying to relive its golden era by building memorial parks and museums that few visited. the roads are wide, a reminder of the wealth the town once had, are now lined only by early model rustbuckets instead of carriages holding a precious cargo. a single general store serves the town's supermarket needs. a few limp bunches of grapes and bruised apples sat on the fruit/vegetables rack, their prices way out of proportion to their quality. across the road from the store, a "family fashion" shop displayed in its dust-browned windows clothing fashionable a few decades ago, as if it too was trying to recapture a more glorious past. the locals, with their friendly enthusiasm, tried to lure the big tourist dollar passing them by on the eyre highway, diverted by western australia's south coast holiday playground in towns like esperance.

Day 4
Drove out of town and turned right/north towards coolgardie on the coolgardie-esperance highway. past kambalda with its sheets of white salt lakes and coolgardie, an ex-mining town with wide streets and not faring much better in attracting visitors than its sister town to the south. highway turns west to become the great eastern highway. heading further west past southern cross then merredin. at merredin turned south, winding through a myriad of country lanes towards hyden, home to the famous wave rock. worried about getting lost with the lack of road signs and wondered about grey storm clous gatering rapidly overhead, but still couldn't help taking a sec to admire fieldfuls of bronze-brown ripening wheat. "rocks n' crops"- wheat and minerals, lifeblood of western australia's industry. huge grain silos emblazoned with wesfarmer's logo spiked the landscape- farms, too, have now globalized, no longer the mum-and-dad enterprises that they once were.
eventually found hyden and its famous attraction made of granite eorded into the shape of a two-storey-tall wave curling over the ground, looking as if it's about to crash onto onlookers below. burnt up a few kb's on the digital camera and half a dozen squares of film. climbed the wave rock. what a view. rain started. dashed back to accomodation at the wave rock resort, under the shadow of its namesake. mozzies are bad here, hovering around the screen door as if they knew that a hearty meal is just beyond the barrier. made a mad dash out the door to the tourist store for insect repellant. waited for rain to stop, hoping for another view at the rock (guests of wave rock resort/caravan park get unlimited free access to the rock. everyone else pay $9.00 per vehicle). but kept pouring. sat in front of TV and watched "gardening australia" on ABC- induced sleep. hit the pillow at 7:00pm.

Day 5
left hyden and kept going west past corrigin and brookton. rejoined the main highway, heading towards perth. detoured slightly north to swan valley for brief wine tour. WA has a few good whites, white burgundies, mostly from margaret river in the south-western corner of australia but those wineries have opened up branches closer to the city. perth. WA's capital. smallish city, home to about a million people. navigated using maps downladed off the internet, found hotel without any trouble. checked in and dumped luggage. went out and toured city. plenty of water views in perth, courtesy of the swan river which runs straight through town. pleasant, open, green and sunny. the chinatown leaves something to be desired, though. and a strange phenomenon at the railway station... seems like anyone with a desire to cheat can just walk right down to the platforms without purchasing a ticket. there's no ticket barriers, no uniformed guards waiting to give you hell just because you walked through the mothers-with-strollers entrances instead of the turnstiles. spent a relaxing evening at the hotel with some tolerably good takeout and a bottle of wine purchased that day.

Day 6
perth. visited the royal perth mint. watched gold being poured. tried to lift a one-foot-long gold bar- a real test of strength. lunch in king's park. picnicking families out in force on a sunny sunday afternoon. drove north out of the city in search of perth's famous emblem, the black swan, in lake mungo. took mitchell fwy out of the city, then took turnoff to the west onto grantham rd. lake mungo on right hand side. black swans gliding in the water. petted a fluffy swan chick. brief walk around lake before leaving. funny road sign along grantham rd... reflective yellow square with picture of tortoise. tortoise crossing?? images of major traffic holdups while the legendary slow-and-steady reptile make its way leisurely across the road flash into mind. westward to floreat beach. bad choice. nice wide beach, but the flies were unbelievable. arms actually ached from having to wave them around wildly to drive away the *#@! insects. figured out the reason: dogs allowed on beach. mentally cursed the stupidity of the council that will let dogs onto a beach. the indian ocean sunset, though, was worth it. back into the city in search of some night life.

