Friday, January 2nd

Wrong Way

A grey, dull summer morning awoke over Ascot, a town bordering Perth’s airport yet strangely and somewhat appropriately home not only to all the commercial confusion an airport brings but also a horse racing track.

The wonders of time zones had me up early even though I had only really arrived around midnight, the twenty-five hours of aviating half-way around the world extended by a first contact with the pleasant nature of the local citizenry. While a sixty-five minute layover in Hong Kong had been a surprisingly relaxed affair for me, even with a ten minute arrival delay, my bag, sadly, hadn’t quite made it. The half hour it takes to fill out the forms was enjoyable covered with a lovely chat. Better yet, the friendly ground handlers saved me a trip to a cash point by handing me two yellow plastic strips with the number fifty printed on.

They had also promised that the bag would arrive the very next morning, which, if true, would neatly avoid any changes to my admittedly vague plans (mostly, they did not include returning to the airport after three days). We had agreed on a delivery to the hotel by ten thirty yet over coffee I found out that the hotel’s checkout time was already at ten. Instead of waiting, I decided to stop by the airport and see if I cold convince them to hand me over my bag right away.

That meant returning to Australian roads and their left-sided perils. So far, things had gone surprisingly well, the car was undamaged and emergency stopping manoeuvres had not been necessary either. My only repeat-offence had been to activate the windscreen wipers instead of indicating. While the Australian instrument arrangement thankfully left the pedals in their usual order, it did swap the levers attached to the steering wheel. This meant that I had to operate the indicator with the right hand which, of course, was impossible to remember in the frenzy of a last minute turn.

Carefully I drove off the hotel parking lot and towards the airport, this time following the signs instead of my time-warped sense of direction and thus not driving twenty-five kilometres for a fifteen kilometre trip. My bag was indeed happily sitting atop a stack of lost items. This time, the formalities whirlwinded so quickly that I was off the airport parking lot without even having to pay.

But there was more start-of-journey chores. For these I had scouted an establishment called the Belmont Forum Shopping Centre only a few miles to the west, where I now successfully wiper-indicated my way to. Inside, not only the mall’s layout was confusing, but I hadn’t heard of most of the store’s names, either. You have to travel quite far these days to be able to walk through a mall dazzled by the unfamiliar names and logos.

Two things I needed: a plentiful supply of water and a hat. Since there happened to be a book store, too, I also looked for a guide book. Not being all that big, they only had the Lonely Planet, but then, isn’t Lonely Planet Australian? Sadly, the book didn’t say, it only was ‘Printed in China.’ Despite my better judgement (or let’s more accurately call it prejudices against guidebooks of all kinds), I bought it anyway.

Back in the car, the journey could finally start. The obvious thing to do in Western Australia was to visit the coast south of Perth. The obvious thing for me thus was to not do that. This time, I even had a good reason: it was Friday during holiday season. A quick poll for accommodation had come back pretty much fully booked. So instead I decided to head east. Nobody heads east.

This should have been quite simple: The road was ingeniously called the Great Eastern Highway. All I had to do was stick to it. But something very ironical had happened to my sense of orientation during the last ten or so years: I had lost it. Inevitably, I turned the wrong corner somewhere. Luckily, I had gained stubbornness in exchange and just kept driving on. After a mad dash through the far away suburbs of Perth, past a large golf course, and by my first kangaroo warning sign, I eventually and much to my relieve, found the Great road again.

Soon, the suburbs quietly died away and were replaced by wild bush. The soil was distinctly Australian, a sort of yellowish red or perhaps a reddish yellow. The trees were very green and preferred to grow wide sideways instead of up. Where there were no trees, a yellow grass was growing knee-tall. But for the moment, there was mostly trees.

Only as the land grew hillier, the trees became smaller and less and further in between. The grass also started to disappear. It was replaced by eponymous bushes.

This transformation slowly happened in the forty-five kilometres to Northam, with its seven thousand strong population the largest town around. It lay off the main highway and afforded a five kilometre detour. After many suspenseful signs, the road finally crossed the Avon river on a narrow metal bridge. The river was shallow and wide and full of white birds. On the yonder shore loomed a large stone building of a former factory. Past lay the town’s centre.

Unlike American towns, where the merchants had abandoned the centre for concrete boxes happily provided by their new franchise overlords, here main street was still intact. It was lined on both sides with shop after shop. There even were art galleries and arts and craft stores. People were milling about, even if only to quickly venture from their automobiles to the shops.

The buildings were very traditionally main street: narrow yet deep storey brick or concrete buildings with a one-and-a-half storey front wall and a sheet metal sunroof over the side walk.

It took quite some time before the shopping wonderland ended with yet another river crossing. Along the five kilometre long return to the Great Highway was a ‘Road Train Assembly Area.’ Road trains, a very Australian thing and star of many an overly dramatic documentary series, are basically articulated lorries with one or more extra trailers attached. On this particular road, a sign dutifully warned, they were allowed to reach a length of 36.5 metres which one indeed should consider when overtaking.

