McDonald’s “Create Your Taste” experience

November 11, 2015

The other day I created my own burger at McDonald’s, and was pleasantly surprised.

I don’t go to Maccas amazingly frequently. Here and there on my road trips and very occasionally when I’m out and about. Less than once a month I’d say is more than likely.

I visited the Maccas in Chadstone on the 08/11/2015 at 1:30 pm. I had intended just to get a Grand Angus meal, but the queue to the registers was somewhat long so thought I’d have a go at the Create Your Taste touchscreen board.

So, I got a regular bun with herb aioli, angus beef, red onion, tomato, spinach, lettuce, Maccas cheese, mozzarella and crispy bacon.

Maccas have made the experience of ordering it very easy, the touch screen is responsive, which considering the size is pretty good, it feels like a capacitive touchscreen, the only touchscreens I’ve used in the past that are the size Maccas has are resistive touchscreens.
Only once or twice did I have to swipe twice when it didn’t react accordingly.

It arrived in a pretty good amount of time for a freshly made burger. On a wood paddle, which as anyone who’s eaten anywhere seems to be the norm for ‘fancy’ burgers and something I follow @WeWantPlates for much amusement regarding.
But there was a piece of waxed paper separating the burger from the wooden paddle, said paper didn’t buckle under the small amount of liquid that came out as I tucked into the burger so I think it serves as a good enough barrier between burger and wooden board.

The burger was surprisingly good.
If I’d been served that at some fancy inner city cafe rather than at Maccas I’m not sure I’d be able to tell.
The bun / roll could have been a little more firm slash less Maccas-like.
Also the cheese weren’t melted onto the burger.
If I were to order it next time I think I’d opt for Maccas cheese and parmesan to better level out the flavours a little bit.

My dining compatriot just had a cheeseburger meal, but did remark on how good it looked. But also said ‘If I’m going to Maccas I want something unhealthy tasty and with chips’.

I don’t disagree, but, I think I’d also want something more than just standard Maccas fare if it’s there.

It’s also not that much more than a large burger meal at Maccas or Hungry Jack’s. it certainly rivals Hungry Jack’s for its flavour and presentation, although HJ’s is more ‘flame grilled’ flavour-esqe, the bacon is smokey and that’s good enough.

In the past I’ve certainly eaten much worse burgers than what I got at Maccas’ Create Your Taste.

Reflecting on other eateries that also do fancy burgers, though it’s not really a fair comparison there’s Grill’d which do fantastic burgers and chips. However, if you buy their ‘mighty’ burger (which has different names depending on which state you’re in), and eat it with your hands only it will come a part and dribble sauce onto your hands.

The Maccas burger was perfectly sized and also came with a Create Your Taste moist towelette.

I do wonder how much this must have cost Maccas to implement, there’s at least 2-4 touchscreens in each Maccas. Then there’s the ingredients they’d need to have on hand to make up these burgers.

Looking through Maccas’ menu and what’s on offer on the Create Your Taste menu it seems like a lot of the ingredients are used in their regular burgers.
I think the exceptions are the cheeses, sauces, different buns along with the grilled mushrooms, grilled pineapple, jalapenos, caramelised grilled onions, coleslaw and spinach.

Even though I’ve not ordered either of the caramelised items be it onion or mushrooms I would hazard a guess these are prepared elsewhere and just reheated for their role in Maccas’ CYT menu.
Grilled pineapple is from a tin.
The jalapenos are pickled.
Which leaves the coleslaw and spinach as the two perishable items on the list. So perhaps not a huge cost to them, but there must’ve been some in the process of setting all this up.

But I think that the Maccas Create Your Taste menu, option, ordering thing is a pretty good alternative to the standard Maccas fare and is certainly better than any of the other options for fast food, especially give the ubiquity of Maccas around Australia.

WA road trip 2015 - Conclusion

November 11, 2015 in Travel

One of the things I’ve been saying to people who’ve asked me about this trip is the insight it’s given me into West Australians. The psychology of them, as a population compared to the eastern states, the sense of isolation.

It’s a very long way from Victoria to Western Australia.
It’s not something you can do on impulse.
You can for Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and even Brisbane or Tasmania. There’s no huge expanses (fine there’s water for Tasmania but on the ferry it’s not you driving), there’s no areas of nothing. Or the special sort of nothing that the Eyre Highway is.

South Australian farmland–one side of the road

The other thing people have mentioned, which I said in my introduction is why I didn’t visit X or Y. I never intended to, and looking back on this trip, I’m glad I focused on what I did.

South Australian farmland–other side of the road

It’s been similarly with my other road trips, I’ve gone on them to go to one particular thing, to see a particular place and to drive the gaps in between. Then I’ll return in the future and see other things, once I’m familiar with the passage to each of the capital cities then I can expand and go further out from that.
The only city I’ve been back to more than once is Canberra, and enjoyed it each time.

Having done my road trip to Western Australia I fully intend to return, by road again. I massively enjoyed the trip over there. The isolation, the desert, the remoteness.

If there was one black spot on the whole journey it was Border Village.
But there’s always one bad spot anywhere when you’re travelling, at least it was on the way back and didn’t leave too much of a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve learnt from the experience and know to steer clear of it. It also doubly makes me mistrust anything said on TripAdvisor.

I did use TripAdvisor here and there when planning this trip (and for the most part completely ignored the reviews on that site, usually to my benefit), one thing reviewers seemed to bang on about is water pressure at locations along the Nullarbor. Which is an odd thing for reviewers to fixate on.
I didn’t notice any problems with water pressure at all the places I stayed at; Poochera, Mundrabilla, Border Village. They all had perfectly fine water pressure.
There could be a few ‘howevers’ attached to my experience and other people’s judgments. I shower at night, and because I liked to get an early night’s sleep I was showering early in the evening, so there’d probably not be a lot of people taxing the water system, be it pumps or mains pressure.

Welcome to the Great Western Woodlands sign at McDermid Rock.

Something interesting I found upon returning was people’s ideas of the Eyre Highway / the Nullarbor’s sense of “isolation”. People seem to think that it’s a remote, isolated location. It’s not.
Not really.
There are roadhouses spaced apart every not even 200 kilometres apart.
There is a surprising amount of mobile phone reception.
At all the roadhouses and probably 100 kilometres in likely a circle (as that’s generally how phone reception works across a relatively flat surface) around them. There were times when I got a call and could see as I was driving (on my ute’s centre console display) my reception bars drop off as I drove. But still held reception for a long time, and not just reception, 3G data at a relatively good speed, most of the time.

There are rest stops that have shade, places to camp and at several of them water.
If you broke down somewhere on the Eyre Highway and were without phone reception the highway is busy enough that you would be able to find yourself out of trouble.
I think unless you deliberately wandered away from your vehicle and away from the highway it would be quite difficult for you not to be rescued from a problematic situation on the Eyre highway.