Day 7
left city. monday morning traffic. plesantly surprised to find that it was actually not too bad. north along the great northern highway, becomes the north-west highway at geraldton, a major town with booming housing subdivisions and large shopping malls. wondered why there's such a large settlement so far north while the land between perth and geraldton remain virtually undeveloped.
land becomes more dry and arid north of geraldton. earth turns from a mild brown to outback-red. traffic once again disappeared, apart from roaring road trains that take up the whole road and which can only be overtaken by moving to the opposite side of the two-lane highway, against oncoming cars, if there's any (a rare phenomenon). north along the batavia coast, named after the ill-fated dutch ship that wrecked on these shores in the 1600's, well before the english even knew about the existence of australia. at the overlander roadhouse took the turnoff for shark bay world heriatge area. not another vehicle to be seen or heard anywhere in the near vicinity. another several hundred km's in, red clay flats with olive-green desert plants on either side. destination denham, the only town in shark bay. its isolation contrasting sharply with the number of nice motels available in town.

Day 8
followed the only main road in town to monkey mia, not a town but a resort with eco-tourism operators on the eastern shore of the shark bay penisula. watched as wild dolphins swam to shore. hand fed them with fish from a ranger's bucket. stayed in the water for a while, but too cold to swim. instead took a round on the bushwalking trail. other tourists have disappeared, those with kids gone to join wildlife cruises. their boats vanished from view. could almost imagine the place as it was when it was discovered by the dutch 400 years ago. the red earth is the sandwich filling between the blue layers of sea and sky. even the beach sand is coloured into a soft orange. large beautiful shells buried amongst the grains.

Day 9
packed up again. back on the road out of shark bay. made one stop at shell beach- an entire beach with no sand, just zillions of little white coquina shells. near the water the shells are loose. a handful went into a small jar. closer inland they've compacted into hard blocks which are mined up and used as building materials in denham. high salinity in the area make the shells breed like rabbits and fill up the beach. little wonder that salt accumulate here- the water is so clear and so still that a visitor who left yesterday's date and his name in the water using handfuls of shells piled into shapes of letters was still there, undisturbed after 24 hours. in the car again. another stop at hamelin pool, a quick look at the one of largest colonies of stromatolites in the world. brown shapeless lumps, the most primitive life form on earth, breathing little bubbles into the water, their appearance in contrast to the significance they have in allowing evolution of life on earth to start. sign next to the water called humans "a mere fingernail in the armspan of life". the percentage of geological time that humans have occupied not even 1%. put that way, seems like we're not much in the grand scheme of things. even the dinosaurs have been around for longer than we have.
back down south on the north-western highway towards kalbarri at the mouth of the murchison river. main attraction: murchison river gorge and associated water sports (yay!). turned off highway, took old (northern) route into town. early summer, end of wildflower season. roadside covered in clumps of pink and white and yellows and purples on a canvas of green. could imagine what it'd be like during springtime.

Day 10
out of bed early. hit the national park before it gets really hot. 1st stop, nature's window/the loop lookout point. drove past it once before finding dirt parking lot. hunted around for sign marking trail down to nature's window- rock eroded into a circle which bordered a view of the gorge/river below. found trail & started down. disturbed a family of feral goats. trail ends abrutly at another sign saying "nature's window" and pointing to lump of rock. couldn't see window anywhere. started gingerly along rocky ledge around lump of rock. found ourselves at back of window with 50m drop behind. crept back along ledge and found alternative access. whole party posed inside window for picture. the guys who run the national park had very kindly provided some kind of rock platform for the photographer to stand on- at this point the camera angle is just right to get the whole window plus your group inside it.
walked back up trail and found access to "the loop"- 4-6km trek down into the gorge and along the river. trail highly recommend all visitors to kalbarri to try at least part of its length. deep dark red rocky gorges not as spectacular as the grand canyon, but spots like rainbow overhang and three-ways gorge more beautiful in their own way. cooled down in murchison river.
stopped by Z-bend and hawk's head lookouts for quick look before leaving. the former is nice but the latter is disappointingly bland. very easy access new boardwalk link carpark to nice wide wooden platform reminiscent of tourist-packed three sisters' lookout in blue mountains, sydney, new south wales. safer than old lookout, maybe, but human intervention may have ruined the natural attraction of the scene?

