Yornaning to Geraldton: Overheating in the rain

Technically, this comes before the previous post but somehow the other one got sent first!!! 

Form Yornaning we continued North and noted the change in the landscape. The lush hills and forrests of The Great Southern region gave way to farm land and huge wheat fields as we headed through the wheat belt of Western Australia. We stopped for lunch in York, a lovely old town and WA's oldest inland settlement. It has a beautiful Town Hall building and many others besides. We took a day trip here from Perth and as it was on our way, we couldn't resist another look as well as another visit to Jules Cafe, a wonderful spot for lunch - how convenient!

We drove on through some lovely countryside and stopped at another winery before heading into Gingin and paying a visit to the Gravity Discovery Centre. It's a fun interactive science centre focussed on gravity and you can do a range of experiments to demonstrate various aspects of gravity, magnetic field and so on. They also have an excellent cosmology gallery all about the evolution of earth and the ascent of man. Unfortunately we arrived within one hour of closing so although we got to see everything, we rather had to skip round which was a shame. By the time we had finished it was 4pm which is when we usually aim for camp and annoyingly, when the rain really started coming down. We pulled into a rest area for the night and hunkered down with wine and books hoping the incessant rain would clear by the morning... 

Luckily for us, the rain stopped and we woke to blue skies and white fluffy clouds albeit with a rather incessant wind. We took a short drive to Guilderton for a caffeine fix before heading north along Indian Ocean Drive. We hadn't gone very far, 30km maybe when the dashboard beeped at me, ENGINE HOT flashing on the display. Shit. There's not really a hard shoulder on this road, a vague patch of gravel to one side at best. When the road straightened out a bit, we found a spot to pull over and Tom took a look under the bonnet. We weren't losing either oil or coolant so it wasn't easy to assess why we had overheated. For the second time on the trip, we called roadside assistance and were towed to the nearest town, Lancelin. Thankfully, it was on our way and only 12km down the road. It would have helped if the roadside team had given the tow truck the correct instructions, but you can't have everything can you? As it happened, we were the only red commodore pulled over that day and the truck soon came to our rescue. The mechanic made a quick assessment as to what caused the issue, given that we had put in a new radiator during our time in Perth. It was the thermostat. Even more luck was on our side that day as they had the part in stock and so we knew we'd be ready to go sooner rather than later. All told we were waiting for about two and a half hours in a charming seaside community on a pretty blustery day. The heavens opened once more, just as we got back to the car.

Owing to the engine trouble, rather than make it to Geraldton as planned, we pulled in for the night at Cervantes. On the way, we called in to visit the remarkable Pinnacles Desert. The pinnacles are pretty amazing limestone formations sticking out of the flat sand around them. They are rather striking, with an other-worldly quality. We saw them as the sun was beginning to set, bathed in orange light. Not too long before the rain caught up with us there as well!!! It follows us around I swear. The discovery centre gave some interesting info on the wildlife at the Pinnacles as well as various theories as to how they were formed, but no one really knows for sure. 

The next day, we woke early to beat the cleaners, that is to say, we had to access the bathroom before they closed it for cleaning. I can't understand why, when check out is 10am, you would close the bathroom between 7:30 and 8:30am? I remain incredulous.

On our way out of Cervantes, we called in at Lake Thetis to see the Stromatolites. Stromatolites are microorganisms found in certain conditions and were instrumental in the development of life on earth. They are believed to be the world's oldest living organisms and the saltiness of the lake meant that they are able to survive with little disturbance. From there it was off to Geraldton, the biggest town for quite some time. 

A day in the life

00:05, Friday 7th February

That's it, over and out and to bed now, sleepy. The glass of wine with the skype convo has kicked in and relegated the shift-work adrenaline to second place in my head. Thursday is but a memory, work is done for another day, thoughts are jumbling around, jumbled and dreaming now.

09:00

'... say hello, go say hello Mosey, go on.' Urgh, I'm not ready to wake up, and roll over to ignore the dog nosing at me from the side of the bed. He licks my leg and noses towards me, then trots away to something more interesting. I've been awake four or five times already today: half-remembered dreams leaving me disorientated, bolt upright in bed, trying to understand the half truths of my right brain.

11:00

Ok body, brain needs coffee now. One-two, ... . Try again. One, two, three, my legs swing round and plant themselves insecurely on the carpet. A push, a stumble, fumbles for clothes then glasses that make no difference to my sleep-encrusted eyes. I wash my face then sip carefully at the coffee before me. It's instant and not nearly as strong as usual - damn not having proper grounds today. Annie puts some hot Nutella-covered muffins down on the table and I'm grateful this isn't a morning she's over-tired too.

