Weather-wise, Cocklebiddy was quiet and serene in the
morning. The rain had gone, leaving behind shrinking pools of water. We were
set for a longish ride today so we kept thing pretty early (at least by our
standards). Trouble was, now that we were running on Western Australian time,
our body clocks were up the put, still running on Eastern Standard Time. So we
woke up very early. Cocklebiddy has a sort of official/unofficial Cocklebiddy
Standard Time which was 45 minutes in front of Western Australian time. We had
had a quick strategy meeting the night before and decided that we would ignore
this time altogether and just set our watch as well as our sights on Perth
time. After all, that’s where we were going. Although I am a supporter of
daylight saving time, I could also see the point of Western Australia’s dairy
herds when they vetoed it a couple of years ago: too much time changing does
your head in and puts you off your milk.
We tanked diesel at 210 cents a litre, only 2.8 cents less
than our top-scorer to date, the Nullarbor Roadhouse. Then off up the road,
only to see the diesel prices at Caiguna flash by. Can’t quite remember, but
they were somewhat less than Cocklebiddy’s. Then onto the 90 mile straight (or
91.16 miles (146.71kms) according to Google Earth). The road advertised a rest
stop with toilets at about the point where our Cocklebiddy coffee had to be
moved on. But the toilets weren’t, which meant that we had to employ the Dutch
concept of wildplassen* along the
roadside. Now you would not believe, but when you are in the back of beyond,
the moment you stop to expose yourself in answer to nature’s call, the road
becomes busier than Melbourne’s Ring Road (allowing for some exaggeration for
dramatic effect). Well, we got the job done in fits and starts, thankful that
there was nobody wanting to exercise their outback courtesy to stop and ask us
if we were in trouble.
Balladonia was next, where we stopped for lunch. We were
served by a young lady with an almost impenetrable Scots accent. She served us
with some sausage rolls which were equally indigestible. Lesson learnt: “We should
have bought that bread back in Ceduna……”.
After Balladonia you enter the “World’s largest hardwood
forest”. As Tasmanians we have a particular view of hardwood forests: tall
stately trees with a beautiful understory in the dappled sunlight. This
“largest hardwood forest” was full of widely spaced trees which looked as if
they had collectively succumbed to dwarfism, giving a quite dismal effect to
the place. Not a decent sawlog amongst them and a probable carbon dioxide
uptake a tiny fraction of an equivalent area of Amazonian rainforest. But good
on them for having it anyway. We concluded charitably that “largest” referred
to area, an adjective which comes quite easily to Western Australia in its role
as Australia’s Texas. Hmmm, come to think of it, the Amazon is full of
hardwood, too. Oh well, Texas, remember?
Normanton hove into view: time to stock up on fuel and
groceries. To stay here or to push on? First we had a debate about the
necessity of going through Kalgoorlie. It turned out that Joke had been
deprived of visiting Kalgoorlie when Niels and Miriam accompanied her back
several years ago. They had “been there, done that” and left her in the
blissful ignorance of thinking that Kalgoorlie was just another one-horse
mining town with a roadhouse and a pub. On the principle of seeing is
believing, I insisted of going via Kalgoorlie and finally Joke submitted to
that with her customary good grace. So we stitched up, applied bandages and
moved on, aiming for Kambalda (mining town, one-horse, pub) where the caravan
park turned out to be tacked on to a miner accommodation village. Cheap,
efficient and clean. We were offered dinner, breakfast and packed lunch at
incredibly cheap prices.
Just opposite there was a big old caravan with its windows
boarded up and the air-conditioner going full-blast. Out of it emerged a tall
African migrant dude in shorts and t-shirt, beer in hand, obviously getting
ready to go to work. Off he went in his mining gear at about 4 pm. About 5 pm a
tall blonde fellow strode up in mining gear, came out a minute later in shorts
and t-shirt, beer in hand, and took his gear off to the laundry.
* Peeing in the wild
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