For the fifth time in six days I woke up to a different woman letting herself into my room. On this occasion it was the lady of the house in Mundrabilla who had let herself in. Rather than anything which cant be repeated here, as soon as she realised I was still in bed she made her apologies and left the room. I checked the time to see 7:55 looking back at me from my mobile phone screen. I had beans on toast for breakfast and was delighted to catch the westerly tailwind as I walked back to my room to pack up. I was thinking about education a bit this morning and the two young daughters of the motel owners were on my mind. Their school was in Kalgoorlie a whopping almost 900kms away. All their classes were transmitted from there to a dedicated classroom in their house by satellite and they were able to interact with their teachers and other class mates through a purpose built system. Once they are old enough for secondary school its off to Boarding school where a two hour flight and nine hour car journey each way is required to get between locations. Once out on the road towards Eucla the distance was done in no time, barely a hill either up or down to disturb the pace of the day. The continuous bluffs which lay about a kilometre to the left hand side were the sole feature of my day as they had been for most of yesterday. They formed a natural barrier which millions of years ago actually formed the southern coastline of the continent. Seismic movement over the intervening period has seen the plate rise enough to sit just above sea level and created the flat plain Ive crossed during the last two days. About two kilometres out from Eucla the road turned to head directly for the bluff and a short drag through the Eucla Gap was to prove the hardest bit of work of the last few days. I checked in to the motel and when I emerged after my shower it seemed as if Id either walked into the set of Mad Men or the time had rewound a few decades. All bar a single car was at least forty years old and would have looked perfectly at home in the 70s classic Grease. Turns out a large group of classic car owners were en route to Perth to a show there. They were travelling in convoy and had parked about twenty classics in the car park around my room. The views of the ocean are spectacular. The Southern Ocean is about two or three kilometres to the south of the motel on the lower side of the previously mentioned bluffs which now become the cliffs that make up the Great Australian Bight. Tomorrow promises some excellent views from the road along the top of the cliffs across the entire two hundred kilometres towards the settlement of Nullarbor.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:53:46 +0000
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