We ate our complimentary continental breakfast at the Best Western in Geraldton and then drove back into town to buy lunch, Subway 6 inch rolls, and a local SIM card for the mobile. The first purchase was self explanatory and the second because it is so remote up here that we are not sure our UK roaming card will work if we broke down or had an accident between towns. I've now got an Australian Vodaphone number!
Our route today had us continue north up the route 1 following the coast of Western Australia. The first town we came to was Northampton after 60km and as we left the town we could see the next populated place was Billabong 120km away! There's only one way to drive here and that is to get up to the legal speed limit, 110kph, switch on the cruise control and turn up the iPod!
Lynn's iPod on shuffle produces some interesting mixes of music, quite aside from the excessive number of Celina Dion tracks. At one stage, we segued from Celine to Cream, then Harry Secombe, ELP, Les Miserables to Pink Floyd! Oh and the Three Tenors were in the mix too! Never a dull moment! I just remembered we even got Val Doonigan singing about a strange toy!
We stopped at Billabong for a drink, leg stretch and loo for 20 minutes as it was about halfway between Geraldton and Carnarvon. The road from here was as straight as a ruler for over 100km, why have bends in a road after all!
Over the past couple of days, they've had rain here and the roadside ditches and billabongs have water in them, the grass has even greened up. Those creeks we passed were full of muddy water.
There are various road signs warning drivers of animals on the road. They include, but aren't limited to, Kangaroos, Emus, Feral Goats and escaped Cows. We saw a few Emu not far outside Perth, but have only seen Kangaroos killed by traffic. We saw quite a few goats and a dead cow killed on the road. We've also seen one or two Goannas, large lizards scuttling across the road. Fortunately, we've avoided contact with the wildlife so far. That said, I'd give a lot to obliterate all the flies in Australia, they are tiresome and thoroughly unpleasant as they attempt to get in your eyes, nose, ears and mouth. We are told they are bad because of the recent rain.
Finally, after 5 hours and 480km we rolled into Carnarvon, quite a big place really. There is a port here and fishing and fruit and veg growing the big things here. We are staying on a campsite tonight in a cabin. Its quite well equipped and the site has a pool, with water, which I used this afternoon.
We had fresh squid again for dinner. It couldn't get fresher! We've also refuelled ready for the morning and the last leg of our journey north.
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