Back in the lonely bush, the highway started collecting some supporting cast: a train line, several power lines, and, eventually, a mysterious pipeline. The latter was about half a metre in diameter and assembled from steel pipe segments. I stopped at the next parking lot to try to figure outs its nature but only managed to attract a swarm of flies. New rule: don’t ever leave the car door open lest you want to spend the next ten minutes on an intense insect hunt.

While the land kept transforming into ever drier versions, a sign flew by announcing the Meckering Earthquake Fault Line. Yet either I didn’t react quickly enough or it wasn’t quite as impressive as it sounded, but I couldn’t see anything abnormal.

The mystery was solved a few miles on in the town of Meckering which featured the Meckering Memorial Park including some helpful displays. Shortly before eleven o’clock on October 14, 1968, the town was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Australia, 6.9 on the Richter scale.

The quake’s epicentre was about nine kilometres away from town. It produced the fault line 37 kilometres long and up to 1.5 metres tall. One of the displays showed a picture of it. I definitely would not have missed it had it still been there.

The memorial park was yet another result of the earthquake. It was a lovely small garden under the shades of some large trees. This being Australia, it featured a barbecue grill besides a few benches and a lavatory.

It also showed a segment of pipeline telescoped into itself by the force of the earthquake and uncovered its purpose: it supplies the towns and cities to the east with fresh water.

Cunderton, the next village, featured the pipeline’s Pump #3, now, by the looks of it, a rather lovely museum with all sorts of machinery displayed in a garden around the surprisingly large brick pump house. Sadly, I decided to not pay it a visit.

Instead, I drove through a series of small towns, each with a short sequence of shops along the main road, not unlike small versions of Northams. One or two had a grain elevator at

A sign warns, ‘Don’t drive tired,’ which was becoming a bit of an issue on account of jet lag. I decided to stop in the next town, preferably for coffee or at least for a stroll. This next town turned out to be Merredin, home of Pump #4.

The town centre was off the highway to the left. It, too, featured a line of all the shopping you could possibly want. But here all the shops were on the left side of main street only. The right side doubled as both a park and parking. Either benefited from the shades provided by the large calm trees.

Among the businesses was Cafe 56 where I retired to and first ordered and then enjoyed a Flat White. After I stopped by the local super market to purchase some emergency food supply. Sadly, the ingenious ready-made package of baby carrots has not made it to (Western?) Australia just yet and I settled for a random choice from the baffling selection of biscuits.

On the way back to the car I paid the visitor centre a short visit or, more accurately, its loo. I couldn’t quite resist and also nosed around the neighbouring railway station yet bravely skipped the Railway Museum and rather drove on.

A few miles out of town all its liveliness was quickly forgotten and the lonely road prevailed. The only excitement was promised by a sign announcing the Number 1 Rabbit Proof Fence.

Another hour and I rolled into Southern Cross. It was past four by now and Kalgoorlie, the next city, was at least another two hours away. I decided to end the day here. As if to approve of this decision, tumbleweed rolled across the street. Yes, it was that kind of town.

I carefully chose one of the three, possibly four establishments offering accommodation. The owner told stories of woe relayed by his earlier guests about the failing radiators of their vehicles. I preferred blissful ignorance regarding the state of my own car.

By the time I had settled in my room and then wandered into town, five thirty had come rolling around like a big ball of temporal tumbleweed. All stores along main street closed in panic, except for a rather dodgy pub. I wandered back to the motel and started with my chores.

Threatening to fall asleep again, I decided to drive out of town to to capture the sunset, back west straight into the unreasonably large fireball rapidly diving down. But I couldn’t find the right spot in time. Too quickly the land became agrarian and dull. I turned around and drove back as dusk started behind and soon to the left of the road. Suddenly I found my spot—no surprise there—at Southern Cross’ railway station. And I had been wrong, it wasn’t too late.

Beyond the tracks the land opened up into an endless field, framed, off in the far left and right, by the beginning woods. Halfway left, the sun had set, its last act to finally torch away the clouds that had imprisoned the sky all day. The tall, menacing front of those clouds hung just straight ahead. To the left were scattered cloud lines, remains of earlier defeat.

Not quite done yet, the sun tore its light from below the horizon into these clouds. The front was ablaze: fiery yellow along its outermost lines; angry, hellish red further back. Defence in darkest grey where the sun’s light couldn’t reach any more. Shifting lines of darkest red and blue further and further away into the cloud’s safe hinterland.

The dying left lines couldn’t afford grey any more. Glowing in yellow and red, they traced across the undeterred blue sky.

I helplessly stood there and stared. This, undoubtedly, was the second most beautiful thing I had ever seen.