Travels: Day 9 - The Road is Lo-oo-ong
We wake up early and hit Dome. We have a loooooong drive ahead of us and need to make sure we are fully fueled before hitting the road and bacon and eggs seems to fit the bill. We head back to the appartment and pack up our stuff, remembering to re-pack all my underwear which has been on display (they had been washed and were drying, I'm not that proud of my kecks). We climb into the behemoth and Anne drives us out of town and we head north.
As we drive up past Bunbury the sky is awesome, the clouds are rolling in such a way as to make it look like God had taken a plough to them. We drive through small town after small town, passing a Land Rover graveyard, a bulldozer graveyard and various farms and smallholdings.
We hit Perth about lunchtime and head for the waterfront to eat. The Boatshed restaurant looks promising but is pretty pricey but luckily it has a small café on the side that does sandwices and salads. The sun is blazing and we are treated to great views across to the city but Olly gets distracted by a couple of cats (he's a big softy really).
All fuelled up again we head out of Perth. Olly has taken over driving duties and I am navigating. I tell Olly to stay on Route 1 and then set about typing up some of my notes while Anne falls asleep in the back. Unfortunately Olly suffers from a rare condition that means he can't see road signs while he's driving and we end up driving along the wrong road for at least an hour. Luckily we are heading in pretty much the right direction so we only add about 45 minutes onto our journey and on the up side we get to pass through New Norcia which is a small town built entirely by and for Benedictine monks. It is a very surreal place to drive through, consisting entirely of big and ornate buildings and churches that would be at home in a city, but here they are in the middle of nowhere!
The sun sets as we drive and we are treated to vast vistas bathed in the orange glow of dusk. These aren't just good views, these are views that are limited only by the horizon rather than by any hills or buildings that are in the way. In all directions.
Finally we reach our destination, Cervantes, and check into our motel. We had planned to visit the Pinnacles (our sole reason for going to Cervantes) at sunset but that wasn't happening now so we have a fantastic meal (very surprising considering we are only in a motel) and head to bed, setting our alarms to be up in time for sunrise - a buttock clenchingly early 6am!
It’s not all signs - just the important ones saying “1″ or “Olly, it’s this way!!!” on them.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:17 amTo be fair Olly did spot the sign saying what train station we were at when we went to France. It was dark and badly lit, I couldn’t see a thing. Otherwise we would have probably ended up in Spain. So he has his moments.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:50 amAre they magic moments?
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:45 pmNo, they’re perfect moments.
June 23rd, 2006 at 3:45 pmI wish they were magic moments, could have has some Quality Street then. Instead we got vegatable…. vegatable!!! you must eat!!! arggh crazy french men related to Brett.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:45 pm