Listening to WAY OUT WEST Dingoes 1973
Here's a song where the words still remain
relevant with our mining background today. Love the James Reyne
and James Blundell version from 1991 that somehow
polishes and improves but remains faithful to
the original version.
Neil sent me.
I'm sitting on the kerb, legs stretched out, frowning at my phone. I'm next to a walkway leading up to reception at an accommodation centre in Port Hedland. The sun's going down and shadows are lengthening but it's still pretty warm. Precious shares the carpark space in front of me. She's still fully loaded and making metallic tinking noises as she cools after
her seven hundred plus kilometre journey today. Folks clad in mining hi vis and regulation yellow boots say gedday and nod as they file to and from their accommodation in the dozens of self contained caravans behind the reception building. I've just been in and inquired about staying a night in their least expensive room and at two hundred and thirty one dollars it's not even close to my pay scale. Oh oh. I've already done the caravan parks and received the usual "computer says no" answers so now I'm on the phone to Marianne in Adelaide to see if she can find somewhere to stay on her laptop. It's getting pretty desperate. So far nothing under two hundred dollars...shit...a huge country full of nothing and nowhere to
sleep. A guy with a couple of little kids stops and asks what I'm up to. I tell him about the trip and my present accommodation predicament. He smiles and says sometimes the ladies inside forget they're actually running a caravan park and not just mining accommodation. Go round the back and put your tent up anywhere there's grass, then go back inside and say Neil sent you and ten bucks will do....oh and there's a pub about a hundred metres that way when you want dinner...phew...
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| Ten dollars a night...in a mining town BARGAIN! |
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| Incubators for hi vis coloured humans! |
...saved...for today!
Three thousand down, three thousand across.
I'm in Derby at the top of Western Australia. It's time to complete the lap and go home. Covid is closing in again with three states in lockdown so the plan is to ride as hard as I can to get back to South Australia, hopefully before any more lockdowns trap me in Western Australia. It's approximately three thousand kilometers down south, and then three thousand east to Adelaide. The riding I'm good with, although Precious is far from the ideal tool for fast long distance riding...
...it's the faffing about with accommodation every day I hate!
Goin Down
Throttle hand steady, at a hundred and five
day after day, mile after mile
red ribbon tarmac, straight as a die
no nothing to see, no feasts for the eye
Sweated my ass off, been chilled to the bone
hurrying down south, all on my own
wind rain and other shit, I've been through and known
throttle hand steady, takin me home
Dean
I don't do Broome.
I've not wanted to go to Broome since I left. I just don't find touristy places appealing. Every time there's a travel show on the telly blah blah blah Broome...yeh nah. Marianne really wanted to go though and we had a plan to
meet there but lack of accommodation, flights, and crazy prices dictated we chose Darwin instead. It's only two hundred and twenty kilometres to Broome from Derby so bypassing it would be a no brainer buuuut it's seven sixty to the next town Port Hedland, and if it's windy or...aaah nah I'm going to Port Hedland...I've gotta get serious now and get these kilometres done. I set out early and make my way out of Derby in the early morning mugginess. Stray dogs, a few local wanderers, and some early bird caravanners are my only companions as I pass the shuttered shops, awakening servo, and the dusty industrial park on the way out of town. My jacket and pants, awaiting the drying airflow of the open road, bond to my skin as today's sweat mixes with the stored product from months of hard riding under the sun. After rejoining highway one I set off southwest just inland from the coast with only a slight headwind to work out the neck muscles. After fueling at Roebuck servo at the Broome turn off there's only one more stop for me at the busy Sandfire Road House. It's a long and boring ride. Definitely one to put your brain in neutral and not look at the clock. The approach to Port Hedland is heralded by a proliferation of super long ore trucks heading in and out of town and...a modern clover leaf highway loop on
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| Back onto highway one for the rest of the trip. |
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| Sandfire Roadhouse..a must stop... or you'll run out of fuel! |
Although being the only one not wearing hi vis in the pub I feel quite comfortable and have flashbacks from the scene from the film Red Dog expecting the whole pub to break into a rendition of "Way out West"!
The next morning I head into town to grab a coffee at the Star Cafe. My mate Terry works here in Hedland as a train driver FIFO and has recommended it so I give it a run. It's located in an old railway carriage set in gardens in the old part of town and definitely worth a look. While I'm there I check out the ships in the port waiting to be loaded and am amused to see a Chinese vessel near the shore called the "Trust Shanghai"!
Hmm...well I guess they pay their bills...lucky for us!
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| Star cafe Port Hedland |
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| Trust Shangai. Erm, do we get a choice? |
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| Port Hedland. More ker'ching on the way to China! |
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| If you get bored or have lots of time you can spice up your day and pass one of these on a DR650! |
Listening to HELP John Farnham 1980
OK it's a Beatles song, but John belts this one out of the park.