Day 10
Did kalbarri's coastal gorges. lots of rock formations with names like mushroom rock, shellhouse, etc. personally could not see resemblance between structure and their name. would rather name mushroom rock "coffee-table rock" instead. but then to each their own. new housing developments springing up along coastal trail, large catalogue homes sitting high on a hill commanding a one-hundred-eighty degree view of the indian ocean. kalbarri is western australia's fastest growing short-break destination, equivalent of places like port macquarie and the south coast towns of new south wales. nice town, spectacular national park, great seafood. kalbarri was and still is a town famous for its crayfishing fleet. fleet had just left the docks for a coupla days of nabbing the red crustaceans up and down the western australian coast. their catch usually goes to geraldton a bit further south for processing.

Day 11
On the highway again. out of kalbarri and down south again, this time to cervantes, small fishing town between jurien and lancelin, which is famous for its massive "superbowl" sand dunes and their associated sports like sandboarding. sounds like fun but don't have time to participate. cervantes was named after an american not spanish boat. it's claim to fame is the famous pinnacles desert heavily featured in qantas's "i still call australia home" ad campaign. found accomodation in town- a two-storey beach house that used to be the family home of a very nice retired couple. nicest place we've stayed in during this trip so far. little pots of pot-purri and lavender everywhere, stitched artworks on the walls. very pleasant. cosy and homey. grabbed map and nosed our way to nambung national park, home to the pinnacles desert. wind started to pick up the closer we got to the park. paid usual vehicle entrance fee of $9. pulled through entrance way guarded by two eight-feet-high "pinnacles"- pillars of limestone that used to be part of a large sheet underground buried beneath the sand. was eroded into long columns by rain and other elements and exposed when the overlying sand got blown away. now the whole area several kilometres wide is dotted with these weird structures. some of them are metres tall and as wide as tree trunks, some of them as thin and fragile as twigs with only several centimetres poking out of the ground. could hear them being crunched under the car tires as we looped around the three-kilometre circuit. loop is one-way only, but plenty of "parking" (wider areas where you can pull to one side), so holding up the traffic wasn't a problem. got out a few times to burn up some film/megabytes with pics of this weird-and-wonderful landscape, which can look anything like a cemetery (if you're in a morbid mood), the ruins of an ancient city (for the romantics) or the surface of some extraterrestrial planet (the scientists). the columns of the pinnacles surround a patch of red-white-yellow coloured desert like a moat around a castle. wind is now practically a gale. sand flew in all directions including into mouth. leapt back into car before stomach turns into gizzard filled with grit. returned to accomodation and changed into long sleeves/jeans before venturing back to park for another look.

Day 12
Continued to head southwards. back through perth into the great south west. all those cars and concrete motorways seems strange after a weekful of nothing but wide open wilderness and untainted nature. and this is only perth. sydney would be a hundred times worse. the thought of trying to navigate our hometown's endless one-way streets and traffic chaos and battling with hurried, abusive drivers sent dread through mind.
highway splits at bunbury. south west towards brusselton and margaret river, south-east towards pemberton. headed south east and hit donnybrook. nice town, large fruit market. donnybrook is home to the "big apple". wanted to add pic of big apple to collection of pics including the big banana (coffs harbour, new south wales), big pineapple (sunshine coast, queensland), big merino (goulburn, new south wales), big rocking horse (gumeracha, south aust.), big lobster (kingston se, south aust.), big oyster (new south wales). found sign on highway. turned into country lane, crossed wobbly wooden bridge lined with red witches hat cones and up a hill. continued on lane for several kilometres without seeing any hint of the oversized fruit monument. turned back. inquired at fruit market and found that we were headed in right direction before. returned to lane and tried again. finally discovered that the big apple is inside the grounds of a children's petting zoo/caravan park. admission fees was out of proportion to the attractions it offered, even if one happened to have small kids along (which we didn't). seems like everybody else had the same idea- because park/zoo was devoid of other visitors. compared the establishment to its counterparts like the big pineapple in queensland, where admission is free and earnings for the place poured in through its gift shop/fruit market/restaurant, and wondered about the commercial competency of the big apple's operators. don't look like these guys are even making a normal profit. even the big apple looked bruised from a distance.
arid north becomes a moist temperate south. prickly green underbrush no taller than a person disappeared and tall, ancient hardwoods took their place. forests of australian redwoods like karri and jarrah fringed the highway, covered with looping vines and massive burrs and their canopy is a filter for sunlight, turning rays into little dots that danced in a kaleidoscope pattern as the car winds its way down towards pemberton. the temperature drops from forty degrees celcius to a comfortable twenty-something before settling in the chilly teens. in the space of one day we've left a dry wind-blown desert and landed in a forest as green as any you'd find in tropical north queensland. highway snakes through area filled with towns with names all ending with "-up", meaning "place" in the local aboriginal language. sounds funny when translated into english, though. a little village called "geegeelup" poked a laugh.
pemberton is the stopover for the night. wished there was more time to enjoy this quiet, beautiful town that's home to many of western australia's notable wineries like salitage and gloucester ridge

