Night of the 17th
I told Anthony we should probably head to the biggest camper van, and indeed this machine was huge. Really, it was a house on wheels. It was not too hard to put on our best pathetic faces, and we knocked on the door with our bikes and empty-handed, but not wanting to give off the idea that we expected anything. Kay opened the door, looked us up and down, and pretty much knew what we needed before we asked.
"Is there any chance we could have some water? We have run out."
It was kind of embarrassing after so many km on the Eyre highway with plenty of water to have finally run out, but the Nullarbor National Park had no shade, no water, and we had doubled our consumption. I followed Anthony’s plea with the justification that, "We haven’t had a problem until now. Usually what we have is plenty."
She was kind and gave us two water bottles to drink while we fetched our water bladders that held six liters each and would get us the next 50 km to Nullarbor Roadhouse. She filled, and we thanked her.
We walked briefly to stretch off the bike, re-hydrating and coming down off a hot and miserable day. We sat gingerly on the stone table provided by the national park and put our heads down trying to build up motivation to start dinner.
Kay approached us from behind and in a modest, but most generous fashion, and invited us to dinner. "There’ll be too much for the four of us, and we can’t let it go to waste." Kay is married to Trevor, and they traveled with Diane and Keith. I think Diane and Trevor are brother an sister; either way, both couples took us in with open arms, offered us water, and grouper that had been speared by Keith only days before and was kept quite fresh in the trailer’s refrigerator. It was excellent – white, flaky and breaded; never would I have imagined this treat in the middle of this barren plain.
"It’s a cruel stretch of road," said Keith. He spoke with authority; it was clear he had made the drive many times. Now with their caravan setup, they could live quite nicely on the Nullarbor for some time.
We finished the night with ice cream and apple crumble and talked of shooting kangaroos and Emu. Australia is probably the only country where they have to fight the national symbols in order to not be overrun by them. Both are hearty animals in absolutely no danger of extinction.
We thanked our hosts profusely, offered to help clean, but they would have none of it. This is what Australian hospitality is.
We slept that night using the short salt brush as a windbreak. It was a good four hours of sleep.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Out of Water.
Feb 15th -16th
Shower, air conditioning, it seemed decadent, but we were zombies. We took a four-hour afternoon nap and another 12 that night. Overpriced food was par for the course, but since our food drop did not arrive in Cocklebiddy we had to make our camp food stretch. Not that it was hard to order a steak burger that we did not have to cook.
As for the post office and grand reason for our 240 km push, it turned out there was none. Our first ask to see if my package had arrived was a "no." However, the next day, incidentally a Saturday, they told me a package had arrived last Wednesday for a "Hayden." I had a look at it just in case, and sure enough, it was our PLB. It was odd to think that one of the many trucks that passed us had been carrying our mail.
Eucla, like most of these settlements, is a 70s and 80s re-do of the original settlements from the early 20th century when camels, boats and telegraph lines were the only ways of travel and communication.
That afternoon we crossed the SA border into the 200 km of the Nullarbor National Park and home of the stunning limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. It seems that once you cross the border, you are in the Nullarbor proper. There are nothing but bushes, and not that many of them, with the largest ones still less that 6 feet. However, they are still quite green. We slept till 12 and woke up to an east wind and lots of road trains. Between both, it halved our speed to 10 km per hour, a real morale killer. We kept pushing; it was all we could do.
Great sunrise. I always take five to enjoy those, a calm before the heat and wind that inevitably kick up. We were now cycling right along the Great Australian Bight, a place I had looked at on maps since I was a kid. Now I can tell you what it looks like. Vertical limestone cliffs, 40 meters high that mark an abrupt end to the country and continent of Australia. The Great Southern Ocean is at once immediately accessible, yet distant below. The limestone is white on the bottom and changes to a stained tea-brown as it reaches the ground we stand on. It is topped in dark green salt brush and small succulent plants. Small, well-shaped, white flowers dot the ground in hopes that the rough environment won’t notice them and stamp them out. It is a barren and spectacular landscape.
The sun continued to rise, and we looked for a place to eat and sleep. None could be found. No awning we had would stand up to the wind. We covered ourselves in long sleeves and hats and tried beat the heat. It was a futile effort. We were sweating buckets and going nowhere.
