Nothing much has changed in the 40+ years since I last passed this way…
I started early, not wishing to drive into the afternoon sun as I neared the coast. The road was good except for stretches of corrugation (yes, corrugated bitumen) and just an occasional bend to keep the driver interested. The journey was flat enough to run at a good, long-range cruise of 7.6 litres per 100kms, so the Treasury was chuffed. There was very little traffic, so stopping to take photographs was no big deal today. If only the Bruxner Highway was this easy!
Roadside colour: dead scrub, grey grass and red ant hills.
What an amazing country this is. I can get away with remarks like that, because I suppose I still see everything with English eyes. I reached Geraldton at 1pm and checked into the Big4 caravan park after a 20-minute drive around to get my bearings. This is a smaller donga but it’s posher than the last and has a double bed, so probably doesn’t deserve to be called a donga. It has a verandah and the back windows overlook the low sand dunes and Sunset Beach. There’s no smell of anything but the sea. No wet dog smell – or worse. The towels are thick and large.
On the way here I stopped at Yalgoo, once my local township. There doesn’t seem to be as much of it as I remember, but then, there’s probably not as much of Tenterfield as there once was, either. I encountered a couple of ore trains on the way to the coast. No Mullewa Flyer these days. I’m told it hasn’t run since the 1970s. What a way to travel! All night and half a day from Perth, much of the journey spent waiting to allow other, more important trains to pass during the night. The great joy of the Mullewa Flyer was it’s Wild-West style balcony on the back of the last carriage, where you could lean on the railings and watch the world go by backwards.
More canola, or rape for my English friends. I told you the sun shines upwards, didn’t I?
Such huge fields of crops quite surprised me as I approached Mullewa. In fact, from there to the coast the sight of this sort of cropping country was a shock to the system. Things change, don’t they?
I plan to go up to Mount Scott to see the sunset at the HMAS Sydney memorial this evening, then take myself off in search of a juicy steak. It’s been so long since I sank my teeth into a piece of red meat, I fear I shall fade away.