11:45

Morning's almost up as we head out. First stop is a coffee shop in Victoria Park East, Antz Inya Pantz. We've bought our last three bags of grinds from there, but last time I was pre-caffeinated and got whole beans instead. After rectifying my mistake and sucking down a cold one (of coffee: it's still just morning after all) it was gone midday. 

12:30 

At the supermarket (Coles, Victoria Park's 'Park Centre') we got limes, grapes, cous cous and an assortment of mundanities like cling film and marg. Our reward for our domestic chores: an apple and walnut scroll from Brumby's. Yum! 

13:20

Driving back along Mill Point Road, we swung off slightly early to get some smoked fish for a salad lunch from South Perth Seafoods. I've a soft spot for hot-smoked salmon from the Fin and Flounder on Broadway in Hackney, but, and I'm sure you can all appreciate my middle-class woe at this point, haven't seen it at all on my travels. True to form, although there was hot smoked whole trout (just not the same) they only had normal (cold) smoked salmon (alas! We bought some anyway). The fishmongers stock was, by a vast majority, frozen, though the range was impressive, and not at all unreasonable in price. I'd still rank Clayton's butchers as my preferred local shop, though.

14:00

Annie has made a cous cous salad with some of the salmon and a piece of halloumi on the side, which I demolish hungrily, washing it down with a freshly ground Bolivian 'Jacoba' coffee from my aeropress.

14:20

Simon prompts us to review the voucher book they have for activities and day trips around Perth. I like the look of sea kayaking out of Ningaloo, though admittedly that's not in Perth but quite a drive up the coast, and Annie noticed a couple of good deals on wine tours in the local wine region of Swan Valley, and even one by boat.

14:22

I'm due in to work at 17:00 today, but then my phone beeps twice:

"Hi Thomas sorry tsunami is not busy you may have off today. Thank you"

Woohoo, day off.

14:30

Annie's work hasn't been cancelled, though we didn't get our hopes up too much. Her shift starts at 4pm, but we've some washing up to do and the time quickly disappears into the temporal morass that is domesticity.

15:30

We're almost ready to leave: Annie for work, me for a first visit to the driving range of the local public golf course. It's really close, and it will be good to see if I can hit the ball on grass any better than on the scrub of the Nullabor.

15:50

I visit the Angelo Street branch of ANZ, my bank, to pay in my cash-in-hand wages and get receipts for the quantities to go with the photos of my wage packets. If the tax man here is anything like the one at home, I doubt they'd be happy with me simply announcing the cash figure (without documentation) on my end of year tax return.

16:25

Why is there so much traffic?! It's taken me 30 minutes to go 3 kilometres. The Aussies clock off early, that must be it. I've just arrived at the golf course and see another text from work:

"Hi Tsunami staff, we organised the schedule this coming valentines day on Feb. 14 Friday, we would like to remind you all that everyone will be free to work with us on that day. Many thanks."

As with many things said at work, this needs some clarification, and it turns they should really have just sent something simple like: 'we need all of you to work on valentines day.' That would be much easier.

17:15

Balls hit, divets dug, now that was quite fun. My hand is starting to suffer from friction burns, so time to leave the land of pristine green grass and head back to the parched outside. There was some rather silly golf dress on display, but the people were friendly and it was a lot more welcoming than on our appearance at the Kalgoorlie golf club at the end of the Nullabor Links. Wow that did make us feel a bit uncomfortable!

18:10

After letting a very friendly Mosey back into the house, I wonder what to make for tea, or if we should go out.

18:20

I look at the events for the Perth Festival, which starts today and lasts a few weeks. It's not very centralised, but I note there's an outdoor cinema showing of the current Robert Redford film about a shipwrecked yachtsman that I know Annie is keen on. It's unallocated, unreservable seating so we might as well buy tickets on the door. There's even a pizza place as part of the venue, somewhere over the river on the University of Western Australia campus. 'Sorted, let's go there', I think.

18:35

OMFG so many ants. And not just the super small worker ants, there are the bulbous angry protecting ants too, hundreds of them going right into... the... food... cupboard. Urgh, nasty, time for ant genocide.

The spray does the trick, and soon nothing is moving. I spray some more, then follow the route back to the window frame with ant-trail masking spray. I have to leave it for a little while, there's just too many of the buggers to deal with right now.

18:50

Ok, I'm a bit calmer now, and wipe them all away, clean the cupboard, respray, done.

19:00

I grab the esky from our room and gather picnic supplies for the movie: diet coke, popcorn, a couple of beers, a bunch of grapes. It all gets packed in with ice blocks, and I scramble to get a blanket, some jumpers (it can be almost chilly at night sometimes) and find where exactly the venue is and where to park.

19:23

Quick, time to leave. Annie should be outside work in 5 mins, which will just give us time to get to the venue - she can call the pizza order in en-route.

