Since I left Darwin, I’ve been to three World Heritage Sites, seen all manner of Australian road-kill, been next to wild crocodiles, whale sharks, humpback whales, venomous sea snakes. and have gained a very deep appreciation for just how big and empty Western Australia truly is.
..and I only drove around the edge.
I’ve done my share of driving, but never anything like this. I can’t think of many places in the US where you can drive in this sort of desolation for this long. Perhaps parts of Nevada or West Texas. Eventually you will hit a farm or a town or something. North West Australia is just empty. I’m not sure if there are many places on Earth where you can make a drive like that. There are places more empty perhaps, but there are no roads or gas stations.
Now that I’m in Perth, I can say for certain it really is the only thing going in the entire state. I’ve met several people from Perth on my travels and they all have the same complaint. It is a long flight to anywhere. Even domestic flights from Perth take forever. In terms of distance, unless I go to Antarctica or some uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean, this is the farthest point I’ll be from where I started my trip back in the US. Almost 11,000 miles (17,500 km). The total distance I’ve driven in Australia is probably around 10,000 km.
My goal for the next few days is to park my ass in Perth, get through all my photos (I finally got PNG done), catch up on the movies I’ve missed, and write up all the articles I’ve been meaning to write and dribble them out on the website over the next few weeks. Then I’ll fly to Uluru, because there is no way in hell I’m going to drive there.
Sweet – see you online Caesar! Better log in at 5 PM server tomorrow or there’ll be hell to pay. ;)