Well it's dark and I'm camped next to some camels god knows where near Perth. Camel ride in the morning! 2 days of driving across the godforsaken wheat belt of middle WA, but I had to see Wave Rock at Hyden. Wow! Got up at dawn & climbed to the top of the rock to see the sunrise. Back at camp I found dozens of birds - galahs, currajongs, crows and ring neck parrots - all yelling at poor Smokey who was just trying to enjoy the sun under a tree. He wanted to climb the rock with us but it was a bit too far.
So I've come from Esperance via Ravensthorpe, Lake King, Hyden, Corrigin, Brookton and now we're in some forest that the GPS has brought us to, where the camel farm is. There's no one here so I am happily annoying the camels with my torch (they are about 50 feet away from the bus). The night is eerie with the sound of camels munching hay & making strange low frequency camel snoozing noises.
Dramatic moments near Hyden at sunset as I tried to turn the bus around on a crappy dirt track & somehow managed to lock it in third gear, right in the middle of nowhere. The clutch was stuck! I couldn't stop or I'd stall & not be able to get going again, so suddenly it was like that movie "Speed". I did a good job playing the role of Sandra Bullock; Honey was good as Keanu Reeves, Smokey was the calm guy with the headset back at base, and the demonic GPS played the role of Dennis Hopper, maniacally demanding insane sudden turns.
I got to a rest stop in Hyden (pop. 12), turned the engine off, googled "clutch stuck in gear" on the laptop, discovered that it's just a matter of pulling the clutch pedal up again, and fixed the problem. You can't keep a good production manager down! But it was a relief to get to the campsite & haul out one of the bottles of vodka from the hooch locker under the bed after all that I can tell you. Jesus god.
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| On top of Wave Rock at Hyden |
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| Mulka's Cave near Hyden |
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| On top of Wave Rock at sunrise |
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| Yep, that's Wave Rock |
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| Smokey checks out the Big Dog at Corrigin |
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Hippo's Yawn Rock at Hyden
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