19:30

Annie waits with one of her Italian colleagues, Gracie, who cut her finger cleaning the deli slicer. It's a deep cut, so plans change and we're heading back to the house to get the first aid kit. The 'supervisor' had left her with tissue paper which does nothing to staunch the flow of blood.

19:45

The cut is too deep and wide for butterfly stitches, so Annie wraps it with dressing pads as best she can and we cover it all with primapore tape. Nicci and Simon arrive back and immediately start to look for out-of-hours medical centres.

19:55

Nicci finds an open doctors in Belmont who will see Gracie when we arrive. To the car! I drive us along the 4-lane highway (with a very slow speed limit of 60kph / 38mph), Annie directs us to the clinic.

20:10

I plonk myself in the waiting room and pick up a Time magazine from October 2013. Annie helps Gracie complete the medical forms.

20:40

I read an article by Bill Clinton about why he's positive about the future of the world. Gracie gets called through to the doctor

21:10

I read an article about coffee shop variations across the world. The girls are nowhere to be seen. I look for places we can get something to eat, but we're running out of time for Solo Pizza (10pm close), which has the best reputation around.

21:30

As if there's causation, almost the moment I drop the fully-read Time on to the pile, they emerge from the inner sanctum. Gracie has a bandaged finger, three stitches on a local anaesthetic and a tetanus jab. We have to wait ten minutes, in case the wound re-opens? Gracie has a doctors note and can't work tomorrow, so Annie and Gracie talk through what Gracie has to say to the boss on the phone.

21:40

Equipped with the word 'stitches' and the confidence to tell the boss she can't start at 8am tomorrow, Gracie makes the call. Annie gets roped in to going in to work early, and after fighting claims of 'another holiday!', Gracie is all set. Now for some food, but not until we've raided the picnic stash for an M&Ms sugar boost.

21:48

At the lights, I notice another text from work: 

"Hi Thomas tsunami is not busy again you may have off tomorrow Saturday again. Thanks"

Bonus! Wait - I need hours to get paid. Hmm.

21:55

You can do u-turns at traffic lights here, and crossing three lanes from a side-road isn't frowned upon as it would be at home. I'm glad therefore that the traffic is light as we somehow navigate to the wide array of fast food outlets which, along with motels, provide an unbroken neon edge to this wide highway. Dominos had no seating, so we decide on McDonalds, despite it being on the other side of the road. I don't want to re-park, so we jog across and are soon in the comforting warm glow of the 24 hour 'restaurant'.

22:05

We share stories. Gracie talks of a trip to Paris with a boyfriend, also Italian, on which, due to a dislike of French food, they ate at McDonalds every day for a week. Apparently, croissants just aren't as good in Paris as in Sicily, and once you've had burgers a few nights in a row you start to order the salad meals as your first choice!

22:25

We drive Gracie back to her flat by the zoo, and Annie swaps numbers with her. She has to have the stitches out on Wednesday, so we can give her a lift as long as I'm not at work (with the car).

22:50

Annie and I arrive home after what has been quite a long day. I eat grapes and continue to write this, Annie relaxes with a dose of Buzzfeed. We discuss what to do tomorrow after Annie's shift, but we don't know when she'll finish. Maybe the film will still be on? Otherwise there must be some music or dancing. We decide we'll decide tomorrow: my favourite type of decision.

23:40

To bed. What an unexpected turn of events today. I thought it would be a portrait of both our work days, but it does show the changeability of life on zero-hours contracts (ha, I scoff - there's nothing official or contracted about my job!)

We've been in Perth a while now

Everything written here for outsiders includes something along the lines of 'Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world', 'WA is beyond huge' or 'About as close to Southeast Asia as Australia's East'. The problem is that these statements are all too pithy, and while yes, it does take a bloody long time to walk/ride/drive/fly to anywhere over East, once you start living here it's just like being in any other neighbourhood. Well, not quite any neighbourhood:

- it's hot- always sunny, with burning sun and effectively no rain since we arrived in early December (proof: Dec, Jan)
- people are generally friendly
- they don't sound that Australian here
- there's actually a decent public transport system!

We'd have a view like this if we stood on the roof... but normally we just walk 250m to the park for it

We're in South Perth, which is just over the estuarial Swan River from the CBD. The black swans on the river (hence its name) and foreshore had their cygnets recently, which with their grey fluff looked just the same as the standard (white) swan cygnets. The dusty moorhens, coots and ducks add to the similarities with home, though the paperbark eucalypts and palms they use for shade are quite distinctly not British. It's a green city away from the river too, though for a city facing collosal environmental challenges around water needs, low rainfall and flood planes / rising sea levels, they do seem to use the sprinklers a lot. Perth appears a microcosm of Australia as a whole, trying to accommodate every citizen's 1/4 acre dream plot scrubland bungalow, while realising that the 90km continuous suburban sprawl along the coast is very expensive, inefficient and not sustainable. It's pity there's so much mining wealth propping up the expansion.


