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Australia
Esperance
17-18 April, 2007
Esperance, Western Australia
We've now been in Australia for about 3 1/2 weeks, and it's time for some observations. The first thing that we noticed is that Australian culture is very similar to U.S. culture. Of course, this appearance of similarity might be due to our recent experience in Southeast Asia, which is very different from the Western cultures of the U.S. or Australia.
We had planned to leave Esperance today and make our way across the vast Nullarbor Plain. However, we woke up a little too late, and as the first decent place to stop is about 700 km (437.5 miles) we'd have to drive in the dark, which we've heard is quite dangerous. Therefore, we've decided to stay one more night here, getting ready for the long drive.
We arrived in ‘Oz’ with Andy still reeling from his knee surgery in Singapore, meaning we spent the first week or so in convalescence. Mostly this involved lying around or hobbling on crutches. We tried to look for a car, but had little luck until we moved to central Perth. There, we bought a 1986 Toyota Corona station wagon from some German backpackers who wanted to upgrade to a 4x4. Perhaps we paid a little too much (AU$1,800). However, the car was just what we were looking for and we hope to be able to break even, or possibly turn a small profit when we sell it in Sydney.
The second day we had the car — tentatively named ‘Bertha’ — we had our first, and hopefully last, mechanical problem. We were heading south to the wine region of Margaret River and in the outskirts of Perth, the car began to chug and stall out. Fortunately, we were in an industrial area with several auto mechanics. A very kind mechanic pulled himself away from his heavy workload — it was just before Easter weekend, a major Aussie travel holiday — and determined that the problem was an electrical one. It could, the mechanic said, probably be fixed by replacing the distributor. We made our way to several wreckers (junkyards), eventually found the piece and a mechanic to swap the old one. After that, the car was running great!
We made our way to Margaret River and set up camp at a caravan park. While the caravan park was just alright, the Margaret River area is really fantastic. There are hundreds of wineries, nice beaches and other good things. We went on a tour of wineries, led by a woman we had met a few days before, and tasted and bought too much wine! We also met a nice couple, Jodie and Yoshi, who we toured the area with. We then returned to Perth, after a brief visit to Augusta.
In Perth, Andy spent seven hours in line, trying to get new license plates for Bertha. The car is registered in South Australia, and we would have liked to switch the registration to Western Australia. This would have allowed us to take the north route through Oz. However, to switch the ‘rego’ the car needed to pass an inspection, which it didn't. The repairs the inspector mandated were excessive — a new windshield, new seatbelts, a new steering column, new shocks and something called an immobilizer, which is an anti-theft device. All in all, the repairs would total at least AU$2,000. However, we learned that we can avoid these repairs by going to South Australia, so we decided to cross Australia via the south.
After leaving Perth a few days ago, we began traveling east and stopped at a place called Wave Rock, which is a giant rock formation in the form of … you guessed it, a wave! We then camped at Lake King and the following day went to Esperance. We camped near Esperance, at Cape Le Grande National Park, about 60 km (37.5 miles) east of the town. We spent a couple nights camping there, the first of which we'll never forget. As night approached, lightning filled the sky and thunder echoed throughout the park. Eventually the rain came, but as we'd already confirmed that our tent is waterproof, we weren't too worried. At 3 a.m., though, a very powerful storm came through and tore the rainguard from our tent, exposing us to the raging storm, which pounded us as it came off the sea, a mere hundred yards from us! We were running around in the pouring rain and flashing lightning, in nothing but our underwear, trying to gather blankets, lanterns and whatever else we could salvage from the deluge. We spent the rest of the night in the car, shivering and wet. We camped one more night in Cape Le Grande, then headed back to Esperance and took a room in a hostel. It felt really good to sleep in a bed — for the first time in three weeks!
Tomorrow we'll be back in the tent, but it's nice to enjoy the warmth of the indoors, at least for a couple nights!