I awoke well rested this morning, which was a blessing, given the long day of driving we have ahead of us. Despite the many miles we must put beneath the rings of rubber of ‘The Beast’ and van, we had no set time to be on the road. We had thankfully rang ahead the other day, to the sole caravan park in Exmouth that accepts dogs, and were lucky enough to book the last remaining site within the canine section of the park. So, with no hurry to arrive in Exmouth to squabble over where to park, we were able to kick the generator into gear again, allowing us to run the microwave for long enough to prepare us both a nice big bowl of warming porridge for breakfast.

With breakfast done, I went to switch the generator off, stretching and scratching as one might do after a good nights rest, safe in the knowledge that we were the only caravan left in the rest area. What I hadn’t counted on was the influx of early risers, already pulling in for their morning tea. Here I was, like a deer in the headlights, clad in my pajamas, still bleary eyed, trying to make out what the big bloke with the heavy English accent was asking me. As it turns out, he had let his wife work out their fuel economy, and somewhere along the line the calculation had gone awry. This resulted in them pulling in here and asking me if I had any spare diesel which they could purchase.

A quick calculation in my own head, considering the distance we had to travel today and the fuel I had in the tank, coupled with the two 20 litre jerry cans in the tub, and I allowed that I could manage to spare a jerry can of fuel to help out a fellow traveller. This was a solution to my English friends conundrum to which he was very amenable. Price wasn’t discussed, but I wanted only what I paid for the fuel, which was a little under $40.00. After pouring the precious juice into his own vehicles tank, he proffered me a $50.00 note. I quickly said that I would get him some change, as I wasn’t doing the deal to make a quick buck, but rather only helping out. Even after returning $10.00 to him, I walked away a couple of dollars up, but felt bad for even that.

We weren’t far from being ready to head off, so with a cheery wave, we turned out of the rest area and onto the highway. Almost immediately, I regretted my congenial offer to help the stranded traveller and his mathematically inept wife, as a flanking head wind beat the nose of ‘The Beast’, turned the caravan into a giant wind catching sail and saw our own fuel usage rising to previously unseen heights. So much so that it looked as if my sole remaining jerry can full of diesel might not see us through to Exmouth. I hardly took any notice of the scenery this morning, as I struggled to find the sweet spot on the speedometer that would see us travelling at a reasonable speed while using as little fuel as possible. I was constantly scanning the speedo, odometer, fuel economy gauge and the numbers flashing by ever so slowly on the screen of ‘Shazza’ telling us how far we were yet to travel. It just wasn’t happening. By any stretch of the imagination, it was going to be a close run thing.

Our final chance to buy fresh fuel was barely 100Km down the road and the decision had to be made. Drive on by and hope for a change in the prevailing wind or pull in and fill up. I decided that I didn’t want to chance coming across someone as pleasant as myself, in the middle of nowhere with a spare can of fuel, so in we rolled only to be faced with another milestone. At $1.999 per litre, this will be the most we have thus far shelled out for fuel. I was starting to think that maybe I should have taken the offered fifty bucks this morning. At least we will now make it to Exmouth without running out of go, go juice.

Back on the road, knowing that we were fully juiced up, I gave up on economy, and instead went for speed. I pegged the clock at a steady 100Km/h and as it turned out, the wind almost immediately changed tack, all the better for us and our fuel economy started to level out again. I worked it out once we pulled into Exmouth several hours later, and my decision to fuel up might have been rather appropriate, given that we would have been left with less than 2 litres of diesel in the tank had we not.

Becs view of the world.

With our fuel issue solved, I was able to finally sit back and watch the scenery speed past. Our sprawling plains were back, but somewhat broken up by vast expanses of low lying shrubs and fractured rises of jagged red rocks. It was all kind of relaxing, until one point when I looked in my rear view mirror, as I generally do when I spot traffic coming towards us. In this case it was a road train barreling down the road towards us. With an exclamatory phrase I wouldn’t mention to my own mother, I saw in my mirror a ute midway through an overtaking maneuver. I looked back to the truck, then again to the ute. There was no way it was going to get past us, despite it being quite obvious that the driver of the ute was still trying to accelerate, rather than braking to pull back behind us. My eyes went back to the truck, all that much closer and bigger in my windscreen, then back again to the ute, still stuck out on the wrong side of the road, somewhere about level with the back of ‘The Beast’. With an screaming stream of expletives that would put a dockside bar full of tars and old salts to shame, I hit the anchors, giving the ute just enough space to squeeze in front of us. Seconds later and the dim witted driver would have been wearing a brand new set of braces fashioned out of a truck bull bar. I was left pondering if the driver of the ute even knew how close to death we had all been as it sped off into the distance, leaving Bec and I to slowly bring our heart rates back from a triple digit high.

The remainder of the drive was long, boring and tedious, especially since Exmouth is located at the end of a long peninsula that saw us driving nearly 400Km today, even though we had camped barely 160Km away. So after travelling first south, then west, then north, we finally arrived at about 3:00PM.

I’ve been putting it off since we reached the shores of the Indian Ocean up in Broome, but arriving in Exmouth, where further to the west there is nothing more than a stretch of ocean that extends expansively to meet the sky in a hazy, almost undistinguishable line at the horizon, over which there is still nothing until you reach Madagascar, I can’t deny it any further. We have well and truly reached the west coast of Australia. Not the extreme western point of mainland Australia, but the west coast nonetheless. It’s as much a depressing fact as it is an exciting one for us.

Checking into our caravan park elicited yet another noteworthy milestone, for being the most we have yet paid per night, for a simple bit of dirt on which to park the van. For our $48.00 per night, we get a dusty, rocky, un-grassed slab of dirt, much like what we parked on last night. We get access to a toilet dump point, much like what we had access to last night. There are toilets, which although much cleaner, are much like what were at the camp ground last night. Showers are also available in the park, although our own one in the van served us quite well last night. In fact, for our $48.00 we really are only getting access to power we don’t have to noisily generate for ourselves and water we don’t have to worry about running out of. Is it any wonder free camping is so popular?

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.