Have you heard of quokkas? The internet would have you believe that they are the happiest animals in the world, but though they seemed interested and not at all shy, I didn't see them smile when we went cycling on Rottnest Island. A trip to Rotto, as the locals know it (and which my spellcheck wants to amend to rotfl - how lols) is a fave for many Perthites, who appreciate the traffic-free cycling and walking, and the pristine beaches - unpopulated once a few kilometres from the accomodation areas. There's a boat trip to get there; we departed from the CBD jetty and got a waterborne city guide in the bargain.

Much earlier in our trip, we watched the AFL Grand Final (Aussie rules football - confusing and played on a cricket oval with four goalposts at each end) in Melbourne. The losing side was the Fremantle Dockers, who along with the West Coast Eagles comprise WA's contribution to the premier league of this unusual antipodean sport. The city of Fremantle is historic, with several original buildings from the first few years of the settlement, but also fun and friendly. Oddly enough, the presence of a university doesn't really help the feel of the city - too many stale office-like buildings that could be flats and shops, but thankfully the market and cafés compensate really well. Freo (most things are abbreviated here) is just a light railway ride from the CBD, and also quite close to the place I've just got a job at, a bit up the coast in Mosman Park.


Finding jobs here is hard, unless:
- you're fully qualified in whatever over-specific niche is required
- you've 3 years experience doing the job for minimum pay
- you're AMAZINGLY OUTGOING and LOVE serving customers in an EXCELLENT happy mood all the time


Somehow, we've both managed it. I'm the bartender and general wait staff for an upmarket Japanese restaurant. I'm not sure how I fangled this job, though admittedly I'm on just over half of nothing per hour and still in a two week trial period. Annie is doing much better, with a job at a local Italian deli called Scutti, decent hours and a commute that doesn't involve a 25 minute drive each way. Needless to say, the eponymous owners haven't yet been apprised of the colloquial English meaning of 'scutty'.

Going back to where this entry started, we're in South Perth. We're staying with Annie's first cousin once removed (Simon), his wife (Nicci) and dog (Mosey) in their lovely old house. We've been made to feel very welcome, indeed part of the family, and have even gone surfing with one of their friends. Their twin sons Ben and Andrew are great, and I'm sure the esteemed Winthrop Professor (Andrew) would (secretly) appreciate a shameless plug here for his book, 'Will Mozart Make My Baby Smart?' (Hint: ... umm, actually I haven't read it yet, oops).

One of the strange things in Perth is that despite its size, everyone seems connected here: Simon and Nicci know random baristas in town, and my colleague also works at Annie's workplace. Strange though, I thought she didn't know this suburb when I said I was living in South Perth - guess she was just taking the piss out of my accent! There's a nice small-town feel in Perth that comes with the urban sprawl and low-ish population density, and the coffee shop culture that Britain has tried to adopt over the last decade or so really doesn't come close to what Perth has. There are some chains, sure, but outside the malls it's mostly little independent places with top-notch modern Italian coffee machines and speciality blends from a variety of regional and local roasteries - favourite so far is Mano A Mano at the Gordon Street Garage in West Perth. Simon and Nicci are regulars at a certain place on Angelo Street near Annie's work, and are on first name terms with not only the serving staff but also several other customers and their dogs. There are free communal BBQ stations in the foreshore park. A local school backing onto Angelo Street also opens the gym and pool when school isn't on. There are lots of things that contribute to the coffee culture, and even if Britain misses the point, it's a pretty good thing to aim for.

Planning is hard work, and remembering to keep well hydrated is key

 We started planning the next big section of our trip yesterday. Roughly, we're just going to follow the coast road, Highway 1, with a few big detours to Darwin, Uluru and Cairns and probably lots of smaller detours like we've written about previously on our coastal journey from Adelaide to Melbourne. All-in, we've probably another 15,000 kms before we get back to Melbourne, and are planning to leave Perth around the end of March, giving us around 6 months - plenty of time! I'm particularly looking forward to driving through the Pilbara (have a look at the photos on this blog!), seeing crocs (from a distance!) in the Top End, visiting the Riversleigh fossils in Queensland (and thus completing the World Heritage listing it shares with the caves in Naracoorte, SA), and especially trying to get to the tropical paradise of the Whitsunday Islands . There's lots more to see and do on the way of course, and Annie is excited about all the Big Things the Queenslanders have made, though less excited when we read about the man-made termite mound in Mataranka, NT.