We decided to continue in the wind, but we had now consumed more than half our water. It would hurt more to ration, so we continued to drink normally hoping to make the next marked water stop 52 km from the Nullarbor roadhouse. The wind continued. So did the heat and so did we. We arrived dreaming of water. I was going to drink and eat my fill, but there was none. It was time to play the pity card; one I feel we deserved. 2 km behind the alleged water stop was a lookout to the Bight. Around the car park was an instant community of caravans that had sprung up for the night. We were about an hour from being in a bad way. My face was covered in salt, and we made our way for the biggest one, hoping for some charity.
Shower, air conditioning, it seemed decadent, but we were zombies. We took a four-hour afternoon nap and another 12 that night. Overpriced food was par for the course, but since our food drop did not arrive in Cocklebiddy we had to make our camp food stretch. Not that it was hard to order a steak burger that we did not have to cook.
As for the post office and grand reason for our 240 km push, it turned out there was none. Our first ask to see if my package had arrived was a "no." However, the next day, incidentally a Saturday, they told me a package had arrived last Wednesday for a "Hayden." I had a look at it just in case, and sure enough, it was our PLB. It was odd to think that one of the many trucks that passed us had been carrying our mail.
Eucla, like most of these settlements, is a 70s and 80s re-do of the original settlements from the early 20th century when camels, boats and telegraph lines were the only ways of travel and communication.
That afternoon we crossed the SA border into the 200 km of the Nullarbor National Park and home of the stunning limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. It seems that once you cross the border, you are in the Nullarbor proper. There are nothing but bushes, and not that many of them, with the largest ones still less that 6 feet. However, they are still quite green. We slept till 12 and woke up to an east wind and lots of road trains. Between both, it halved our speed to 10 km per hour, a real morale killer. We kept pushing; it was all we could do.
Great sunrise. I always take five to enjoy those, a calm before the heat and wind that inevitably kick up. We were now cycling right along the Great Australian Bight, a place I had looked at on maps since I was a kid. Now I can tell you what it looks like. Vertical limestone cliffs, 40 meters high that mark an abrupt end to the country and continent of Australia. The Great Southern Ocean is at once immediately accessible, yet distant below. The limestone is white on the bottom and changes to a stained tea-brown as it reaches the ground we stand on. It is topped in dark green salt brush and small succulent plants. Small, well-shaped, white flowers dot the ground in hopes that the rough environment won’t notice them and stamp them out. It is a barren and spectacular landscape.
The sun continued to rise, and we looked for a place to eat and sleep. None could be found. No awning we had would stand up to the wind. We covered ourselves in long sleeves and hats and tried beat the heat. It was a futile effort. We were sweating buckets and going nowhere.
We decided to continue in the wind, but we had now consumed more than half our water. It would hurt more to ration, so we continued to drink normally hoping to make the next marked water stop 52 km from the Nullarbor roadhouse. The wind continued. So did the heat and so did we. We arrived dreaming of water. I was going to drink and eat my fill, but there was none. It was time to play the pity card; one I feel we deserved. 2 km behind the alleged water stop was a lookout to the Bight. Around the car park was an instant community of caravans that had sprung up for the night. We were about an hour from being in a bad way. My face was covered in salt, and we made our way for the biggest one, hoping for some charity.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Working on the night moves.
Feb 14th-15th
Every Police station, guidebook, and information center will tell you not to ride the Nullarbor or any outback road at night. But really, what are the three terrors of the Nullarbor?
Kangaroos - These remarkably dense animals (physically and mentally) are primarily nocturnal. Their relatively high speed and reflexes combined with the disorientating lights of cars and, especially, road trains make them consistent victims of cars and trucks. This is a minor mishap to truckers who sit nearly 7 feet above the ground in huge trucks with armored grills aptly named "roo bars." They do not slow down for roos. Don’t need to. Cars on the other hand, especially cars without roo bars on the front, can be completely totaled. Hit a roo mid-hop, and this 70 to 120 lb. animal will go right through the windshield. At 20 km an hour, our bikes have no chance of sneaking up on a roo. However, that night we did both manage to run over the body of a dead one.