McDermid Rock, it had a small dam on it.

It’s remote in the sense that it’s isolated from any sort of sizeable population. Due to the fact the original towns are along the train line and the Eyre Highway’s current alignment follow different paths it means that there are none of the more common town–pub–petrol station sort of arrangements after Ceduna. After that it’s just roadhouses (with the exception of Ecula just west of Border Village). So that can give the sense of isolation because you’re not encountering anyone that forms a ‘population’ beyond those working at roadhouses, everyone’s transient.

Of the people I did interact with, albeit mostly at the roadhouses and petrol stations throughout my journey, and the occasional people at lookout points, I found them all to be friendly.

My overriding adjective for this road trip was ‘awe’. Awe inspiring and awesome (in its traditional definition). I was amazed and awed by the landscape I saw, that I drove through. I enjoyed every daylight moment of it.

View from on top of Wave Rock with Hyden Dam on left.

It’s also the most unique trip, across a sealed road that anyone can take. If you’ve got a spare week or so.
It can be done one way in about 4 days.
It’s enlightening, amazing and insightful.
It’s not something you can do on impulse and it does require a little bit of planning.
But it’s a journey that was fantastic and awesome and one that I will repeat sometime soon.

What this road trip cemented in my mind is that I want to continue to explore Australia.
By road and at ground level. That we have a fantastic and amazing landscape that should be seen. As I have mentioned and probably will continue to say, the destination is only a part of the exploration. I think it’s the wrong part to focus on. The destination is like the origin, they’re things to aim for and return to, I don’t see them as the goal of a journey.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 11 - Home

November 11, 2015 in Travel

Today was a pretty mild 2 and a half hour drive, if that to return home.

Leaving Beaufort I headed to Ballarat in search of diesel and breakfast of some description. Discovered it’s got a very inner suburbs of Melbourne-look to it. All the houses all look like the expensive houses of the inner suburbs of Melbourne.
I’m sure I’ve been to Ballarat before, though can’t immediately think why I would have been.

One interesting thing I noticed while trying to find a Shell Coles Express petrol station (I realised I had some 4c off vouchers in my ute, I knew there were at least 2 Shell petrol stations in Ballarat) I noticed that there were two Maccas within a few kilometres of one another. However now looking at Google Earth and actually putting McDonald’s into the search for Ballarat I find that there are five in Ballarat. Four of them are within 3 kilometres of one another.
I guess, as it is the third most populous area in Victoria that’s not that much.

Bendigo is the next most populous, which also has four outlets, and the next populous in the other direction (going up) is Geelong, which if you include the outer areas of Geelong or rather the ‘when you look at it on a satellite image where all suburbanised areas stretch to’ there’s 9. Technically there’s 10, but two are on either side of a highway so they’re not really usable, you can only really visit one of those.

Being a Saturday morning coming back through Melbourne posed little problems and the 2 and a half hour drive felt like nothing compared to the 7+ hour drives I’d been doing throughout my road trip.

Still, it felt good to return home, even if it was into mildly busy though still flowing weekend traffic.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 10 - Beaufort

November 11, 2015 in Travel

Today I woke up somewhere I hadn’t intended to be.
I had prior to this road trip worked out where I would be stopping each night.
Of course I knew I could change things around but I hadn’t really considered where else I might be stopping.

So while I knew how to get from Port Augusta home I hadn’t really considered where I might stop and things like that.

I had driven the route I’d been following today though in reverse, coming up to Port Augusta on my previous road trip to Woomera.

I thought I might stay in Stawell or Ararat on the way towards home. They were each within the 8 - 9 hour range from Port Augusta.

Once again South Australia blew me away with its changing landscape, from Port Augusta all the way through to Victoria, it’s just a wonderful landscape.

As I approached Adelaide I mostly relied on my previous road trip driving through Adelaide in order to navigate through, or more accurately around the city centre to get out to the South Eastern Highway in order to head back towards Victoria.

Heading out along this road I realised at some point that in fact I hadn’t driven along all of it the last time I was in Adelaide because I’d taken the coastal route from Kingston SE.

At some point in the day I passed through Murray Bridge, which, had I stayed in Wudinna rather than Port Augusta the previous night I would have stayed there tonight. But as it was still relatively early I continued on.

As I entered Victoria and continued in my passage through along the road something, perhaps not immediately, but at some point in the day I noticed this; Victoria’s roads are **awful**.
South Australia and Western Australia’s roads, perfectly smooth, drive for hours, not notice anything, but almost immediately as I re-entered Victoria the Western Highway just became awful; rough, uneven and just so much more badly maintained than the neighbouring state’s roads. I found myself lamenting ‘this is the main highway that connects Victoria to South Australia. Why is it so bad?’

As I continued driving I was now aiming to stop in Horsham and as I got to there I thought I’d push just a little more, there was only an hour’s difference from Horsham to Ararat, so I thought I’d stop there as I knew from earlier in the day that there was plenty of accommodation at Ararat as Horsham.

However as I was going through Ararat I seemed to encounter what passed for peak hour (certainly more traffic than I’d needed to deal with since going through Adelaide 7+ hours previously) and I was also fielding a few phone calls. These things combined made looking for accommodation a little tricky.

So I continued on.
At this point I knew I’d need to stop somewhere because I’d already stopped I think twice earlier in the day for power naps and knew I was approaching my limit. Plus twilight had passed and now night was falling, and while I was in less danger of kangaroos jumping out I also knew that my patience and awareness was waning.

I didn’t know which town I would stop in, I thought I would need to continue on to Ballarat a further hour on from Ararat. However there was a town with a pub and various shops that had a motel; Beaufort, which was 30 minutes away from Ararat. I actually drove post the motel and had to do a U-turn as there was traffic behind me and I didn’t quite take in that it was a motel as it was set quite a ways back from the road.

The Beaufort Motel was surprising, in that it was reasonably priced, comfortable, the room had some interesting quirks; a full sized fridge / freezer, TV with a DVD player, microwave.
I’d stopped and eaten a large meal fairly late in the afternoon, so I dug through my car, found a king size KitKat I’d bought the previous day, also some biscuits and had a cup of tea or two and then retired to bed.

According Google Earth Port Augusta, South Australia to Beaufort, Victoria is 868 kilometres, estimated travel time 9 hours 17 minutes. I think factoring in fuel stops, food stops and power naps stops I probably travelled for 10 maybe 10 and a half hours. It felt like it was the longest day I’ve had on any of my road trips thus far and not something I want to replicate.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 9 - Port Augusta

November 11, 2015 in Travel

I left Border Village having taken back my key in order to get the key deposit back very early in the morning.

