Over two weeks on the road, heading north from Perth up the West Coast of Australia and including a side trip into the Pilbara region to visit Karijini National Park - meant many, many hours behind the wheel(s) of my rented camper(s).
(This is my third posting on Australia - you can read the previous two posts at An African Guide in Australia and Aaaahhh... the birds)
I've done a lot of solo road trips and through sheer necessity have acquired the not-quite-so-safe "skill" of taking photographs whilst driving....... If I had to stop every time for a photo I would never get anywhere! So, yes, I do take some care - the road has to be relatively empty and sort of straight before I risk picking the camera up. I have it set on the highest shutter speed possible, and it's quite amazing how good a few of the photos turn out to be. More important, I have a visual record of my journeys.
Some of that
road journey through the magnificent Western Australian landscape I would like to share with you now......
It didn't take many days for me to realise that there were 3 main types of road user, with a small variation in types of vehicle used.....
The largest and most intimidating were the Road Trains. These thundered up and down the highways at a steady 110+ kph, and as a result I got overtook by many.......
Then there were the "Grey Nomads" - retired Australians spending the winter (or more) on the road, in their caravans, sometimes with boats.
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| my campervan for week 1 |
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| my "camper" for week 2 |
And of course there were the "Travellers", people like myself, mostly foreign, and in an assortment of rental campervans (although I saw so many Apollo Campervans I thought I was being haunted by them!)
Over the two weeks I came across 3 or 4 sets of amazingly brave cyclists.....
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| Thorny Devil - amazing camouflage! |
As I mentioned in a previous post, once I got further north I saw very little animal life, but apart from the birds I had these two amazing lizard sightings and I got quite close to cattle a few times although they tended to be very skittish if you stopped.
The Thorny Devil doesn't move much, and this particular one I was able to stop and move him off the road.
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| A large Goanna crossing |
On the way up the coast I stayed in a string of caravan parks, but on my trip into the Pilbara I also camped a night in a roadside rest area and another at Bullara Station.
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| 24hr roadside Rest Area |
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| next to the beach |
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| on the Station |
A road trip is all about the journey.... I visited some amazing destinations which I will post about separately, but this particular road trip was about seeing Australian landscapes....... read my very next posting to see some of my favourite photos...
here
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