Soothing Cruising

On Wednesday I had several beers and then on Thursday I got the day off so I decided I would go for a drive. Being much too far away to attend the funeral I figured this would be a good alternative. Originally I had planned to go just as far as Port Hedland (2.5 hours away) and watch the ocean for a bit, but it was bucketing rain there so I kept going up the coast, trying to escape the weather.

Further north, with the Great Sandy Desert on my right and the ocean on my left, there isn't any towns for about 600km and by the end of 8.5 hours of driving I had ended up in Broome, which is a beach town in the far west of the Kimberly region. The weather was absolutely beautiful- 26 degrees and calm. I went to the town beach where the water was that creamy light blue that you always see in vacation ads for the Caribbean and flat as bathtub water. I randomly happened to have my bathing suit in my car so I went for a swim and then got some dinner from the surprisingly swank McDonalds in town. It was really funny because unbeknown st to me Broome is known for it's pearls and pearl diving industry so many of the businesses had "Pearl" in their name, which also happens to be my recently passed auntie's name. My friend Bronwyn says that that means that I was supposed to go there that day.

After checking out the famous Cable Beach where all the tourists go, I got in the car and headed back south. As I was leaving I saw my fourth rainbow of the day- you could see the full arch of it plus the faded secondary rainbow- very cool. I had to be at work at 1:30pm the next day so I had to make tracks that night to make it back in time on Friday. Driving in the dark in Australia is much less daunting than in Canada because the biggest thing you are going to hit is a kangaroo and the local species is small enough that you are unlikely to do more than dent a bumper if you hit one, though I almost ran over an 8ft python along the way. He was haning out on the highway enjoying the remnant heat of the ashphalt, but I managed to swerve out of his way in time.

By 11pm I had made it to within 4 hours of Auski and needed both fuel and sleep so I pulled off the road near the Pardoo Roadhouse for a rest. I noticed on the map that there was a small side road that looked like it led to the beach, which would be a much quieter place to sleep than in a roadhouse parking lot so I drove down this washboard, dirt road for about 15 minutes and was rewarded with what, in the dark, looked like a big hill and a sandy field. Too tired to care, I shut off the engine and climbed in the back seat for a well needed sleep (I also just happened to have my sleeping bag in my car so I was relatively comfortable). In the morning I woke up to waves crashing and climbed over the small hill to find the Indian Ocean. The place was deserted except for an empty holiday trailer about 200m down the beach and a mob of about 20 kangaroos in the field behind me. I left at 6:30am as the sun rose and made it back to Auski with two hours to spare. That was probably the best road trip I have ever had.

-A.