So one our greatest singers, sings one of the
best songs from one of the greatest bands.
Can't go wrong really!
Karratha on down.
There used to be a silly thing called pole sitting that originated way back in the nineteen twenties. It was a test of endurance and involved sitting on a chair way up at the top of a pole for the longest possible time. I seem to remember it still popping up in
the seventies and eighties as a bit of a stunt as well. Sorry...but this is what comes to mind when travelling down the west coast part of highway one. Oh dear, I will get pummelled by locals and caravanners and touristy types here but...it's a long long stretch...of not much. It's pole sitting with a throttle! Drrrrr, oh look some bushes... drrrr, oh look some mounds of dirt...drrrr, oh look a river...yawn...yeh arrrm wide open spaces tick are we there yet? Sure there's bits with interesting land formations and wild flowers along the road buuuut...I'm thinking the hundreds of kilometres of nothing are helping to make these look pretty good!
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| Oh look...some hills! |
Now, there's a few places to turn off and look at like Eighty Mile Beach and Monkey Mia and other bits but in the words of the Little River Band...
...it's a long way there.
For the next few days I keep Precious pinned and heading down the coast. The wind is a constant Westerly or South Westerly and the weather is pleasant mid
twenties. I stay at the Port of Dampier after finding Karratha way too windy for camping and way too expensive for a motel. Karratha appears very modern with lots of new houses but I found the town centre to be a bit cold and soulless. The next day it's a big day of pole sitting all the way to Carnarvon which is a lovely little town. I finally score a cheap room in the caravan park and take an extra night to give Precious her last oil change before home. OK...a dilemma. The good weather is about to end. Aaaaargh. When you get round the curve half way down the west coast of Australia the weather turns to shit...dramatically! I'm sitting in my room in Carnarvon watching telly and
Western Australia is about to be hit with it's biggest storm this winter...in the wettest July this winter...all just a few hundred kilometres down the road. Hmm can't wait it out as the seven day forecast shows no improvement in the near future...so no dilemma really, just gotta jump in...
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| The Dampier motel. I whinged about the price to someone from WA and he thought it was cheap! Ah mining prices. |
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| The port of Dampier is quite exotic looking. |
...so here we go....
...winter is coming...again!
Geraldton is the next major centre down but when I do a bit of an accommodation scan on the computer it's kinda pricey. I figure I'll see how I go but plan to keep going as long as I can every day and with every extra couple of
hundred kilometres travelled every day will hopefully be a day less on the road down the track. As you approach Geraldton the landscape slowly changes...obviously it rains here! Crops start appearing, there's trees, houses and towns...all the stuff that water brings to make humans prosper really. The clouds close in and the temperature begins to drop as I pass through Geraldton which appears to be a pretty big place. There's traffic lights, freeway quality roads and lots of traffic which flag the 'keep going too complicated' signal in me. I zoom through and hit the GPS lodging search which has been a bit of a failure so far. It finds a motel at a place called Cataby and I make up my mind, well, it's freezing and about to rain, so no matter what it's like I'll just pay and go
with it. Hmm...it's called Glassy's Hat Hotel. I finally arrive as it's getting dark...well, it's erm, rustic. A hundred bucks but I'll pay just to get some warmth. The girl in the pub is lovely and I grab the key and head to my room in the middle of the line about fifty metres from highway one. Open the door and it's wall to wall woodgrain...no really...whole woodgrain walls! Eek. Ok....there's an air conditioner but no heater...look in the cupboards aaaargh no heater anywhere. Hmmm. Ok let's jump in the shower and warm up. Yep awesome hot water pressure, aaaah warmth at last...doo be doo be dooo....hmm...the water's seems a bit deep...aaah !@#$k the drain's blocked. In my haste to jump in I've chucked all my
clothes on the floor...my only warm clothes that is...which is now awash with water from the blocked drain. For @#$%s sake. Shit...OK bathers and singlet on, out the front door in the freezing cold and back to the bar...which is now filled with hi vis clad road workers. Er, the drain in my shower's blocked. "Well the cleaner didn't say anything" Huh, not sure what you mean. "Well if it was blocked the cleaner would have noticed". ....(long silence with bad body language)..."OK here's the key to no. 3, try that one." I walk back half naked through the road workers, drag all my gear into no.3 and try the shower. Hmmm, the drain looks suspiciously like it's in line with the old no.4 drain. I hit the taps and find it's got about half the pressure of the first shower giving the drain just enough time to do it's job while hardly getting me wet...aaargh oh dear !@3k it I give up. The next morning after a freezing night with all my clothes on in bed I find a heater in the back of the cupboard next to the telly. Good one Deano
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| Look who's turned eighty! Better get her an Astra Zeneca shot! |
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| Hmm, wonder if there's a tropic of Pisces? |
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| Bring your own plumbing tools! |
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| Winter is coming...again. |
Listening to BABY PLEASE DON'T GO ACDC 1975
Really interesting song first recorded in 1935 by Big Joe Williams.