Road trains - These oversized semi-trucks are allowed to pull up to 36.5 meters of cargo – over a third of the length of a football field (or pitch). They travel at roughly 110 kph, and if anyone has driven a trailer in the wind, one can get an idea of how much skill it would take to drive this through a land known for high winds. Judging from what they do to roos and any other stray animals that happen on the road, it is pretty clear what they could do to a cyclist. However, at night they ride with huge high-beams visible from up to 10 km away. Having slightly more sense that a roo, this gives us plenty of time to get well off the side of the road.
Last of all is the heat and the wind – terrible during the day and sometimes a crap shoot at night. This means that, with the exception of the road trains, a bicycle is probably the safest vehicle on a dark night.
However, these conclusions did not mean we took our night ride lightly. We lit ourselves up, threw on neon green vests with reflective tape, and rode into the night.
It seems cliche to say that the stars were brilliant. How could they be anything but? As dusk leveled into dark, our world shrunk to the immediate area around us. The moon set at midnight, and total dark gave us the impression of flying. We talked constantly to stay alert, sometimes singing - very loud and quite badly, and our other conversations did not start at a particularly high level and descended as the night wore on.
60 km in, we stopped for dinner on the side of the road. The dirt was pink and was mixed with well-persevered fossilized shells that betrayed this land’s aquatic past. No car passed as we cooked and "coffeed" our way back to alertness.
The night had now turned cold. Not cool, but uncomfortably cold, and we layered on the clothes. 10 km later, heavy dew and light fog appeared – soaking through our clothing. It was a surreal landscape – pitch black with pinholes of light above us. Wisps of cloud and the light at the end of the tunnel that was an approaching car. I thought briefly of Odysseus’ decent into Hades. Anthony thought of the Polar Express.
Another 60 km later we arrived at Mundrabilla. We fueled up again on coffee and cake for the final push to Eucla. Like clockwork, the wind picked up at 7 a.m., but the sunrise and heat managed to keep us awake and miserable as we made the final push up Eucla Pass – counterpart to Madura Pass that was 180 km behind us.
We stumbled in sweaty and had to snack before we could even think about lunch. Anthony’s parents said they would treat us for a night in a hotel. 240 km since our last sleep, we figure this was a good spot.
Every Police station, guidebook, and information center will tell you not to ride the Nullarbor or any outback road at night. But really, what are the three terrors of the Nullarbor?
Kangaroos - These remarkably dense animals (physically and mentally) are primarily nocturnal. Their relatively high speed and reflexes combined with the disorientating lights of cars and, especially, road trains make them consistent victims of cars and trucks. This is a minor mishap to truckers who sit nearly 7 feet above the ground in huge trucks with armored grills aptly named "roo bars." They do not slow down for roos. Don’t need to. Cars on the other hand, especially cars without roo bars on the front, can be completely totaled. Hit a roo mid-hop, and this 70 to 120 lb. animal will go right through the windshield. At 20 km an hour, our bikes have no chance of sneaking up on a roo. However, that night we did both manage to run over the body of a dead one.
Road trains - These oversized semi-trucks are allowed to pull up to 36.5 meters of cargo – over a third of the length of a football field (or pitch). They travel at roughly 110 kph, and if anyone has driven a trailer in the wind, one can get an idea of how much skill it would take to drive this through a land known for high winds. Judging from what they do to roos and any other stray animals that happen on the road, it is pretty clear what they could do to a cyclist. However, at night they ride with huge high-beams visible from up to 10 km away. Having slightly more sense that a roo, this gives us plenty of time to get well off the side of the road.
Last of all is the heat and the wind – terrible during the day and sometimes a crap shoot at night. This means that, with the exception of the road trains, a bicycle is probably the safest vehicle on a dark night.
However, these conclusions did not mean we took our night ride lightly. We lit ourselves up, threw on neon green vests with reflective tape, and rode into the night.
It seems cliche to say that the stars were brilliant. How could they be anything but? As dusk leveled into dark, our world shrunk to the immediate area around us. The moon set at midnight, and total dark gave us the impression of flying. We talked constantly to stay alert, sometimes singing - very loud and quite badly, and our other conversations did not start at a particularly high level and descended as the night wore on.
60 km in, we stopped for dinner on the side of the road. The dirt was pink and was mixed with well-persevered fossilized shells that betrayed this land’s aquatic past. No car passed as we cooked and "coffeed" our way back to alertness.