In fact it was still dark when I left, it was something I’d said to myself that I wouldn’t do; drive in the dark. Mostly down to my minor fear of hitting a kangaroo, while I had a ‘roo bar on my ute it’s not there for me to go around running into the local fauna.

However my concern for running at speed into local wildlife was overridden by my night’s stay at Border Village which left me just wanting to be rid of that place.
I’d had a thankfully uninterrupted night’s sleep at Border Village, but not a pleasant night’s sleep, and stepping out of bed onto a towel I’d placed there the previous night brought it all back as to why I’d felt so...disturbed by the place.

I understand, I knew staying at places along the Eyre Highway I was not going to get high class accommodation and I’m willing to forgive some things.

Maybe Mundrabilla just has a higher standard than the rest of the roadhouses along the Eyre.
Maybe.
But Border Village just seemed like it was taking advantage of its location, being the convenient stop off point along the Eyre Highway on the way to Perth.
There were certainly a lot of people staying there that night I noticed when I left. It seemed like most of the motel units had cars out the front of them.

You live and learn, and I learnt I’d rather spend the night in my swag out in the freezing night than stay at Border Village again.

Having departed Border Village early I hadn’t at that point really decided where I was going to stay that night. I had only decided where I was going to eat breakfast. Which was at the Nullarbor Roadhouse, some 2 hours from Border Village.

At the Nullarbor Roadhouse I think I got the best cooked breakfast I had throughout my trip, a good proportion of everything and a nice dining room to sit in. It is also where on my next trip across the Nullarbor I’d stay on the way home. Interestingly they’re the only roadhouse with both a website and a Twitter account the latter of which is pretty active as well. I wouldn’t say I’m active with all the social medias, but do use Twitter and it does make a difference if a business has a website.

According the signs on the fuel bowsers at the Nullarbor Roadhouse you have to give them your driver’s licence before they’ll activate the bowsers, this is to stop drive offs. I noticed this on the way through and back although both times I didn’t need to give them my licence. I noted to them it would take some gall to do so, it’s not as though you’ve got much choice for fuel along the Eyre and they all have video cameras. I would presume that all the roadhouses know the others out there and could call ahead to make them aware of fuel drive offs.

Waiting for my breakfast I utilised the presence of 3G to work out where I might stay that night.

My original plan had been to stop at Wudinna. which was about 7 hours 20 minutes from Border Village, however I had found in previous days that I was able to do more like 8-9 hours in a single day rather than my rather conservative 7 and a half hours. So then I thought that maybe Kimba would be the night’s stop, being about 8 and half from Border Village, or 6 and a half hours from where I was at that point at the Nullarbor Roadhouse.

But at that point it was still quite early and I wasn’t sure. At that point at breakfast I decided sort of that when I got to Kimba I’d decide where I was going because between Kimba and Port Augusta there wasn’t much in the way of accommodation, so I’d need to decide then.

Ceduna was the next major stop I had at around lunch time and it was there that I had the quarantine check from South Australian quarantine. They asked for fresh fruit and vegetable, checked out my ute for both, I got orange dirt on my hands as I opened the still very dirty tailgate of my ute.
Reflecting on the Western Australia quarantine experience however, this seemed a somewhat more lacklustre investigation and questioning than my experience entering into Western Australia. There were also a few more roads you could take and more open areas leading to Ceduna than at the border crossing in Border Village.

The gigantic air con unit in my room in Port Augusta...only photo I took in the room.

In the end I obviously continued through Kimba and went on through to Port Augusta.
It was I admit quite a long drive and I had to stop and have a few power naps along the way.
It was the longest drive I’d done so far being almost 10 hours all up and just over 970 kilometres.

I got a room at the Highway One Motel in Port Augusta behind the Shell Petrol station on the way into Port Augusta. Not much to say about the room. There were some noisy British people who from the sound of their really loud discussion on the phone were on a road trip from Canberra or Sydney across to WA or the NT. Their kids were quite noisely playing outside my room in the late afternoon to evening. Which considering how far I’d back my ute up was amazing they’d not whacked their legs on the tow bar. But I think at this point I was just a little grumpy from the long drive.
The Highway One Motel does have free and pretty speedy wifi, which was nice to have.
I rested, though tried not to nap in the afternoon, ordered a pizza to my room as I just didn’t feel like going out even to the dining room at the motel, showered then fell into much needed sleep.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 8 - Border Village

November 04, 2015 in Travel

I woke rested from a good night’s sleep in what appeared to be, judging by the state of the motel room next door, recently renovated motel room. The night’s stay had cost me $147, which, seemed pricey, though as I would discover I would soon get a lot less for not much less than $147.

Going back along the Eyre Freeway it remains my favourite part of the journey across the Nullarbor.

The range of landscapes from the lakes that are around Norseman through the hilly and bush-filled landscape and the onto the Eyre Highway and properly off along the Nullarbor.

The Madura Pass was still surprising, even though I knew it was there and had driven along it. It’s still surprising given the landscape around it.

I can’t really say much about this day’s drive without repeating myself from the previous blog. I’m also cheating with this first photo, which is actually from my westward journey at the Madura Pass, though one of many I didn’t use in the other blog.

What I can say however has to do with my evening’s accommodation and stop for the night.

Border Village.
I didn’t stay at Mundrabilla because the distance from Norseman to that was somewhat too short, so I’d decided to push on to Border Village. I came to wish I’d pushed on further...

The price for a room at the Border Village motel was $120.
Plus a $10 room key deposit. Which you got back when you gave the key back.
For reference and reminder my room at Mundrabilla was $95 and didn’t have any sort of room key deposit.

Once I had paid and got into the room I was left wishing I had continued up the road to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. It however was 2 hours up the road and by the time I had gotten into the room and thought about it, it was already approaching twilight and therefore, for me, with my rules of ‘try not to hit a kangaroo’ too late to be driving again.

On my last road trip, also on the way back it was Morgan that gave me a bad night’s sleep. But that was down to the locals and a few other issues I had.

With Border Village it was solely down to the price and condition of the room.

Border Village and Mundrabilla share several things, they’re both isolated roadhouses, they both have diesel generators going all of the time and they both are attached to petrol stations.

Border Village is larger, it’s right next to the Western Australia / South Australia border.

Said border is notable in that while you get met by a border patrol person going into Western Australia you have to wait until you get to Ceduna in South Australia to go through a similar process for entry into South Australia, despite actually crossing the border here at Border Village.

Border Village has much more of an air of it being run by a large business / corporation, just everything seemed a little too...I’m not sure. Not exactly prescribed, but there was just an odd sense in the bar and building.
Maybe it was that you couldn’t get a pub meal at any time unlike Mundrabilla. Maybe it was that (at least the information booklet in the room) seemed to suggest they were stuck on the Eucla timezone and that’s when meals were severed from 6 pm Eucla time till...I can’t remember, probably 9 or 8:30 pm.

