Back to Perth

Within 2 days I am back from Exmouth to Perth. are actually 'only' 1300km, but it took 18 hours to drive.

Bad roads, some gas stops because the car is quite thirsty. Then you need a break now and then and the speed limit of 110 doesn't make you any faster.

A highway here is not comparable to a freeway back home. The roads are swollen and uneven from the heat. The roadside transitions directly into unpaved red earth. Sometimes plate-sized potholes that you hit at full speed, followed by a hopeful prayer that no tire has been damaged. The next town is several hundred kilometers away. I have the compressor not only for tire pressure changes after dune drives. In case of a complete loss, however, it won't help anymore.

Now everything is being done to sell the car. Not that easy. I have a New South Wales registration and that's far away. A re-registration there would be a 10-minute matter. But I can't do that in Western Australia. Different state, different regulations. It's easy to forget that Australia is a continent. With individual states as well.

However, I really enjoyed the journey back. The landscape was not varied, but it is very impressive. South of Exmouth, as far as the eye could see, there were red termite mounds. Up to about 2m tall. They stand red in the equally red earth. Then come salt lakes alternating with eucalyptus trees. The low sun colors everything even more red.

The next morning I have the sun behind me and drive along the Indian Ocean Road. The deep red of the earth changes to the snow-white sand dunes. Low clouds lie on a layer of air, making it look like cotton on a glass plate. With every curve, one thinks the view is more beautiful.

Because my tank is empty, I turn off the main road towards a town. I don't enter a new development area, but a new town.

An entire city that is being built NOW. New houses, houses under construction, new supermarkets, new gas stations, new sidewalks, new schools, new train stations, new railways. Even the children coming from the new school in their school uniforms on their new e-scooters look new. Everything seems to be built simultaneously here and nothing seems to be older than a year. It takes me 20 minutes to drive through the naturally new freeway at 100 through the town.

Considering that I drove the last 1200 km through completely deserted areas, where roadhouses protect themselves against wild dogs with electric fences and strychnine, swollen wild goats lie dead in the sun, and it feels like every 100m there is a dead kangaroo in all stages of decomposition, one can only marvel at this seamless transition into this Sims City.