Really On The Road. Day 1

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It’s a few days later now, as I type this.  Unfortunately, time to write posts is at a mimimum, but we’ve been taking lots of photographs, so perhaps the best thing is to do a photo commentary.  Then you’ll get the best of both worlds.

Also, although I have a stick modem that technically covers all of Western Australia, it’s only a technical coverage.  In fact, that coverage can cut out at any moment as we’re barrelling along the tarmac (a two-lane skinny piece of bitumen is considered a highway, here at the toe-end of Western Australia).  Losing your Internet connection as you’re trying to write a blog post can be a BAD THING.

So after losing three posts because of satellite drop-out, I finally wised-up (she can be taught). What I’m doing now is typing this post in Word, resizing photos as I go along, so the post isn’t the size of Uluru, chopping the post into smaller sized pieces, then uploading a post when I have coverage.  Makes everything much safer and easier.  (In fact as I was typing this paragraph, my network coverage died as we drove further away from Norseman…but I’ll catch you up on that).

We hit the road last Tuesday.  We’re driving around in what most North Americans would call a Winnebago, but Australians just call a van.

On the south-west highway, heading for Bunbury.  Gum trees and dried out bush.
Australia has been short on water for years now.

Mark riding shotgun.

Mark’s first kangaroos.  The pic is grainy because the kangaroos
were a long way away, and the camera was at
full zoom.  This has been cropped and expanded.

Busselton Lighthouse

We visited relatives in Bussleton (I have relatives all over Western Australia!), then started doing the tourist thing.

Around Busselton is where all the south western national parks and the really big karri trees start to appear.  If you’re used to wide open prairie, like Mark and me, or miles and miles of flat, hill-less and treeless land like most Western Australians, the south west corner of the state is a wonderland.

Busselton:  Longest Jetty in the southern hemisphere.

 

Giant Moreton Bay Fig tree, Busselton Beach.  If you look very closely, you’ll start to notice more and more Sulphur Crested White Cockatoos sitting on the branches (it’s sort of like “Where’s Waldo?” times one hundred).  The fig trees liniing the beach had hundreds of them, all cawing loudly.

We spent the first night just outside of Busselton.

My mum and dad, and me, with the ever-faithful laptop on my knee,
madly trying to get the first of my lost posts up.  Mark is behind the camera, of course.

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