Border Village motel, other side of room.

I wasn’t expecting much of the room.

But by this point I did have something to frame my expectations against. Mundrabilla, which is in a similar location and situation. Its room was clean and simple (ignoring the bathroom ceiling, which was easy enough to do).
The rooms at Mundrabilla looked like they’d been there since the 60s, but at least they had the look and feel of actually being built there and they were clean and well kept.

Border Village’s motel rooms were quite clearly portable buildings that had been cut in half to form motel units.

The ‘carpet’ in the room was I think damp and very dirty.

The walls were very thin, I could hear the neighbour’s TV quite loudly through the wall.

The bed was also very wobbly and the castors on it made it very easy to move. This was something of a positive as I was able to rotate the bed around so it was essentially in the middle of the room with the top of the bed against the desk at the back of the room and away from the paper-thin walls.

Inside the bathroom there were signs informing you that Border Village was on a limited water supply. This wasn’t stated at Mundrabilla, but it was stated here in Border Village.
The water pressure was fine (in fact it had been fine everywhere I stayed), I only mention this now because there seems to be a lot of people banging on about water pressure on sites like TripAdvisor.

I slept badly at Border Village, just the state of the room and especially the price vs the state of the room made for a bad night’s sleep.
The following day I left very early, eager to be away from Border Village. The night’s sleep, and in fact the whole experience there left me feeling unclean and just an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

There are no positives about staying at Border Village, it’s expensive, unpleasant and has the feel of a big corporation running it. On any future trips I will avoid it and stay at Mundrabilla on the way over to Western Australia and then at the Nullarbor Roadhouse on the way back, something I sorely wish I had done this road trip.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 7 - Wave Rock and Norseman

November 03, 2015 in Travel

Today was a day filled with many different vistas.

My aim was to stay the night at Norseman, but had planned on other locations to stay at, if need be.

My primary destination for today was Wave Rock located in Hyden and on the way to no where.
It’s also a tourist destination that isn’t near anything else, you have to make a choice to decide to visit it.

The drive from Kalamunda to Hyden was interesting, coming back down from the Perth hills down through the dryer farm land than what I experienced on the coastal road up from Esperance was interesting.

Upon arriving at Wave Rock the first thing you need to do is buy a parking ticket. Which didn’t surprise me, I’d already read up on it. So I knew it was $10. Which isn’t really for parking, it’s essentially your parking and entry and for the upkeep of the site and all those sorts of things. I did find it a little surprising that the ticket machine only accepted coins. That’s a lot of change to be carrying around. While I had come knowing that I’d need to pay the $10 parking I didn’t, despite my best efforts have the change for the parking.
There is a kiosk on site (it’s actually attached to the caravan park next door) where you can pay for the parking ticket.
Across the road there’s a café which looked surprisingly busy, so much so I didn’t even both trying to park and instead got on with what I’d come there to see, Wave Rock itself.
There were I noticed no people around ensuring you paid for parking, and I witnessed many people arrive and not pay. I did not pursue this path, I paid my parking.

My relatives in Kalamunda had warned me that it was underwhelming.
In fact several people who I told that I was going to Wave Rock warned me of this.

I found it breathtaking.
That might have been just the walk up to the top.
The actual ‘wave’ of Wave Rock is viewable from only a few different points, which might lead some people to thinking that it doesn’t rise above its ‘postcard’ status.

I found it amazing, not just the wave, which is fantastical to look at, it looks almost constructed it’s such an unnatural, yet natural sight.
On top of the rock is even more fascinating, it being the tallest natural structure for hundreds of kilometres it’s a mini ecosystem on top of the rock, with shrubs, small trees and wildlife all living up there.

Once up on Wave Rock you can follow various paths around it to explore and to walk back down. To get off the rock there’s three different choices, there’s the pathway taken to get into the rock, which is a metal staircase built next to the dam that was built against park of Wave Rock in the 1930s for the nearby town’s water supplies.
There’s ‘the long way’ around which is about 1.5 kilometres if you explore the way off parts ofthe top of Wave Rock and there’s the ‘short way’. This is the path I decided to choose. Though not without some trepidation.
The path it suggests is extremely steep and there is no clear way down, except for a sign informing you to be careful of the steepness of the path.
I just started walking and it looked dangerous from my point of view, it’s steep and there doesn’t appear to be anyway down until you start walking. Even then it’s more a case of ’feeling your way through’ than actually having a clear path down. I started walking in a straight line and then decided to walk on a diagonal. But as I began a path sort of suggested itself, simply by way of which way it was easiest to walk along.

I had heard, while I was up on the rock from some people I met up there, who were amazingly also from Victoria, the first people associated with my home state I’d seen since driving across, having seen no Victorian number plates on the drive over. They informed me that you can actually drive along to the Hippo’s Yawn rock formation. Rather than walk the 1.5 kilometre track to get there.

So, that’s what I did, as while walking sounded...okay, the weather was flitting between looking like it was going to rain, actually raining and being sunny. I also had other things to do that day.

The Hippo’s Yawn is impressive, not as impressive as Wave Rock, but the Hippo’s Yawn is a different sort of impressive, a testament to the slow crawl of time, and how that crawl slowly eats away at the vast and the minute.
I think it looks like a vast monster getting ready to devour the landscape.
The ‘Hippo’s Yawn’ is a nice, tourist name for it.
But I think it’s more like a bunyip, slowly roaring at us and the world, getting ready to be swept away by water or ready to terrify us for gazing upon it for too long.

Departing Wave Rock I headed pretty much directly east.
There are, when you look at the map, it would seem two ways to get to Norseman from Wave Rock.
Head back the way you came through Hyden and then go up north-ish eventually going through Coolgardie and then south towards Norseman. Or you head back the way you came and then head towards Ravensthorpe and Esperance, then north up towards Norseman.

I had decided to do neither of these things as there is a third option, which is less prominent on the map.
That is to take Hyden-Norseman Road.
From looking at various maps, Google Earth and Google Street View it would appear to be an unsealed road that connects Hyden and Norseman.

What I discovered was it was in fact a semi-seleaed road, but a remarkably smooth one with sections of unsealed road.

Hyden-Norseman Road goes directly past one mine site, and it is up to that point that the road is semi-sealed for a lot of it.
For at least the first 50-70 kilometres it’s a sealed road. From then on it’s a ‘country sealed road’ in that there’s a single lane-ish of sealed road, sort of running along the middle with the shoulder on both sides unsealed. So if you’re the only one of the road; drive in the middle, when there’s someone coming you lean over to the left, the other people likewise do the same.
With the trucks that I encountered I pulled all the way over onto the shoulder to allow them to pass fully on the sealed section.

