Journey to Exmouth: Day 3

This was a long, but exciting day that started with an early morning emu chase along the side of the road, a flooded roadway that looked more like a river and a large bush fire that seemed to go on forever.

The night before, Woody and I were lying in the swag, looking up at all the stars in the Milky Way. The swag was under some trees and open to the surroundings as it was so bloody hot and the breeze didn’t seem to go through the mesh cover, so we left it unzipped. We were both laying in the buff, when a large bug landed on Woody’s face. He jumped up in a panic and accidentally flicked the bug onto me as he darted off to get the head torch. I looked down at this big, dark insect crawling over my chest and realized it was a cockroach. After some frantic naked dancing and screaming around the campsite illuminated by the head torch, we found the critter buried under the cover. The Asians camping in the site next to us definitely got a show that night!

After that, I ended up having the best sleep since arriving in Australia. Woody, on the other hand, barely slept. When we got up at 5:30am the next morning, the flies were horrible! They were everywhere; crawling in our noses, ears and getting caught behind our sunglasses. We made quick coffees, had one sip, dumped them out and took off within minutes. The cyclone that came through a week earlier created wonderfully wet breeding grounds for all the flies apparently.

Within the first ten minutes of driving, we saw several snakes, lizards, two kangaroos and a family of emus. The emus ran along the roadside as we drove and we clocked them running at 60km/hour before darting into the bush. The rest of the trip we saw several goats, cows and sheep all roaming freely in herds. Woody tells me that the farmers allow them to go wherever they want, eating off the land and then they find them in helicopters when they are to be rounded up for harvest. They look really happy and healthy – it’s nice to see!

We stopped at a few signs along the way to take some pictures. It’s really fun travelling with a companion like Woody. He’s up for anything whether it’s stopping for the footage for my video project or taking a pee break every half hour when I’ve drank too much water. Even when I want to go shopping for something he will always happily offer to come with and has never once complained when I take forever trying to make up my mind on menial purchases like a flower

pot for our travel buddy, Spud (a little succulent we bought at a Swap Meet before starting the journey). Just one of the many reasons he’s the best!

About 200km from Exmouth, we arrived at a fast flowing roadway flood. It was only about 8” deep at the deepest part, but it was a pretty fast current. We waited a little bit, took some photos, and then watched a small car go through it fairly easily before deciding to take the plunge. Our truck (or ute as they call it) went through without fail.

A half hour later we saw heavy smoke in the distance. As we got closer, we saw that it was a large bush fire which was spreading to the roadway. It was too widespread to be a controlled fire. I wonder how far it managed to spread before it was put out.

Shayne and Danielle, the awesome couple who run Exmouth Dive Centre have introduced us to Mark, the owner, who has a house we can rent out while we are here and on our days off at Sal Salis. We've got some friends on their way over to go fishing, so signing off for now!