The night had now turned cold. Not cool, but uncomfortably cold, and we layered on the clothes. 10 km later, heavy dew and light fog appeared – soaking through our clothing. It was a surreal landscape – pitch black with pinholes of light above us. Wisps of cloud and the light at the end of the tunnel that was an approaching car. I thought briefly of Odysseus’ decent into Hades. Anthony thought of the Polar Express.
Another 60 km later we arrived at Mundrabilla. We fueled up again on coffee and cake for the final push to Eucla. Like clockwork, the wind picked up at 7 a.m., but the sunrise and heat managed to keep us awake and miserable as we made the final push up Eucla Pass – counterpart to Madura Pass that was 180 km behind us.
We stumbled in sweaty and had to snack before we could even think about lunch. Anthony’s parents said they would treat us for a night in a hotel. 240 km since our last sleep, we figure this was a good spot.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Run for the Border - Part two.
Feb 14th
The mishap had really begun in Norseman when we forgot to pick up our Personal Locator Beacon (a safety device that would send out a distress signal in the event of an emergency; a bit of an overkill on a road with steady traffic and plenty of truckers with UHF radios, however, I rather err on the side of caution). The Norseman Post Office was closed for the weekend, and we left on Sunday. That Monday in Balladonia, we called Norseman, and with a quick "no worries love", the lovely post attendant sent it on to what she described as the post office in Eucla.
Eucla is the largest settlement on the Eyre Highway, and it made sense that if they had a police station, they would probably have a post office, and if they had one, it would probably be open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. These were the facts on hand as we arrived in Madura on Thursday.
What it came down to was the realization that if we showed up in Eucla two days from now, it would again be on a Saturday, and we would miss the mail. Anthony came to this conclusion while speaking with his mum. He relayed the situation to me and followed it up with the most logical option – forgo sleep, leave at 7 p.m. when the wind and heat died down, and ride through the night to Eucla 180 km away, on top of the 60 we had done that morning.
When the opportunity for a challenge comes around, especially one of this nature, it’s really hard for me to say "no." What it came down to was that it would be a hassle to get that PLB if we did not pick it up the second chance we got, and 180 km with no sleep was really a small price to pay. On top of that, the idea of riding in the wind and heat the next day made the no sleep option a lot more appealing.
Anthony smiled the question, "you up for it, mate?"
I grinned, nodded in acceptance, and we spent the next hour and a half preparing for our run for the WA/SA border under the shaking heads of the other travelers with beers in hand who seemed somewhat dumbfounded by our life choices.
The mishap had really begun in Norseman when we forgot to pick up our Personal Locator Beacon (a safety device that would send out a distress signal in the event of an emergency; a bit of an overkill on a road with steady traffic and plenty of truckers with UHF radios, however, I rather err on the side of caution). The Norseman Post Office was closed for the weekend, and we left on Sunday. That Monday in Balladonia, we called Norseman, and with a quick "no worries love", the lovely post attendant sent it on to what she described as the post office in Eucla.
Eucla is the largest settlement on the Eyre Highway, and it made sense that if they had a police station, they would probably have a post office, and if they had one, it would probably be open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. These were the facts on hand as we arrived in Madura on Thursday.
What it came down to was the realization that if we showed up in Eucla two days from now, it would again be on a Saturday, and we would miss the mail. Anthony came to this conclusion while speaking with his mum. He relayed the situation to me and followed it up with the most logical option – forgo sleep, leave at 7 p.m. when the wind and heat died down, and ride through the night to Eucla 180 km away, on top of the 60 we had done that morning.
When the opportunity for a challenge comes around, especially one of this nature, it’s really hard for me to say "no." What it came down to was that it would be a hassle to get that PLB if we did not pick it up the second chance we got, and 180 km with no sleep was really a small price to pay. On top of that, the idea of riding in the wind and heat the next day made the no sleep option a lot more appealing.
Anthony smiled the question, "you up for it, mate?"
I grinned, nodded in acceptance, and we spent the next hour and a half preparing for our run for the WA/SA border under the shaking heads of the other travelers with beers in hand who seemed somewhat dumbfounded by our life choices.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Our run for the border.
Feb 14th
Madura roadhouse stood in a thick and shady grove of gum trees at the end of the only real downhill we have seen since Norseman. This is Madura Pass. On top of the pass are green gums that end quite suddenly with a grayish, lavender scrub brush that seems to extend into the distance to the horizon, but really will drop off soon into the ocean. That morning, as we took our first stretch break, two cyclist appeared out of the bush. They were Phillipp and Valeska. They are on a considerably longer trip than we are. We were pleased to find out that they had as little sense as us and were going into the wind as we were.