Dark clouds on the horizon of Hyden-Norseman Road.

Along the length of the road, after I passed onto the unsealed road proper I saw one car, a four wheel drive Nissan which I was behind for a while. I stopped once or twice to take some photos and to put some distance between me and them.
However, at some point I caught up with them, and overtook them. It was only when I looked behind me I noticed that they, after several kilometres of following me decided to do a U-turn.
This I couldn’t fathom as by this point we were some distance from anything, the last turn off had to have been at least 30 kilometres back the way we’d come. I was curious why they’d decided to do a U-turn, it’s not as though you could accidentally get onto the road.

The way onto it was either going through Hyden or, when following the road away from Wave Rock you came to a sign that says ‘Lake King’ and ‘Hyden’, the T-intersection doesn’t actually indicate that you can use the road to get to Norseman. Aside from a small ‘street sign’ that says ‘Norseman Rd’. But there’s no big white text on green sign-sign to indicate this.

So from that point on I was alone on Hyden-Norseman Road, and it was actually quite pleasant.
There’d been a little bit of rain that day so the surface was pretty smooth and lacking any dust, which meant I could maintain a constant speed without any issues.

However at one point as I was driving along, during which it had been a quite nice day I did spy some dark clouds on the horizon. The horizon towards which I was driving.
Eventually I did hit some inclement weather.
This did make things a little bit muddy, but nothing amazingly so.
Although by the end of the day my ute was more orange than it was black as a result of the slightly muddy conditions I drove along.

About three quarters along Hyden-Norseman Road I had a destination in mind.
McDermid Rock, another ‘it’s the tallest natural structure for kilometres in every direction’ thing.
This, like the rest of the road was deserted. The drive into this site was the only point that day that I encountered any corrugations.

McDermid Rock is bracing and surprising. It’s also rather amazing. It may have been because I was the only person on the rock and really knew I was the only person within at least 25 kilometres. It was a brilliant overcast-ish day that meant I could see all around me. It was also quite windy and cold, yet glarey with spots of sunshine. It was a very ‘all the seasons in one day’ sort of day that I experienced that day.

Congratulations sign on the top of McDermid Rock.

The small patches of vegetation on McDermid Rock was even more surprising than Wave Rock. On Wave Rock they were small ecosystems-worth of vegetation living on that rock. But there were also boulders and the layout of the Wave Rock meant there was some shelter.
On McDermid Rock it was much more exposed, yet there was still some vegetation, some small bits of an ecosystem. Water pools, stuff falls in, rots, becomes some basis for soil, things grow. It’s all quite amazing.

Unlike Wave Rock which is quite a steep ascent and decent McDermid Rock is quite gentle and once you get to the top the view is as rewarding, perhaps even more rewarding than Wave Rock because of the isolation. At Wave Rock you look around and see the caravan park, the dam, some signs of civilisation. But here at McDermid Rock there’s really nothing.
Perhaps it was because I was the only one there, alone with the view all around me, but it felt like a very unique experience.

From McDermid Rock was a relatively short and easy 100 or so kilometres to Norseman. As I approached Norseman the unsealed nature of the road gave way in fits and bursts to sealed road. In parts it seemed to have been a choice for safety; a long sweeping curve had been sealed but the straighter road on either side of it hadn’t. Then as I slowly got closer to the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway it became a sealed road.
I would assume that there’s a mine somewhere off of the road but there wasn’t one that I noticed along the sealed section of the road.

Outcome of Hyden-Norseman Road being a little wet.

In Norseman I considered staying at the Norseman Railway Hotel, which had been my initial choice when I’d come through Norseman. But I was rather tired and didn’t want to have to tangle with a shared bathroom situation or a ‘dog friendly’ motel situation (which the Railway Hotel seemed noted for). So I just went with the Norseman Eyre Motel, the motel behind the BP petrol station on the corner of the Eyre Highway’s end.

Carefully avoiding the sides of my ute which was now quite covered in an orange mud I parked, had a meal and headed to bed.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 6 - Kalamunda

November 02, 2015 in Travel

One question I was asked when I was doing this road trip was why I didn’t stay longer than a day in each of my stops, and the thing is that I just didn’t know what to do with my time. This trip I had a goal in mind and that’s what I wanted to do, to journey across and see the things in between.

So I didn’t feel like I wanted to remain in Mount Barker for longer than a day. In retrospect, perhaps I should have, but I wanted to explore the road and the journey in between this first time.

Today I ventured the relatively short distance of 355 kilometres.

Today was a day I made my way through forests and encountered traffic for the first time in several days.

But first it poured down with rain.

So much so I had to pull off the road.
I can cope with driving in rain, and any other situation more or less. But I also know my limits and when I can see less than a metre in front of my car and the speed limit is 110 and there are vehicles nearby I know what I want to do and that’s get out of the situation and let the rain pass.

It did give me a moment, in fact several moments as I needed to pull off their road (into rest areas, I wasn’t just pulling off the road randomly) it gave me moments of pause to take in the forest that I was driving through.

Today was also the day I encountered traffic for the first time since really my first day when I drove through Melbourne, as I’d bypassed Adelaide on the way through.
What surprised me about Perth’s highway system is the amount of traffic lights on them, or rather the freeways that suddenly become highways with traffic lights on them. I would presume it’s just a case of unexpected traffic and population growth.
There were also a surprising, though not unexpected amount of trucks on the road network near Perth.

Today I also took absolutely no photos.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 5 - Mount Barker

November 02, 2015 in Travel

Today I left moderately early, though my journey wasn’t to be that far. Salmon Gums to Mount Barker, via Esperance and the Stirling Ranges.

It was something of a change and return of scenery driving south towards Esperance, the desert landscape gave way to farm land, fields and fields of green or the brilliant yellow of canola.

Arriving in Esperance it was somewhat of an odd experience, driving through the town I found nothing much to be open, it only dawned on me why, as I looked around that I remembered what day it was; Sunday. Sunday in Western Australia, it’s like going back to the dark old days when you couldn’t do anything on a Sunday.

I’d skipped my room-provided breakfast in Salmon Gums as the cereal boxes indicated they were past their best before date and based on that I had my doubts about the rest of the food in the room (actually the bread in the fridge), so had decided to wait till I got to Esperance.
In the end I ended up at Maccas having driven through Esperance and gotten slightly detoured because half of the main street was blocked off due to road works there.

Leaving Esperance I was heading for Ravensthorpe. The route this road took was rather amazing, the contrast in landscape that went from sandy desert to almost coastal and then farmland next to it, and everywhere the brilliant bright yellow of the canola, I just found it wonderfully contrasting.
If I had any ability to paint, it would have inspired me to paint huge works of art.

