West is the best!

Most tourists who explore Australia on annual vacations mostly stay on the east coast. But the West was warmly recommended to me by those who took the long detour and our tour guide impressed upon us: West is the Best! Hayden was right...

So it went with mixed feelings and audience (I was the oldest by 4 years with my sweet 33 years, when has that changed that you are no longer automatically one of the youngest???) and Paddy, our perfect person for a road trip and converted truck heading north early in the morning. The destination was Broome 9 days later. By then we had 3,700 km ahead of us. And that means something in Australia. Speed limit is between 110 and 130 km/h. It always goes straight. Every half hour a small correction with the steering wheel, also called a curve. It is a country road, so it has two lanes. You can count the overtaking maneuvers in the 9 days on one hand. Oncoming traffic, a car every 510 minutes. Well, actually they are more like huge camper vans or, towards the north, increasingly road trains. These monsters, which can transport up to four trailers or 170 tonnes, are of course particularly interesting for logistics specialists. I was also allowed to sit in the beast! All in all, it's pretty boring to ride the "bus" for hours, as the landscape unfortunately doesn't have much that's new. The driver passes the time by playing games to see whether the oncoming drivers say hello while the entire bus crew is asleep. How good that you don't have to be in the field here! Well, what should you sell here? Either way, the target group is too small, for whatever product!

There are no emergency call points on the roads, sometimes no roadhouse for 100,200 km and almost no shade, not to mention cell phone reception. I have no idea what to do if you have a breakdown. Probably resigned to his fate and just sizzling away and resigning himself to his fate. Speaking of which, before I saw a live kangaroo, I saw several dead ones lying on the side of the road.

Paddy also threw a spanner in the works for us on the third day and, thank God, asked for a new gearbox 5 km from our accommodation, so that the next day we spent a lot of organizing on Blinkey, not as charismatic, but quieter and equipped with better-working air conditioning.

WA (Western Australia) is the most isolated country there is. At one point it was exactly 300 km to a city in each direction. That's why, in emergencies, the street is converted into a runway for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

That doesn't make schooling any easier for school-age children. Some spend hours on the daily commute to school, up to 140 km one way, of course. Alternatively, you can use the School of the Air service. The children receive daily lessons via radio from Port Hedland. Where is the social life with spit pipes and the like?

In addition to the road trains, there are also real trains. They dispose of the iron mines in the interior of the country. We were standing at a railroad crossing. It took just under 4 minutes for the 1 km long train with 142 wagons to pass with quadruple traction. Incomprehensible!

And then there were the bushfires. You always hear on the news at home that tons of hectares are burning again and then you just drive past them. There is no way to contain them, so you just let them burn. Sometimes the grassland is burned in a controlled manner, but since there is just so much land.... However, you can try to create less fire risk by simply not throwing your garbage out the window. It actually goes without saying!

The temperature and humidity have increased day by day. Towards the end we slept in the open air. It was incredibly hot, but the insects (and whatever else was wandering around) meant that we had to wrap ourselves up really well in the sleeping bag provided. Showering was unnecessary, because after a shower you sweat more than before and the many opportunities to swim in the national park washed off the worst of the dirt anyway.

It was breathtaking! Snorkeled with turtles, lots of colorful fish, 13 reef sharks among us, and manta rays. Dolphins were fed and also admired wildly. We rappelled, sandboarded and enjoyed beautiful sandy beaches and sunsets. And then there was Karijini National Park. Oh, people, I'm telling you, I've seen paradise!

That's exactly what the picture was in my childhood Bible, I swear! Canyons we climbed and swam through! The pools were simply wonderfully refreshing!

Unfortunately, the time went by far too quickly and the group, which had found each other well after a few days, said a sad farewell on the last evening after a spontaneous swim in the pool, whether they had swimming gear with them or not.

As I said, West is the best!