For the next five years they will bike around the world. Thus far, they have biked across Europe and Africa from north to south. They and their bikes looked as if they had gone trough a crucible of hard travel, and they carried nothing but what they absolutely needed making ourselves look somewhat ungainly by comparison.
Judging from our style of bikes (our road bikes to their mountain hybrids), it was like comparing racehorses to hardy welsh ponies. They did not travel as quickly as us, but they also went longer and with fewer stops, and they could keep this up indefinitely. We, on the other hand, had been stopping every 20 km to stretch my knee, and Anthony had become quite used to this.
We met up with them in Madura, lunched with them, and they headed off towards the hottest part of the day. Conversely, we decided to take two easy days to Eucla in order to keep our steady pace with no rest day. Then we had a mishap in communication, and we had to pull out Plan B.
Madura roadhouse stood in a thick and shady grove of gum trees at the end of the only real downhill we have seen since Norseman. This is Madura Pass. On top of the pass are green gums that end quite suddenly with a grayish, lavender scrub brush that seems to extend into the distance to the horizon, but really will drop off soon into the ocean. That morning, as we took our first stretch break, two cyclist appeared out of the bush. They were Phillipp and Valeska. They are on a considerably longer trip than we are. We were pleased to find out that they had as little sense as us and were going into the wind as we were.
For the next five years they will bike around the world. Thus far, they have biked across Europe and Africa from north to south. They and their bikes looked as if they had gone trough a crucible of hard travel, and they carried nothing but what they absolutely needed making ourselves look somewhat ungainly by comparison.
Judging from our style of bikes (our road bikes to their mountain hybrids), it was like comparing racehorses to hardy welsh ponies. They did not travel as quickly as us, but they also went longer and with fewer stops, and they could keep this up indefinitely. We, on the other hand, had been stopping every 20 km to stretch my knee, and Anthony had become quite used to this.
We met up with them in Madura, lunched with them, and they headed off towards the hottest part of the day. Conversely, we decided to take two easy days to Eucla in order to keep our steady pace with no rest day. Then we had a mishap in communication, and we had to pull out Plan B.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Apologies.
Feb 13th
As Anthony and I see it, we gained some "tough points" (as opposed to "weenie points") last night as we slept in the rain (one of the few times it rains here in the summer). I am pleased to say that Anthony and I travel like two joeys in a pouch (I don’t know the biology, but for the sake of metaphor, I shall assume this is a good thing). Rain sounds much louder in a bivy sack.
We fought a hard wind during the 60 km to Cocklebiddy. It gets its name from the piles of shells around the coast (cockles) and "biddy" is the aboriginal word for "water" in this area.
Today Australia apologized to the stolen generation and for other acts of injustice done to Aboriginal people under the authority of the Australian government since white settlers arrived. This is like the US government apologizing to African and Native Americans for all injustices done since 1776.
I’m not going to pick a side, nor will I discuss reparations, but in my personal life I have usually found that an unequivocal, unqualified apology can usually bring smoother relations down the road. It seems hard, but it's free. Most importantly, it seems to make both parities feel pretty damn good in the long run, as well as making people more willing to work together. I imagine (and hope) it will do the same for Australia.
As Anthony and I see it, we gained some "tough points" (as opposed to "weenie points") last night as we slept in the rain (one of the few times it rains here in the summer). I am pleased to say that Anthony and I travel like two joeys in a pouch (I don’t know the biology, but for the sake of metaphor, I shall assume this is a good thing). Rain sounds much louder in a bivy sack.
We fought a hard wind during the 60 km to Cocklebiddy. It gets its name from the piles of shells around the coast (cockles) and "biddy" is the aboriginal word for "water" in this area.
Today Australia apologized to the stolen generation and for other acts of injustice done to Aboriginal people under the authority of the Australian government since white settlers arrived. This is like the US government apologizing to African and Native Americans for all injustices done since 1776.
I’m not going to pick a side, nor will I discuss reparations, but in my personal life I have usually found that an unequivocal, unqualified apology can usually bring smoother relations down the road. It seems hard, but it's free. Most importantly, it seems to make both parities feel pretty damn good in the long run, as well as making people more willing to work together. I imagine (and hope) it will do the same for Australia.