As I approached Ravensthorpe the native wildflowers began to appear more readily on the roadside, the most noticeable was a brilliant purple flower. Along the way I went to the lookout at Mount Desmond. It was somewhat unremarkable.
There was a plaque there to C.C. (Tom) Daw.
But interesting for its view around the area.

I had elected not to take the most direct route on my way to Mount Barker, my destination for that night, and instead head via the “alternate route”, the tourist drive through the Stirling Ranges.

I am very glad I did.
The Stirling Ranges are, and this is a word I think I used too much because everyone in Western Australia seemed to think I was easily awed. And that is inspiring awe / awesome.
The Stirling Ranges loom as mountains over the countryside.
Their magnificence is further enhanced by the farmland around it, almost illuminated by the luxurious luminescence that is canola in bloom.
It makes for a quite otherworldly sight; mountains, which were the highest natural landmark I had seen for days surrounded by a brilliant yellow sea.
I got chills down my back upon seeing this sight of magnificence.

Travelling through the Stirling Ranges surprised me by how much the landscape changes, through rolling hills to dry arid landscape. Yes, all these things, these changes in landscape and environment exist within Victoria, but they’re 100s of kilometres apart.
Travelling towards, through and out the other side of the Stirling Ranges it felt like it was a voyage through different environments and landscapes.

It’s somewhere I fully intend to return to and explore more thoroughly in the fullness of time upon my return to Western Australia.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 4 - Salmon Gums

November 01, 2015 in Travel

I awoke today feeling quite rested, and even though the noise of the diesel generators in the background is...it’s not really noticeable in the same way that you would notice other noise, it’s just...it’s background noise. The noise of the generators I find preferable to intermittent road noise, because of its intermittent nature you can’t frame it into the background.

I ate breakfast at the roadhouse and I didn’t fill up with diesel as I had a bit over half a tank. This was a minor mistake as when I did fill up at Madura Pass it was significantly more expensive than Mundrabilla.

The journey from Mundrabilla to Norseman was my favourite stretch of road on this road trip, in both directions.

This stretch of road, just under 650 kilometres and taking around 6 hours 30 minutes was surprising, it was fascinating and I enjoyed it immensely.

It’s I feel, more isolated than the first part of the journey because the Eyre Highway drifts away from the coast so there’s less tourist ‘take photo here’ stop off points.

There are surprises, the Madura Pass surprised me because what I wasn’t expecting crossing the Nullarbor were many elevation changes. So much so there were signs warning trucks to use low gear and overtaking sections long this part of the road.

This part of the road also includes the 90 Mile Straight or the 145.6 kilometre straight, which is a slightly less epic name for it.
You don’t really consider what this means, it’s an interesting factoid for the Eyre Highway, but in reality 145 kilometres at 110 kilometres an hour is still going to be an hour plus of driving straight with nothing ahead of behind you.

What I didn’t notice as I was driving was the curvature of the Earth, which you’re supposed to be able to see. It was sunny and once you start to look into the distance you get the shimmering mirage sort of effect.

But it is wonderful, in its own way, I had to pull over about half way along the 90 Mile Straight to have a piss. Yes, not very romantic and it wasn’t at a rest stop somewhere it was just behind a tree. But the ability to look both ways and see nothing but straight road and hear and see nothing is quite amazing.

I had originally intended to stay in Norseman for the night before heading onto my relatives, however upon ringing up the Norseman Railway Hotel Motel, which is a fabulous looking 1920s Deco-era hotel I found out they were hosting a “retreat” and were booked out. So instead I decided to go down the road to Salmon Gums, around an hour south from Norseman.

Approaching Norseman after crossing the Nullarbor and the Eyre Highway isn’t so much a ‘welcome back to civilisation’ moment.
It’s somewhat odd, there’s lakes near Norseman and the highway weaves itself around them as you approach the town, you cross train tracks and go past a roadhouse before you enter the town.

I continued south through Norseman for Salmon Gums, not wishing to stop in Norseman for anything.

Salmon Gums consisted of a petrol station on the road and then further into the town a pub, post office and a few farm equipment businesses.

There was very little on the outside to indicate that the pub was open, though the design of country pubs like this, if the door isn’t open it’s often hard to tell if it’s open or closed, the windows are often fairly dirty / dark and if there isn’t a sign outside you just walk up and try the door.

I was moderately surprised by the accommodation at the Salmon Gums Hotel. I had actually booked, but upon arrival decided to change my booking to one of their motel units, rather than the hotel room (which would have had shared bathrooms). After the long day I just felt like a long hot shower and some space to spread out. Also the vibe there was...odd.
Not quite enough to make me want to leave, but I was on a moderate edge.

The room was fine, better than fine in fact, it looked like it had been recently renovated, the same could not be said for the parking area, which I did wonder what happened if they had more than 5 people with cars staying.

The room had an ensuite, double bed, fridge, toaster and kettle, plus cereal, milk and bread in the fridge. What it was lacking was a TV which considering its renovated state was somewhat surprising, but with good 3G I had YouTube for entertainment.

I discovered the following morning that the cereal was past its best before date. Based on this I wasn’t game enough to try the bread that was residing in the fridge.

Even though I found I’d arrived a little early, the drive from Mundrabilla being about 7 and a half hours. I used the time to check emails and other technology-based stuff as I found delightfully I finally had 3G at a decent speed.

Sole patron (aside from me) in the bar. Remains of edible meal in foreground.

The meal I had that night wasn’t stellar. It was edible. Steak.
The pub was somewhat odd, there was one other person in the pub, although it was early, 6 pm. Though someone else rang to pick up some food, for her kids, it seems the pub functions as the local fish and chip-esque shop for the area as well.
The woman who came in to pick up said food remarked “I haven’t been in here for ages”.
It was...cosy enough in the pub, roaring open fire, updated stools.
I felt somewhat out of place, not just because I was the only other patron of the pub, but because they, the publicans and the other patron were enthused about the AFL on the TV. Which I have very little interest in, and my remark “I’m not much into any sportsball” wasn’t received with the jest I thought it would. So upon finishing my steak I left them to their TV and beers.

That night I fell asleep to the noise of rain on the metal roof, it was probably as noisy as the diesel generators at Mundrabilla had been. It was interestingly not the first time I’d encountered rain during my trip, having experienced rain intermittently that day across the Nullarbor.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 3 - Mundrabilla

October 28, 2015 in Travel

Poochera Hotel breakfast and dining room

As I mentioned in the last paragraph of my last post my accommodation did include a continental breakfast of which I didn’t indulge. I wasn’t feeling immediately hungry when I awoke and felt like I could get a larger heartier breakfast further along the road in Ceduna.

Leaving Poochera it was basically a case of turn right and continue, there wouldn’t really be any more complicated directions until I got much deeper into Western Australia.

