Broome & Beyond: not quite Karijini

Saturday 22nd July

I set off driving in the fog. It's thick enough that I occasionally need to use the windscreen wipers. Which is good, most of the squashed bugs are removed.

I turn south -- towards home, not going back to Broome. Just a few km on -- and the fog is gone. It's still a bank of cloud behind me but my road is now clear.

Ah! the old familiar sights ! Ah ! the old familiar... smells. There has been roadkill along this road. Including what smells like an entire truck-load of dead cattle.

On the bright side, I catch the smell of spinifex. At least, I believe that spinifex can have a sweet smell, and that's what I smell. Deb & I smelt it before, while walking -- definitely through spinifex -- to a geocache in Broome. We also smelt the wattles, which are flowering profusely.

Yes, I do like to drive with the car windows open :-)  Preferably open on the passenger side so that I'm not the one being blown away. Speaking of passengers...

On these long drives, I miss Deb. I miss her anyway... but... it would be nice to have a passenger to talk with. I mean a real passenger, not like the one today, who never replies sensibly, and who ducks out of sight whenever I turn to look... (Hmm. I think that line needs work.)

I stop for lunch at Sandfire Flats roadhouse. I wonder who invented the ham & egg & lettuce sandwich?

The roadhouse is very pleasant. There's shade and seats. And even a pond, surrounded by trees. Plus a "sculpture" area with ancient metal objects... I spend a few minutes examining the old kero fridge but still don't find the geocache :-(  Dratted rusty metal objects. I don't try very hard.

Remember that geocache that I failed to find on the way north? In a nowhere place on the edge of the desert but near a "confluence" (?) cache, set where a line of latitude crosses a line of longitude. This time I think, I may as well at least look for the confluence cache.

It's 300m through sparse scrub and spinifex. I put on long pants and shoes and socks... I'm warm enough, it's 30 degrees. (Yes, I remembered a hat. And sunscreen.) And I find that cache :-)

So I follow the GPS back -- and find the first, did-not-find cache ! Well worth the stop ! Not only is it a good break from driving -- my satisfaction cheers me up for the next few hundred km :-)

You know, I used to fear spinifex. That was in my youth, when I wore thongs and shorts. Now, as the proud owner of solid shoes and industrial-strength cotton long pants -- I laugh at spinifex. At this stuff, anyway, it's just ankle high with lots of sand in between.

Pardoo roadhouse. I make the decision: no fuel. This means that I will definitely not be heading down the Marble Bar road, it's right at my fuel limit. Instead, I will fill up at Port Hedland and take the Gt N Hwy via Karijini. With a vague plan to stay overnight at the Auski motel on the edge of Karijini.

Port Hedland. There's a garage, though the fuel is set out of sight behind a collection of buildings. I drive in -- and everyone else is pointing the other way. So I reverse out and drive in from the other side. Pull up next to a deisel pump -- which is out of order. The only other deisel seems to be blocked by a truck plus trailer which has been there since I arrived... I drive back to the highway.

I check the garmin gps. It claims to know of a garage in South Hedland. Good enough. I drive through the enormous highway interchange, following siigns to South Hedland. The gps beeps forlornly as I follow roads that have been built since its maps were drawn. And there -- well before South Hedland, highly visible just off the main road -- is a shiny new garage. The gps gives a final sad beep before I turn off its navigation.

This nice shiny garage is quiet. And cheap. And clean. And friendly. I fill up and enjoy the experience.

Fuel: 84 litres at 132.9 cheap :-)   $112

... for 685 km

(Some day I may use these figures to work out fuel efficiency...)

Back on the road, through the interchange, follow the highway towards Newman. 400km to Newman. i wish I knew how far it is to Karijini.

This road is full of a continuous stream of road trains. The map even warns of this -- and it's right. Four-trailer road trains every minute, in both directions.

Very soon there's a geocache -- which I stop for. It looks interesting... A cache on top of a pile of rocks, possibly piled by people. (Well, by people with powerful machines, anyway.) And on top -- is an Aussie flag. On top is also the cache.

I scramble up, it's perhaps five metres high. There is -- as promised by the cache hider -- a good view. I admire the view. And I find the cache, after a bit of searching. It's a "good" hide, visible if you stand in the right place and look in the right direction. That's not a sarcastic comment... Some caches are only visible after you shift a large pile of concealing rocks.

On and on. The country is flat, with large boulders scattered round. Iron country, if I'm not mistaken :-) I'm enjoying the drive but the sun is setting.

Actually, my original plan involved driving through sunset. I just wish I knew how long I will be driving after sunset.

At 5:40 I glance towards the sun, it's just crossing the horizon. I look at the gps, it says that the sun will set at 5:40. Amazing! Amazing twice: that the gps is so clever and that the land is so flat that the sun sets exactly on time.

There are less big trucks, less traffic, but still some. I see a road train ahead and adjust my speed to stay behind, just a shade above 90. As the sun sets I can see clearly, in the headlight beam, about half way to the road train. And I trust the road train to have cleared any obstacles from the bit where I can't clearly see. There's no way I'll try to overtake -- anything -- on this road in the dark.

While there's still twilight I pass a small mob of cattle. The bull is in the lead, facing the road. It looks as though he's timing his move to take his mob across the road. After seeing that, I drive extra carefully.

Finally, I reach the Auski roadhouse -- Auski Village -- at the edge of Karijini National Park. I can't see if I'm really on the road in, so I take it easy... and arrive safely. Sometime after 6pm.

I'm sure that I remember a small motel in the middle of nowhere. It's still the middle of nowhere but now it's a large roadhouse, a caravan park, chalets and more ordinary lodgings. I ask for the cheapest room with an en suite. The restaurant is open, last orders at 8:20. The room costs $150, I decide that dinner will be pot noodles. This time, the secret ingredient will be, a small tin of fish.

The woman in the roadhouse gives me a mud map and directions to my room. Clearly, she's never been there herself. No worries, I find it anyway.

The room is a clean, simple, standard room, one of four in a transportable cabin. Plenty of room inside and a verandah outside.

First, I make my pot noodles and, with a full kettle of boiling water, make a cup of tea. Then fetch my big mug from the truck and make a sensible sized cup of coffee. While all that's cooling, I shower. And wash my clothes.

I wash the running shorts and running shirt that I have worn for driving. For two warm days. With luck they will be dry by morning, ready to wear again. It's a comfortable combination for driving and for whatever needs to happen outside the truck, on a warm day. When heading for spinifex, I just pull on the long pants over the shorts. And if you didn't want to know that, you shouldn't be reading one of my blogs :-)

Now I've eaten dinner. Typed this blog post. Drunk my drinks. I'll try -- again -- to get to the internet through my hotspot. It works in the middle of nowhere -- but not in the evenings near a motel ! Then I'll drink some more. Make a rough plan for two more days driving -- to arrive home on Monday. And sleep.

This may be posted tonight. More likely, tomorrow.

Driven distances:

... I think I did somewhere close to 1,000 km yesterday.

... And 968 km today

The garmin gps -- which has an easy-to-use odometer function -- adds pseudo-random distances whenever it gets turned off. So I don't know actual distances at the end of each day. I should be able to work out actual distances from the gps tracks, when I get home. Actual distances will go in a printed journal. This online copy will not be updated.

====
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
====

"If it's green, it's biology; if it stinks, it's chemistry; if it has numbers, it's maths; if it doesn't work, it's technology" – Author unknown.

https://notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au/