It's Like...

What with all the hourly shenanigans and bad behaviour I keep forgetting to describe some of the details of daily life and the places I'm in.

First of all, WA is HUGE. I mean MASSIVE. And very unpopulated. Once past Geraldton the only places you drive through on the coast are the occasional tiny, tiny "town" or a roadhouse maybe every 100 km. That's why there's a frenzy of stockpiling & appointments when you get somewhere like Geraldton, because other than that your shopping is pretty much restricted to what you can find in the roadhouse fuel shop. It's also important to know where your next water refill can be found and whether it's going to be drinkable. Most places are on bore or rainwater and generator/solar power, so there are limited facilities and supplies for us vagrants. You learn to pay attention to the signs telling you when the next fuel is available and plan your travel day with fuel stops in mind. Food is very, very expensive.

I am learning how to choose "free" campsites as an alternative to the sardine-packed caravan parks. There are heaps of roadside overnight spots provided, but you don't stay in those if they're close to a town or if there's no one else there. It's not that these spots are frequented by deranged serial killers, but you sometimes get local idiot males who think it's funny to wake you up at 2 am & freak you out a bit (I don't do roadside stops because you don't know where baits might be and I don't want the animals close to roads).

The free camps are usually pretty busy with various other travellers, mostly grey nomads with a smattering of families in Britz campervans and backpacker kids in those crappy Wicked campers. There are usually a couple of solos like me in a motley range of old vehicles, and quite a number of retired women who are either travelling full time or just on long holidays. You also get middle aged guys on their own towing a tinny & just having a good time fishing - they're often semi retired farmer types and they're who you look for if you need a hand with the air compressor!

There's always someone within 50 metres; you don't feel isolated, and everyone kind of manages to park so that we all have a bit of privacy. Once you're parked & set up you go for a stroll & say gidday to your neighbours, have a chat, meet their dogs. At sunset most people wander down to the beach with a drink and share the view & travel stories before wandering off to bed. Everyone's pretty much asleep by 8 pm unless there's a campfire going in which case we rage on with wild abandon until 9:30. By 7:00 most people are up and about so this is not a good time to be sneaking back to your campsite in a borrowed bath robe wondering where you left most of your clothes the night before.

The great thing is that everyone is in a happy mood. There's lots of joking and sharing of road tips such as what the next free camp is like, where to get water, good crabbing spots, and of course where the best internet spots are (by this I don't mean a town or place, but literally which sand dune you need to climb to the top of to get enough reception to check the stock market). A nice thing is that you often find yourself just hanging out with your camping neighbours, building a fire, sharing dinner, taking all the dogs for a walk. There is a great deal of reciprocity and helping each other; whenever I'm setting up camp someone will offer to help me with the awning etc and of course everyone LOVES to go and check out each other's rigs. All the dogs are obsessed with getting into other people's vehicles and sleeping on the other dogs' beds, so there's usually an evening "dog roundup" as we go and extricate our hounds from each other's camps.

You get into your little easy going routines & things like TV, showers etc become less and less important. If you're free camping, a swim or a sponge bath (NO BABY WIPES!!!) will do; a weekly stop at a caravan park is when you luxuriate in a hot shower & wash your hair, do some laundry and maybe watch some news on the camp kitchen TV. At night I have a view of the clear starry sky from my "bedroom" window. The things that seemed important in the city slowly evaporate.

It's just wonderful.