Ceduna was quickly reached in about an hour and a half, it was at the Mobil petrol station on the outskirts of Ceduna that I filled my ute up with diesel and myself up with a big cooked breakfast. This had become my standard thing, to have a large breakfast, have just a muesli bar or something like it for lunch and then dinner.
I found on my last few road trips that eating a small breakfast and then lunch and dinner just made me feel a bit bloated and fat. At least with a big breakfast early on in the day then in the middle of the day if I want to stop and have a walk around I can and not be beholden to finding somewhere for lunch or something.
Also as often a roadhouse will be the only option I prefer a breakfast menu to a lunch menu for its range of options.

It was today that I actually stopped and did the touristy thing of stopping, taking photos and looking at stuff. Mostly the sea and the Great Australian Bite.

Classic beauty shot of the Great Australian Bite.

It is amazing to look at the jagged coast line of Australia, something that you can only see by driving out to it. Or maybe flying to it by small aircraft of helicopter.
But it’s far from everything and when you get out there it’s amazing to look at.

I stopped at two of the photo opportunity / lookout spots along the way to look and take photos and it was amazing.
At the second location I saw some whales.

At the first location the drop into the bite it sheer, you can see the jagged rough edge of the Australian coast line where there are cliffs that drop to the sea. At the second it LOOKED less sheer, it looked almost driveable.
Albeit in a 4x4.
But I don’t think it is, I think it just looks flatter because there looks to be paths, but I think you could still easily end up in the sea if you attempted to drive along these what seem like paths.

My accommodation for the night was something I hadn’t booked and was either going to be Border Village (a petrol station, roadhouse and motel), Eucla or Mundrabilla.

But first I had to get through Western Australia quarantine.
It’s not as stringent as Tasmania’s quarantine, which involves dogs.
But it’s still more extreme than the fruit fly bins anyone who’s driven interstate would be familiar with.

I was asked do I have any; fresh fruit and vegetables, honey and any hessian sacks that might have contains potatoes.
I also had to open up my glove box, centre console, back doors and tailgate. Plus my esky.
Satisfied I wasn’t carrying any of these things I was allowed into Western Australia.

I’d decided not to stay at Eucla, which from what I’d read was expensive for not very much and decided to continue onto Mundrabilla.
Also I’d lost 2 hours off the clock upon crossing into Western Australia.
Although Ecula does exist in its own weird timezone which doesn’t really help. It’s 45 minutes behind Western Australia, despite being in Western Australia.

It doesn’t help at all really, but as I discovered at Mundrabilla time doesn’t really matter either regarding food and what not, so time literally becomes something of an illusion.

Mundrabilla is a roadhouse. Supposedly it has the cheapest fuel on the Eyre highway. It is certainly (as I would discover later on my return trip) much more friendly than Border Village.

$95 for a room at Mundrabilla.
The room was fine.
There was a bathroom which was probably built in the 1960s. The outside of the accommodation had a look of a 1970s primary school.

Outside of Mundrabilla accommodation block

One very notable thing about Mundrabilla and indeed all the roadhouses along this stretch of the Eyre is that they’re not connected to anything. So power, water, those things we take for granted they need to generate themselves.
This wasn’t noted anywhere I could see at Mundrabilla, but having read about this prior to departing while researching my trip I know that the water is drawn up from (somewhat salty) bores and then desalinated via reverse osmosis. This requires power, as does everything else that you use in day to day life.
That power is generated using diesel generators.
They’re noisy.
You are not going to sit outside and enjoy the serenity of the night. Well, you can if you take some photos.
But not if you’re wanting to listen to the night or any other guff like that.

I didn’t have any issue with the diesel generators because they’re constant, it was noisy yes, but it’s a constant drone. I can deal with that.

There was an interesting menu range at the roadhouse, not just the standard fare of steak and chicken parma. There was pasta, curry, soup and I think even a salad.
I opted for steak, which was perfectly cooked and along with its chips also included a pretty good salad. Again kinda surprising since it was reasonably priced and Mundrabilla is about an hour west of the West Australian / South Australian border which means it’s not close to anything.

They also had fresh cake for sale.
I like cake and had been craving some cake for a day or two now, so that was a nice thing to see for sale.
Baked that day I was informed.
Everyone I encountered at Mundrabilla was very friendly in fact, it was oddly a highlight especially as I would come to find out on my return trip staying at Border Village which had been the other option for today’s accommodation.

There were very few problems with Mundrabilla. None that I found awful, but things I think people may rate it down for.
I looked at the ceiling in the bathroom in my room and there was...a degree of mould on the ceiling. I attributed that to the fact that the bathroom wasn’t vented. I looked for but couldn’t find an extractor fan switch.
That’s not really an issue, you use a bathroom to take ‘evacuate yourself’ and have a shower in. I left the bathroom door closed and didn’t really think about it.
Mobile phone reception isn’t amazing, but it depends. I got perfectly fine reception sitting in the roadhouse dining area, I checked Twitter, my email etc, but in my room which was number 10 and on the edge of the property the reception was poor to non-existent.
It wasn’t an issue for me, and really I hadn’t been expecting to get any phone reception, so to find that I could get 3G reception was a welcome surprise, even if it was only in parts of the room.
TV reception was snowy, at best. Again this was not something I was expecting to have at all, so it was nice to see I could watch a bit of the evening news, especially considering the patchy phone coverage in the room. But it wasn’t something I needed. I had with me my phone and a Seagate Wireless Plus drive which functions as my portable media server when I’m out and about.

Going to sleep the drone of the diesel generators didn’t keep me awake, I put a podcast on and set the timer; fell asleep and slept soundly until the next morning uninterrupted by the diesel generators or passing road trains.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 2 - Poochera

October 26, 2015 in Travel

Day 2 Barmera, South Australia to Pochera, South Australia.

Like my last road trip, by this day’s end I was slowly realising I had again made a mis-calculation with the timing of my journey.
Not a major one.
Just a small minor one.

Today’s journey on paper was 7 hours 20 minutes, or 710 kilometres from Barmera to Poochera.

I say minor mistake as when I was planning my journey I optimistically thought I was going to stop and look at lots of touristy sites along the way.

Except that’s not me.
I don’t really have a hankering to stop off at places like the so called “middle of Australia” town of Kimba.

What I actually enjoy is driving and road tripping.
I like being on the road and seeing the landscape roll past.

Although really, I also know my limits, a maximum of 9 hours on the road is really all I think I’m safely capable of doing.

Also in planning my journey I had to take into account time and distance considerations. Especially crossing the Nullarbor. There’s only so many places to stop in at and that cascades back and forwards to determine where and when I could stop.

Poochera appealed because it was on the Eyre Highway and was a pub.
Had I not been able to stay in Poochera I’d thought I would need to detour down to Streaky Bay.

