Broome & Beyond: Capricorn roadhouse

Sunday 23rd July, almost 11am

But first... yesterday: I'm driving south from Port Hedland. Worried, sort of, that I will run out of daylight. The sun suddenly sets... and it's only four o'clock! Double-take... No, the sun has not set, it's gone behind a cloud. A cloud! For the past week or more, all the sun has done is to shine from a clear blue and cloudless sky :-) Don't worry, there are not many clouds. And today... none. Again.

And again, from yesterday: I drive past a truck bay. Several blokes have hopped out of their car to pee by the roadside. I am struck by a deep philosophical insight: It may be the enormous centre of the universe to you but it's small enough to be invisible to the driver in the passing car.

Today: Leaving the "village", into hills. Solid, rocky hills. There are patches where the hill rises at a 45 degree slope -- spotted with spinifex. Then there's a vertical wall of rock, squared-off lumps of rock. Like a wall made of rusty iron bricks. Spectacular!

There's a cache, off the main road at Tognoloni's Lookout. Worth a break as I warm up to a day of driving. (This is why I usually average just 60 or 70 kph over a day's driving.)

The lookout is packed with caravans. The cache is a short walk past the pergola at the official lookout. There are narrow foot tracks so I don't need to worry about spinifex. Found it! And the view is also worth the walk.

Back on the highway. There's been a fire through here. Within the last few montths, I guess. A large area with no spinifex nor grass, a carpet of black. Trees, though, are largely untouched.

There are minesites here and there, off to either side of the road. For most, all I see is the entry road. Once, I hear a sound which is even louder than the truck engine... A train? There is a rail line near the road, occasionally crossing it.

I have a cunning plan: make brief notes of what I see, just dot points for expanding later into this blog. So I do that. Now I'm typing inside a roadhouse, the list of dot points is outside in the truck.

I stop for a geocache in Cathedral Gorge, the gorge is worth a closer look. The cache seems to need a bit of rough driving or some cross-country walking. Or both. So I look briefly at the gorge and not at all for the cache.

Very close to Newman... There's an enormous ... hill? It's so bare that I wonder if it's spoil from a mine! Can't be, really, it's the biggest hill around. Mt Whaleback, perhaps?

Last (and only) time that I visited Newman, I arrived after dark. All I found was a miners camp masquerading as a motel. Early next morning, I left. This time it's daylight. I drive through town... at least I think I drive through town. There's no apparent centre to town, nowhere for a visitor to be tempted to stop. Various civic buildings are scattered round, with signs to others. Houses are placed so that noone in their right mind would walk to any of the civic buildings.

I keep going. On to the Capricorn roadhouse. Which is -- aha! -- just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. I'm here for an early lunch (or late brunch) but can't decide between fish or meat. So I have carbonara, with neither. Very nice, too. I'll probably get a drink and chocolate to go.

I failed the free-tea test. Poured cold water onto the teabag... Had to start again, this time using the tap with the sign, "hot water".

And now it's time to go. TV football has ended and it's back -- way back -- to Bewitched.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"Lawyers pay for their mistakes, doctors bury them, architects grow ivy on them. And consultants charge for them."

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