Perth-Esperance-Perth ~ 2660km 2010/07/15

Arrival to Australia wasn’t very smooth. I had to go through a detailed check-up of all my belongings and an interview at the customs. Relieved after the ‘green sign’ to enter the country, I went off. Had a little of free internet use at air port before though. Got a lift to Perth, which I left the second day for Fremantle town. Finaly I bought a new gas stove, so back to noodles and oats 😀 Although mornings now are muesli-only 🙂 I spent some couple days at Fremantle and went down to Augusta, visiting quite a few towns on the way: Mandurah, Bunbury, Busselton, Dunsborough. All were near the ocean, so I had some swims 🙂 even though it’s winter here, which could be compared to our autumn temperature-wise, but much more sunny 😀 Before going south of Dunsborough I had a really awesome detour with Larry, who got me a ride there – we visited Cape Naturaliste with all the nice surroundings there: Bunkers Bay, Eagles Bay, Sugarloaf Rock 🙂

On the way to Augusta I planned to visit some cave. Decided to go for Mammoth Cave. There were like tons of others there. No wonder road going down was called Caves Road 😀 Cave was really awesome and whats important big enough to have it enjoyed enough – cavern was 30 meters high and 80 meters long. Well, having mp3 audio guide also proved to be an asset 🙂 Access cost me 20$ though. Crazy. Well one cave for Australia goes now, no need for more 😀 Now I wondered if there would be an access fee for Cape Leeuwin lighthouse near Augusta where I was heading next. Luckily it was free. Got there with help of some Taiwanese tourists. After Augusta I was heading for Albany. That day was my birthday by the way. And first half of it sucked big time. No rides or traffic whatsoever and frequent irritating raining 😐 Things got much better when I suddenly got a ride to Bridgetown by this Anthia woman, who was coming and turning back a few times to Nannup to try and do some street performing with her guitar. She ended up inviting me over to camp near her house. Later I got some cake in town store and had some birthday celebration at her place, while watching some New Zealand musician Neil Finn’s concert on DVD 🙂 I also spent Sunday in Bridgetown. Hitchhiking on this day is more or less impossible, just family full cars on the road. Went to I think non-conventional Church with Anthia, quite a different experience from Catholic ones. Later we went to Bridgetown Pottery and Tea Rooms cafe, where Anthia was playing her guitar, while I was strolling across water paint exhibition in the next room. In the evening there was another music performance at Bridgetown Hotel restaurant. Got free beer there from one of the organizators by the way ;D Overall town is really full of artistic people or people playing music, quite a thing for such a small settlement 🙂

On monday I went further to Albany through Manjimup and later Denmark. In Albany I spent a day wondering around, was invited to some Couchsurfer’s place while doing that, but had trouble contacting her on the phone later, so went of for Esperance, which was almost 500 km away, but this I managed to cross in a day. First time for Australia, that I had some rides with truckies and with an aboriginal too by the way. Lastly some couple returning to Sydney got me all the way to Esperance. Next day I visited what is considered best beach in Western Australia – Twilight Beach, with amazing crystal clear water and awesome wave colours – and this is on a cloudy day 😀 Weather got bad after that though. I ended up in the town centre reading a Bible, which I got as a present from Anthia in Bridgetown. Because of this act I was invited to Elise, who was a traveler herself, house to have a dinner with her family and a shower. Wow, nice one 😀 Got another book from her interpreting the Bible 😀 Well, now I have something to do while on the wait for rides in Australia xD That day I ended up staying over at Elises friends Janice and John place. Saw some Tour de France. Seems like there’s another sports fever going out there in the world 😀

From Esperance it was a road to Kalgoorlie, which I took. On the way I had a ride with a veterinarian, who invited me to see his operation on an Angus breed cow, that had a dead cub inside. Well,… I saw some nasty stuff, some unseen torture like instruments used 😐 Cub was pulled halfway from the back, cut in half inside cow and then other half was taken out from an opening cut out on the side of cow. Anyway, I didn’t vomit or even turned away from any sight, which sort of made me proud in a way for my strong nerves. I am vegetarian by the way 😀 I got to Kalgoorlie only on the next day and it was Sunday. This is considered a rather big city, but it was practically empty, which was even more eerie, than the Antony Gormley Statues on Lake Ballard 200 km to the North, which I decided to go and visit at that time. Getting there was difficult. Road was going through some semi-abandoned towns situated around some mines. Mining is the main income source for Western Australia by the way. But once mine is down, town is down as well pretty much. So there are some ghost towns around in Australia’s Golden Outback 😀 Kalgoorlie is one of such towns and it has one huge mine called Super Pit, where they mine for gold 🙂 After Kalgoorlie I was going back to Perth. Most of the distance I crossed with Afgan guy Ahmad, who was returning after a big quarrell with his wife and speeding a lot, which is totally not common in Australia.

P.S.: Yes. I saw some kangaroos. From afar though, so no pics, or dead on the road, but from a car going 80-100 km/h. There is a big variety of birds in Australia and lots of parrots. It’s all good and all, but walking under trees or whenever in towns near ocean isn’t safe because of some bird bombing danger. Had to clean my light jacket once, no bigie though. Once though I had a close call when a big group decided to get a dump. 0.5 meter inaccurate xD People in Australia are generally good natured and all, but big paranoics for hitchhiking, which got a bad publicity in Queensland state after some guy killed 6 or so hitchhikers 20 years ago. So I often get rides only from past hitchhikers or some surfers, travellers or simple people, who are not too damn rich and paranoid about this stuff 😀 Anyway, I am enjoying my stay here. Ended up at the same place where I started after 3 weeks. Now I will be going along the coast to Darwin, then down to Alice Springs and Adelaide.

Photo: click