Day 13
spent the morning touring pemberton with its quaint, classy little antique stores and craft shops selling stuff like fine carved wood products. dropped by gloucester national park with its famous resident the gloucester tree. the tallest fire lookout tree in the world. a hundred-plus metal rungs hammered into the trunk spiral up sixty-something metres to a platform amongst the leaves. climb at your own risk. started up and conquered about two dozen rungs before one look down turned stomach inside-out and had to give up. watched other tourists attempt the same feat and satisfied to see that they didn't do any better.
east towards walpole. turned left into hilltop drive just a few kilometres past town. looped up narrow one-way track to see the giant tingle tree- a giant of a thing whose hollow is big enough to park a 1960's ford. cars aren't allowed inside the tree anymore, 'cos ppl driving in and out of the area around the base of the tree compacted the soil and almost killed the tree off.
valley of the giants-tree-top walk- past walpole before denmark. an eco-tourism gig where a metal suspension walkway takes visitors over the tree tops in a dense karri forest. unique design inspired by the petals of the tassel flower. a half-dozen support poles at the end of each segment of walkway are the only man-made structures to contact the forest floor. minimal impact on environment won it a design award. tasmania's airwalk was modeled on it. last time i heard south aust. wa going to build a similar one too. spectacular view over forest. walkway is a bit woblly in the middle of the segments- the round platforms resting on the support poles are the steadiest. for those with a pathological fear of heights the valley of the giants walk goes through the forest floor and offers a view of the feet of the trees instead of their leaves.
stayed in denmark for the night.

Day 14
off again. stopped by albany for lunch and stopped by the natural bridge and the gap. then hit the road for esperance- our last stop in wa! large town. named after a french boat L'Esperance, loosely translated to mean "hope with faith and confidence in the future". pretty. niceseaside resort town with half a dozen national parks in its vicinity, including cape le grand, which has the whitest beaches in australia (maybe the world).

Day 15
cape le grand national park. stunning scenary. headed to lucky bay. sand as white as liquid paper and as fine as flour. feels like flour, too. can be moulded quite nicely when wet. beach partly closed off by an archipelago of little isles dotting the coastline. not a soul to be seen anywhere. paradise.
in the afternoon stopped by one of esperance's quirkier souvenier stores. place sells "leather goods" made of fish skin. regular fish, not shark. the skins feels as tough as any leather but only the surface is a bit flaky where the fish scales had attached. cute and interesting, but didn't look particularly inviting. wondered about the long-term financial viability of such a business. perhaps owner should sell fish and chips as well as a side venture.

Day 16
left esperance super-early and hit the road. up north to norseman, then re-joined the eyre highway, heading into nullarbor country. back along now-familiar sights. the plain is still the same- vast and flat and seemingly featureless, having an air of mystery and timelessness. along the coast in the day-to-day world things can happen that will change everybody's lives forever, but the plain would still be there, unaltered for eons past and those to come. something constant, as indifferent as nature itself.
nighttime finds us in nullarbor roadhouse again. would've gotten there earlier if wasn't held up by the biggest road trains seen so far carrying a large boat that's as wide as the whole highway. overtaking would involve driving onto the opposite shoulder- a task made more dangerous and difficult by pouring rain and a total lack of visibility of the road ahead (obscured by the #*@! boat and the rain). opportunity finally came after an hour or two of crawling along the eyre at 60km/hr.

Day 17
up at an ungodly hour again, continued eastward towards renmark. detoured through the clare valley/barossa in south aust. for a visit to a couple of wineries. penfolds, orlando, wolf blass.

