After carefully forgetting to pack several essential life-saving items such as the shovel and lantern, I started out on the big road trip to pick up Ian at the Hope Downs mine near Newman (about 1200 km). The section from Carnarvon until about 50km south of Nanutarra is even more boring than the Nullarbor, the only highlight being quite a few snakes slithering across the highway, a reminder that spring is sprung & we will soon be finding snakes in beds, toilets etc.
Coming in to Nanutarra the landscape changes as you see the first of the ironstone ranges and tilt slabs rise out of the red soil among the spinifex and gum trees - spectacular. Nanutarra is a small but busy roadhouse in the middle of nowhere; I got myself a dogbox room next to the Italian road crew who were all out on the verandah having a lively discussion about wine from the old country. It took about twenty minutes to get into the shower block as I got trapped behind two fat elderly ladies who were just like two old chooks alarmed at changes in the chook house:
1: Oooh. They've moved the shower block.
2: It wasn't here before.
1: No it was over there.
2: They must have moved it.
1: It wasn't like this last time.
2: No, it's completely different. Which one is the toilet cubicle do you think?
1: It could be those ones on the left.
2: That's not where they were last time.
1: Last time we were here they were on the right, at the end.
(ad infinitum)
A giant Pacific Islander road crew guy checked in to the room next to mine, and I spent most of the night listening to him coughing and farting.
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