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Hi all
So the next day was spent bimbling around the campsite doing washing, cleaning out Priscilla, starting the long job of catching up the postcards on the computer and generally doing nothing much at all. In the evening though, we headed into town and spoke to Ameth and Stu on the phone, before calling it a night and heading home to bed. Sweet.
The next morning though we packed and headed off to Esperance, via the Albany wind farm. This place was fantastic. It was built in 2001 and now provides up to seventy five per cent of Albany’s power. Seventy five per cent. And there are only twelve of them. And there’s no future in sustainable energy apparently. What we really need are more nuclear reactors...
The turbines are absolutely firkin huge. Gargantuan even. Standing at the bottom looking up and watching them spin made me feel giddy and I got the ridiculous urge to climb up and grab one of the propellers and get spun all the way round. Like a daredevil Windy Miller. Obviously I didn’t but it was easy to imagine what a ride it’d be.
We left there and headed off for one more stop. This time at a place that has a natural bridge (check out the picture on this postcard) and a natural gap. These are rock formations that have been around for million of years (sorry creationists), formed when the Earth’s crust was still bubbling. And it looks like it still is. It really isn’t difficult to imagine what it must’ve been like and is one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever had.
Australia and the Antarctic move away from each other at about five centimetres a year. As they do, the rocks tumble and crash into the sea and the bits that are left form a natural bridge. This too will eventually fall, and that creates what’s known as a gap. Pretty simple really. But the are two excellent examples and I guess you really have to see the scale of it to truly appreciate the massive forces at play. So I’ll stop going on about it.
As we sat having lunch and poring over our map, we decided that we’d forego the chance to go and see the Stirling Ranges, which are after all another walk up a mountain and a lookout point, and head instead straight for Esperance. And then something strange happened. Mand wouldn’t let me drive. Was adamant in fact that she was going to drive the whole way. This came totally out of the blue considering up until this point I’d done perhaps 99.9 % of the driving. Mainly due, it has to be said, that neither of us trust my map reading skills. So I kicked back, put my feet on the dashboard and happily smoked and ate my way all the way down to Esperance. Beautiful.
The only other thing to be noted on the entire trip was that it was the first time we had to piss by the roadside. Something which struck us as pretty grim at the time (Mand in particular), but has now become so normal that we don’t even notice any more when cars and trucks thunder past beeping and waving. In a strange way, it’s brought us closer. Just thought I’d mention it...
And so it was a few hours later that we trundled into Esperance and headed for the Big 4 Holiday Park. We’d enjoyed ourselves so much in the one in Albany that we bought membership to the Big 4 club and were now able to enjoy discounts everywhere we went. They tend to be a bit sterile and characterless, but at least you always know you’re going to get hot showers and a well maintained, clean kitchen. Some might say boring, I prefer classy :o)
Andy and Kimbers meanwhile had booked into a different campsite and were unreachable by phone so we settled in for an early night. When they phoned us later it was to let us know that they were leaving first thing in the morning but we could all meet up for coffee before they went. Cool beans.
Laters all
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PS Is that the shortest postcard ever? I reckon it’s got to be :o)
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