Day 18
renmark to sydney. on the way made another detour to young, cherry capital. the little fruit was in season. picked a truckload in our fruit-deprived craze. rejoined the hume highway, heading steadily north-east until signs of civilization start to appear at the extreme outskirts of sydney. a large sign hanging off an overhead bridge welcomed us home. street lamps start to appear and suburban subdivisions became more and more dense as interstate highway becomes busy arterial road and 110km/hr speed limits are replaced by 70km/hr, then 60km/hr. traffic lights started to mar our high-speed progress. saturday night. carloads of fellow sydneysiders headed from the suburbs into the city for entertainment. cafes and restaurants in the inner city are in full swing. people everywhere. tall city commercial towers started to appear, then dominate the skyline. considering that only yesterday we were in the nullarbor where civilization was defined by a lone roadhouse, sydney appeared as if someone had taken the same scene and played a frantic simcity game with it. but it's still home. the traffic jams and the always-late-always-packed trains and buses and the abusive drivers and the little coffee place next door. the densely developed but still spectacular harbour. a city of a million italian-greek-thai-chinese-japanese-balkan-spanish-french-korean restaurants. australia, sophisticated face, simple heart. wouldn't give it up for anything.

Acknowledgements... and links
Without these guys mentioned below this trip would be one hell of a disaster. they're the ones who provided us with information on accomodation so we don't have to sleep in the car at night, with maps so we wouldn't spend the whole time getting hopelessly lost in their huge state, and with tourist info brochures so we actually had something to do once we got there...:
1) the western australia tourism commission (www.westernaustralia.net): very nicely presented site with downloadable .pdf brochures on all regions of western australia including the Goldfields, Heartlands, Perth, Peel, Midwest, Gascoyne, Pilbara, Kimberleys, Southwest and great Southern. personalized travel folder helps make planning easier. also email addresses for all tourist information bureaux in wa- contact them for further information on the area
2) the western australia department of conservation and land management- CALM (www.calm.wa.gov.au): heaps of tips about western australia's national parks, about what to/not-to do, how to get there (including simple maps), costs of entry, holiday park passes etc.
3) fairfax's walkabout website (www.walkabout.fairfax.com.au): made by the same guys who publishes the sydney morning herald and the australian, this website is chockers full of information on 1000+ australian towns, including little details that makes a it very interesting read. also quirky stuff like "aussie big things".
4) aussie website travelmate (www.travelmate.com.au): great site with lots of little stories from ppl who's been there, done that and who very kindly put up tips about their travels so you can share their great experiences/avoid their not-so-great ones. also a "map-maker" so you can draw your own map between any two points in australia and calculate driving distances/times (like us/canada's mapquest but is the only one available for australia).
5) wilkin's tourist maps (www.wilmap.com.au): site with downloadable .pdf maps and interactive mapping where you can zoom in/out/re-centre etc. makes planning a road trip a heck of a lot easier.
6) the western australia department of land management- DOLA (www.dola.wa.gov.au): lots of downloadable .pdf maps of towns of various regions in western australia
7) national roads and motorists association- NRMA (www.nrma.com.au): has a very nice, searchable and zoomable .pdf map of all of australia, a strip map of the eyre highway and detailed information on towns/attractions along its length. also tips on outback driving.
8) explore australia (www.exploreaustralia.com.au): published by penguin australia. details on how to get there, where to stay, what to do in every part of australia. interactive mapping available also.
9) western australi accomodationa nd tours listing (www.staywa.net.au): helpful site dividing accomodation into regaions and areas, and further into catagories including hotels, self-contained, bed-and-breakfasts, budget/backpackers, caravan parks etc.
10) all those individual tourist information centres in the towns we dropped by:
     hyden/wave rock (www.waverocktravel.com.au)
     shark bay/monkey mia (www.monkeymia.com.au)
     kalbarri (www.kalbarriwa.info)
     pemberton (www.pembertontourist.com.au)
     valley of the giants (www.valleyofthegiants.com.au)

11) list of tourist information centres in wa (www.staywa.net.au/tic/tic_index.html)

and some other useful sites...
* andimaps (www.andimaps.com.au): maps of southern wa including denmark, albany, dunsborough, margaret river
* regional wa (www.regionalwa.com.au): new site with links to other useful sites on wa.

and for 2002 year of the outback...: site provided by the aussie government (www.outback2002.com), with links to sites produced by the individual states (www.outbackwa.info)