Friday, February 22, 2008
90-mile Straight.
Feb 12
The road solidified in front of us as we pushed the liquid horizon in a landscape that, as Anthony aptly put it, "was a few melting clocks away from a Salvador Dali painting". This asphalt line on the dirt gave a Sisyphean flavor to our ride. No turns, just what seemed a slow, steady climb and a consistently strong east wind that appeared after noon.
The roadside was a charnel house of kangaroo bits in various states of decomposition. Arms, legs, fresh kills, smelly corpses, sun-bleached bones and the occasional viscera so baked by the sun that the flies would have nothing to do with it. Ironically, this carnage on the road means that beyond it there is a very healthy population of roos in that harsh land. They come to the road in the rain. we saw this today when a squall added wet to our spent bodies.
Little black and brown furry bodies appeared on the side of the road to lick the scarce water that collected on the road. As we approached, they would sit up on their tails and judge our threat level. Unfamiliar as we were, they would hop away. The cars and huge trucks that rumbled by would have to honk their horns, thus explaining the excessive amounts of road kill. In another sick twist of irony, excessive road kill then feeds the crows and the wedgetail eagles that live here.
The eagles eat so much that when approached by a car, they will often linger over the meat a bit too long. When they take off, their swollen stomachs keep them down for a few crucial seconds. This, no doubt, is what caused the demise of the eagle I saw on the road. I was dismayed to see such a creature in a broken state, yet at the same time, boyishly delighted at a chance to see it up close. It was brown, but trimmed in black and white, with a large head the size of a grapefruit and a huge curved beak. Its talons were nearly the size of my hand and were still covered with chunks of relatively fresh meat. Its eyes, once sharp, were now cloudy with death. I picked him up by both wings. He was heavy, nearly 15 lbs., and had a wingspan of at least six feet.
This road gives and takes life. Water bring roos, and dead roos bring birds. Death by car or truck instead of lack of water seems unnatural, but it fits this strange and brutal landscape.
Road trains bring the world to western Australia – boats, huge mining dump trucks, fiberglass pools and hot tubs, to mention just a few of the endless contents that sweep past us down the road.
The road solidified in front of us as we pushed the liquid horizon in a landscape that, as Anthony aptly put it, "was a few melting clocks away from a Salvador Dali painting". This asphalt line on the dirt gave a Sisyphean flavor to our ride. No turns, just what seemed a slow, steady climb and a consistently strong east wind that appeared after noon.
The roadside was a charnel house of kangaroo bits in various states of decomposition. Arms, legs, fresh kills, smelly corpses, sun-bleached bones and the occasional viscera so baked by the sun that the flies would have nothing to do with it. Ironically, this carnage on the road means that beyond it there is a very healthy population of roos in that harsh land. They come to the road in the rain. we saw this today when a squall added wet to our spent bodies.
Little black and brown furry bodies appeared on the side of the road to lick the scarce water that collected on the road. As we approached, they would sit up on their tails and judge our threat level. Unfamiliar as we were, they would hop away. The cars and huge trucks that rumbled by would have to honk their horns, thus explaining the excessive amounts of road kill. In another sick twist of irony, excessive road kill then feeds the crows and the wedgetail eagles that live here.
The eagles eat so much that when approached by a car, they will often linger over the meat a bit too long. When they take off, their swollen stomachs keep them down for a few crucial seconds. This, no doubt, is what caused the demise of the eagle I saw on the road. I was dismayed to see such a creature in a broken state, yet at the same time, boyishly delighted at a chance to see it up close. It was brown, but trimmed in black and white, with a large head the size of a grapefruit and a huge curved beak. Its talons were nearly the size of my hand and were still covered with chunks of relatively fresh meat. Its eyes, once sharp, were now cloudy with death. I picked him up by both wings. He was heavy, nearly 15 lbs., and had a wingspan of at least six feet.
This road gives and takes life. Water bring roos, and dead roos bring birds. Death by car or truck instead of lack of water seems unnatural, but it fits this strange and brutal landscape.
Road trains bring the world to western Australia – boats, huge mining dump trucks, fiberglass pools and hot tubs, to mention just a few of the endless contents that sweep past us down the road.
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