Hi All

So, Balladonia. Or more commonly known as one campsite and a roadhouse. We pulled in and quickly realised after several minutes and half a dozen bent tent pegs later, that sleeping in the car was by far the better option. And so it proved to be. Apart from the one random mossie that managed to get in and stay in, it was absolutely perfect. The stars were shining all around us and it was with a sense of peace that we dropped off. Only to be woken a couple of times during the night by Mr Mossie buzzing past our ears and then at dawn by a large group of crows welcoming in the new day. But all in all sleeping in the car seems to be the way to go. Sweet. When we woke up for the final time, the first thing we felt were the three or four bites we’d gotten from our dear friend during the night, and the first thing we saw was his bite-iness sitting on the roof of the car. Fat as a house and obviously loving the final moments of his life before I squished the little s***. Sweet. After breakfast and a shower (‘3 minutes only. Save the water’ the sign said. Feeling all rebellious I took 4. Living on the edge baby, yeah) we packed up and headed out for our first day’s driving across the plain.

And it’s well named. It’s about as plain as it gets. A few kilometres down the road and we entered one of the longest stretches of straight road in the world. 90 miles of it. We knew this, because a sign proudly told us ‘146km straight road. Straight ahead’. Like there was any way we could’ve turned off. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried driving down a dead straight road for an hour and a half, but I have. And let me tell you it’s the most exciting thing you can ever do. Next to watching paint dry. Or reading Jordan’s autobiography. Or watching Port Vale v Bristol city. By the end of it I felt like my eyes were bleeding. Luckily, Mand took to digging me in the ribs every couple of minutes to ‘keep me awake’. She’s all heart that girl. Eventually though the road came to an end (I have never been so glad to turn a steering wheel in my life...ah, the simple things eh?) and after another couple of holes in the road loosely named towns on the map, we arrived at our lunch stop for the day. Madura.

Madura is a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, with a population of approximately seven. Seriously. According to LP at least. All I know is the sign in the window said ‘Please don’t ask for water as refusal often offends’. Laugh? Nah, not really. But they did have a lookout spot that was just breathtaking in it’s expansiveness. Seriously, I keep getting taken aback by just how f***ing enormous this country is. There was nothing as far as the eye could see but, for want of a better word, bush. Thousands and thousands of acres of it. I wouldn’t quite call it beautiful, but it was certainly different.

On we pressed and the only other remarkable thing to report along the way is the amount of roadkill. There’s nothing quite like the sight of dead kangaroos in various states of decay, from still bleeding to virtual skeletons, with crowds of crows pecking at them ferociously, to really help your dinner go down...

I lied actually, there was one other thing that can’t possibly go unreported. The music in the car was absolutely sublime. We hit a rich vein of top quality, with the Chillis leading the way, Pink Floyd and Oasis. We won’t mention the Norah Jones that came on as neither of us will admit to putting it on the ipod. However, Definitely Maybe proved to be an absolute winner. I haven’t listened to that album all the way through for God knows how long (I’d forgotten ‘Married With Children’ even existed) and the lyrics to some of the tunes just seemed to fit in perfectly with the adventurous feeling we had going on. ‘You gotta make it happen’, ‘Cos I just wanna fly’, ‘These could be the best days of our lives’ just take on a different meaning when you’re careering across the dessert with the wind blowing and the girl of your dreams by your side. Cheesy to the point of nausea, but true none the less.

At some point along the way, Mand rediscovered her tambourine. We bought this back in Fremantle so she and Kimbers (with her stolen maraca from Vientiane) could provide some percussion to go with Andy’s guitar playing. This hasn’t materialised yet, but from what I heard today it’s gonna sound fantastic. Provided of course you can still hear Andy over the frantic jingle jangling of Mand. I had to turn the stereo up twice. Eventually, it was on full and I was still straining these enormous lug holes to hear even a semblance of Liam’s drawl. To be fair, I was wailing my head off so it didn’t matter anyway. Top tunes, man. Mad fer it. We had an absolute whale of a time. So much so, that we decided that the Floyd would be a bit slow after that and fast forwarded to the Arctic Monkeys. Much jingle jangling and northern rhetoric later and we were both well and truly spent. Following it, Delicate Sound Of Thunder was positively a relief. By the time we got out of the car an hour later, our ears were still ringing and it was definitely quiet time.

We pitched up and headed out for the one site that Eucla has to offer. A telegraph station in the middle of the desert, being swallowed by sand dunes. A four kilometre drive later and there we were. And it was a strangely arresting sight. Not so much the pile of old bricks that was the telegraph station, but just the long shadows in the rippling dunes. We spent the next hour or so running around like five year olds, pushing each other into the dunes and photographising. Everything from our footprints to our shadows. Which isn’t that far really, but we did get a few in of the station itself. And some of the graffiti, which Mand insists I write, that dates from 1969. I think she was more impressed by this than the telegraph station itself which dates from the 1800s.

The flies were absolutely swarming, but we’ve kind of come to love them. We’ve started treating them as slightly misbehaved pets. As in ‘I’ve told you once, stop trying to crawl up my nose’. It actually seems to work (they really do listen you know - understand every word I say) and we’re thinking about starting a variety act that involves training flies - a ‘fly circus’ if you will. Whether it actually works (talking to them, not the fly circus bit) is anyone’s guess, but it seems to help fend off the attack of the screaming meemies that occasionally threatens to overcome us as we’re set upon by hundreds of them crawling into every orifice they can possibly get to. And I do mean every orifice...

The next day we were up and off and within minutes had arrived at the Western Australia/South Australian border. After nearly six weeks in WA it was finally time to see what another state had to offer.

Laters all

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx