Road Trip!

There is nothing quite like beginning the day with an early-morning walk along the beach as the golden orb of the sun rises above the sea. And that is precisely how we started our first day in Exmouth, gateway to the Ningaloo Reef. Our 560km journey south began at 8am yesterday morning, after having packed the car up (not without its own dramas – The Husband has officially been named the Packing Nazi) and filled it, and a can with petrol (when there’s only a petrol station every couple of hundred kilometres, you really can’t be too careful). Extra fuel? Tick. Fifteen litres of water? Tick. A stack of CDs? Tick. Three days worth of sandwiches, dried fruit, cereal bars and sweets? Tick, tick, tick and tick. We were ready to hit the highway.


As soon as we left the outskirts of Karratha (which took about three minutes), a feeling of immense freedom hit me. Living in a small town can give you cabin fever and in three months we’ve only made the occasional day trip out. The prospect of travelling hundreds of kilometres, through as-yet unchartered terrain, was exhilarating. A few minutes out of K-Town we passed a sign that read ‘Caution: Stray animals for 280km’ – that’s a long time to keep your eyes peeled for. By the end of the journey we realised that many people weren’t able to – the road was littered with road kill. There were, of course, the ubiquitous mushed kangaroos, but we also saw dead cows (we ourselves had to avoid a live one when it stopped in the middle of the road and stared us out, almost daring us to hit him), and other creatures made unidentifiable by the level of squishedness . At one point, we passed a long-dead roo that had dried out in the sun so completely that it could have been worn – roo-leather jacket, anyone?

Along with road kill, we also passed dozens of grey nomads – Australian pensioners who see out their remaining days travelling around the country in their caravans. It’s almost a rite of passage here – like backpacking for school- and uni-leavers, only with earlier starts and less drinking games. The Husband spent most of the journey working out the best way to raise his fingers in greeting to fellow drivers. It’s always a tense moment as he approaches a vehicle, the question of will they/won’t they wave back always in the back of his mind. He would get upset if he was ignored and was particularly despondent when three or four in a row didn’t return his greeting. That was made up for though when the next driver raised her whole arm and waved enthusiastically, as if they were long-lost friends. He was like a giddy schoolboy for the next hour or so.

The scenery, although fairly samey, was quite spectacular. We passed miles and miles of flat nothingness, peppered with spinifex and the odd gum tree, but all of a sudden a cluster of hills would emerge, rocky outcrops lording over the land. It is not the best landscape in which to play ‘I spy’ – that game ended very quickly. After ‘sky’, ‘rocks’, ‘bushes’ and ‘road’, there weren’t many options left. Occasionally the land would become greener and trees would pop up in far greater abundance – before we have even seen the sign, we know that there is a river or a creek nearby, creating little oases in the vast barren outback.

As we neared Exmouth, the terrain became noticeably greener and greener until we sighted grass – real, wild, grass that hasn’t been planted and watered twice a day just so that a few patches might sprout up. It was an exciting moment. Then came the termite mounds – huge brown sculptures reaching up to the sky. And they were everywhere – hundreds dotted the flat terrain, like a Salvador Dali landscape. With the grass also came our first sheep-sighting in eighteen months. The car filled with the sound of bleeting. Ok, yes, that was just us baaing away in excitement.

And so we arrived at Exmouth and sang the obligatory “I can see the sea!”. The holiday begins!

NB: The soundtrack to this journey? Mumford & Sons, of course – all that banjo-playing provided the perfect soundscape. This is yee-ha country!