Hello from Norseman,

This morning, being woken early by birds was the least of my worries; every couple of hours during the night I was woken by the low rumble of a train passing by, the track being just on the other side of the road. It was enough to cause the windows of the motel room to vibrate, and I was situated at the back of the complex!

I was away from Merredin by 7:30, stocking up at the Vietnamese hot bread shop and filling the tank, before leaving town. I was in no rush, so I pottered along at 100km/h. I reached Kalgoorlie around 11:30 and spent about half an hour walking around town. I was expecting it to be something like Bendigo, but it wasn’t. While there are lots of old building and hotels, they’re not as impressive as in Bendigo. From what I can tell, Kalgoorlie dates to the turn of the 19th century, whereas Bendigo was founded in the early 1850’s.

I stopped for a late lunch at a rest area about 1:00, and shortly afterwards a couple of grey nomad couples pulled up with their caravans. One bloke came over for a chat. I’m buggered if I know why all these strangers want to talk to me?

I arrived at the motel about 2pm. I probably should have stuck with the same motel as last time. The quality of the room is on par with the other, but it has even stranger policies. As well as no room service, no breakfast is available (not even a tray the night before), and reception hours are nominally 3pm to 8pm (although the door was open when I arrived). To top it off, the restaurant won’t be open tonight, as the chef had worked 10 days straight, and had been given a couple of days off.

It was quite warm today, reaching around 28 C, but things cooled down nicely when a mild thunderstorm struck about 3:30pm.

I’m sure I’ll be woken by those ravens again tomorrow morning. I’ve been watching 3 of them out my window this afternoon, as they’ve been giving my car a thorough going over, first picking something from around where the tyres meets the rims, then sticking their heads between the spokes on the rims and finding something, initially from the outside, then going under the car and doing it from the inside, and then finding something on the underbody of the car. I don’t think it’s dead insects they’re after, as they’ve ignored those in the grill, so I’m assuming they’re finding bits of road kill I’ve run over.

I had dinner at the BP Roadhouse right across the road from the motel, and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.

I’ll be over-nighting in Eucla tomorrow, where I’ll have no internet access, so I’ll be incommunicado ’til Thursday.

Cheers,
Julian