Been done a zillion times by everybody but none come close to
the kick ass ACDC version with Bon Scott!
Perth and Bridgetown
The next day I set off in cold and clear conditions to Perth. Normally I would avoid cities like the plague but I have a couple of trade customers who have become friends over the years that I want to meet and put faces to. I have known these people for nearly twenty years so I've got to do it! I plot their addresses on the GPS and
set sail. The ride from Cataby to Perth is extremely pleasant reminding me a lot of the farmland on the way to the Clare Valley where I was brought up. A cold sun highlights the vivid yellow canola crops and misty countryside as I zoom along and my heated grips remain flat out keeping my pinkies warm. The moment I hit Perth it starts to bucket with rain...great! I hate cities...I hate the cold...I hate rain...and I've never been here before. To be honest, motoring through Perth was dead easy. I found the network of freeways they have there seemed to work extremely well with the route I was following. Unfortunately it rained and rained negating any decent
photographic evidence of my visit. At one point I peered through the rain and traffic to find I was going over the Swann River, one of the more scenic parts of Perth...but ah well not today...another time perhaps. After surprising and catching up with my buddies I hit the freeway out of town towards Bunbury. I'm gonna keep on highway one and find a motel out of town for the night..hopefully a better one! The showers of rain keep coming interspersed with clear sunny periods. I turn inland at Bunbury happy with how easy it has been to get out of town and get some kilometres under my belt. As usual I keep going a little too long and finally end up at a town call Bridgetown. This is a pretty place with lots of touristy historic looking buildings. Marianne would like this kind of place to wander about and explore...but now it's winter, and
freezing and dripping everywhere. It's getting late so I do a lap of the long main street and park up. I stomp into the first big pub and ask about rooms. Aaaand they're a bit pricey, but to their credit (or just to get rid of me) they recommend the Freemasons Hotel across the street. The barmaid there shows me a room, I waver for a moment, she drops the price and I'm in. That night I'm snug in a nice warm room above the bar in a classic hotel in one of the colder parts of Western Australia. To be honest though, I'm pretty worn out from the constant days on the road and starting to feel a bit old. Hmm. Tomorrow I'll be on the road early again to hit the bottom of Australia and turn east towards home. I really hope the constant bad weather cycle breaks and eases before I cross the bite...Great Australian one that is!
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| Amazing rainbow on the way out of Perth...photo just not doin it! |
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| Something I might be able to afford at mining town prices perhaps? |
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| The mighty Freemasons Pub. Cold on the outside, warm on the inside! |
REALITY CHECK
On the way to Port Hedland I lifted my visor to scratch my nose and got hit by some sort of huge squishy bug. Splot, right into my glasses on the right hand side exploding and depositing yellow crap all over my eye and face. Yech. I stop and clean it all up with a wet ones wipe and keep going. Fixed sorted.That night my right eye
becomes infected with something grotesque and glues itself shut...oh oh..here we go. I clean her up in the shower that morning and keep going, she'll be right. I can still see a bit and I've got the other eye as a spare. Of course Marianne lectures me on going to the chemist and getting blah blah so of course I don't and, you know, it slowly gets better. As it gets better though I then get some !@#$en throat infection...!@#$K me...which turns into a chest thingo...aaaargh...I've got kilometres to do here piss off.
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| So what are the odds, of lifting your visor, getting hit at that precise moment, with a bug carrying a gallon of infectious yellow crap? |
So here we are.
The bike's got fresh oil and tyres to go the distance and although she's now over eighty she's a pretty spritely eighty...
...but the rider, weeell, I'm a bit knackered. It's gonna be a tough three thousand kilometres to home in the rain and notorious Nullarbor wind...
Listening to
MOST PEOPLE I KNOW THINK THAT I'M CRAZY
Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs 1972
Billy Thorpe died early, but anyone who saw
him perform had to know that someone who performs
with that much intensity could not but
flame out early. Turn it up!
NEXT BLOG...LAST ONE!
BACK ACROSS THE NULLARBOR TO HOME
C'MON PRECIOUS JUST THREE THOUSAND MORE!
MANY THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENTS.
ANY HOME CONJUNCTIVITIS REMEDIES USING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING INGREDIENTS, MUESLI BARS, PANADOL, 20\50 MOTOR OIL, CHAIN LUBE, APPLES, SNICKERS BARS, SOAP, DEODORANT OR TOOTHPASTE WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
CHEERS DEAN
LAP UNDER THE SUN