Fortunately I was able to book and get a room the Poochera Hotel, so I knew that was ready and booked.

But first, departing Barmera.
I had a filling breakfast in Barmera overlooking Lake Bonney, which is a rather glorious large lake there.

Travelling from basically one side of South Australia to the wheat belt of South Australia again made me marvel at its diversity. When I travelled through South Australia last year I marvelled at its range and diversity of landscape and I still marvelled this time.

I found myself wondering if it was because I’d not visited South Australia when I was young.
I’ve never been to the Northern Territory. With the other states I’d visited them when I was younger as a kid or in my teens.

But South Australia is a state that I’ve only visited as an adult, and I wonder if that means I look at it differently, unformed or influenced by childhood thoughts and considerations.

The landscape in particular inspires me, the diversity of it. Travelling west north-west across the state, seeing the farms of canola and grains as I drove along, the farms of sheep and cattle.
How you go through elevation changes as you go from the river through the countryside towards the coast. It’s just a fantastic diverse flowing set of changes across the landscape.

On the way to Poochera I did stop off at one touristy sort of location. Port Germein. Location of “possibly” (although not) the longest timber jetty in the Southern Hemisphere.

I admit I pulled off to Port Germein in part to have a look and in part to have a piss. Not the nicest of reasons to pause on my trip, but I thought I’d have a look once I’d relieved myself.

Driving into Port Germein was something of a surreal experience.

It looked, through my sunglasses very washed out, almost apocalyptic. Even taking them off did not alleviate this vision. It was not helped by seeing a guy driving a horse drawn carriage down the main street. The buggy that he was driving looked like it had once been part of a trailer or something but now was drawn by a horse.
He was talking to someone as he road past, so I am sure it wasn’t some sort of solo driving induced imagination.

Looking at the jetty it is indeed long.
I don’t really have much to compare it to, mentally it’s longer than all the timber piers that I’ve walked along on the Mornington Peninsula, or anywhere else in Australia.
I admit I did not walk along the jetty, because it was extremely long. It’s (according to the information sign) 1,532 metres long.
Too long to walk along on what was a sunny though cold and windy day.
Also while I probably had enough time to walk it...well I didn’t want to.

Following this I travelled north up to Port Augusta, the last major point of civilisation in South Australia.
Leaving there you’re presented with two options, turn right and and head towards Darwin or continue, left-ish heading for Perth.

It was leaving Port Augusta, seeing the, they’re probably not high enough to be called mountains, but hills, gateways almost, signalling that you’re departing one piece of Australia for another.
It was an awesome sight, in the traditional sense of the word, inspiring awe. It made me feel like my journey began at that point.
The way the the road curved around them it looks like you’re passing between two vast gate posts, signalling your exit from civilisation for a moment. In fact, the road just seems to drift off between them and it’s not clear at first even where the road is going.

At this point it looked like it was going to continue being the desert-like rocky landscape, but then it slowly gets greener and becomes farm land once more. Grain silos become the signal that you’re passing through a town, or at the very least an area with some sort of population.
The grain silos are the tallest thing in every direction, they are the tallest thing on the landscape.

They’re also oddly awe inspiring.

Onwards I drove towards my accommodation for that night; Poochera.
Had I not been able to get accommodation in Poochera I would have headed onto to Streaky Bay, which is about an hour away from Poochera and is more of a tourist town being on the coast.

I didn’t, need or want to. Poochera is on the highway. Streaky Bay isn’t.

Poochera is a town with a pub, grain silos, a memorial hall, and a train line that runs past it, and not much else.
The Poochera Hotel has standard pub-type accommodation, with shared facilities.
From what I gathered the publicans (they who own / run the pub) live in the pub as well. The outbuildings of the pub are used for storage.
Which I wouldn’t think is ideal.
Not ideal to keeping your business and home life separate.
When I was shown to my room and given the ‘tour’ in the bathroom there were two shower cubicles and I was asked to use the one on the left, only, when later that night I was taking a shower did I realise they (the owners) also used these showers. Again, I wouldn’t have thought ideal to have that situation, living and working around your patrons.

What I was surprised by was how cold it was at night, actually not even night, just drifting on towards the afternoon it got cold. They provided me with a blow heater, which was efficient at heating the room, and needed.

The pub also got surprisingly busy, well busy enough, especially considering that Poochera is not a large town but it seemed there are active families there.

I appeared to be the only person staying in a room of the pub, there was one other couple staying in a caravan. The pub is also the caravan park for Poochera with space outside. From what I could see I think they were unpowered sites but I honestly did not look too closely.

Surprisingly the price of accommodation ($40) also included a continental breakfast the following morning.
However the following morning I just didn’t really feel like toast of cereal.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 1 - To Barmera

October 21, 2015

Day 1 of my road trip. Mornington Peninsula to Barmera.

I’d planned each day of my trip using Google Earth to plot out my route and to give me a vague idea of how long it would take each day, so I could in turn work out where to stay.
Today’s trip would take a little over eight and a half hours.

This journey I have actually done before, although not to stop at Barmera. My road trip last year to Woomera I stayed in Morgan on the way back. This time I had learnt from that experience and was determined not to stop in Morgan again.

Barmera looked good enough.

My accommodation for the night was the Barmera Hotel Motel. I had booked online (the only accommodation on my trip that offered this). I’d opted for one of their hotel rooms.

Hotel rooms I find have more character than motel rooms, they’re usually older and in the main building rather than being tacked onto the side at some point when cars and motels became a thing that needed to be provided for.

The Barmera Hotel Motel hotel room was interesting and had character. It also had an ensuite, which was nice.
In fact it had everything that you’d expect of a motel room; fridge, TV, balcony. The fact it had a balcony was the only real thing that differentiated it from a motel room (I presume). That I had to go into the hotel and walk up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor room.
Also the floor was creaky, which I’d guess the newer concrete and brick motel rooms to the side of the hotel wouldn’t exhibit.

Downstairs in the dining room I was again reminded of the curious presence of the hot and cold sides / salad bar in the dining room. Something that I remember existing in Victorian pubs and bistros in the distant past. I remember they were a fixture of the 1980s and 1990s, and they basically disappeared from pubs in the late 90s and early 2000s as everything went more gastro-pub-like.

But in South Australia it’s still there. Or maybe it’s just country pubs, I’ve not really visited any really country pubs in Victoria so maybe the salad bar is still alive and kicking. Although that said I’ve not visited enough pubs in South Australia to make a pronouncement on the presence of salad and hot vegetable bars in pubs either.

Farthest Trip So Far - Perth

August 24, 2015 in Travel

3,900 km one way.

That is how far it will be for me to drive from my home in Victoria’s south east to some relatives in Western Australia.

As I have mentioned in this blog (or rather on the old blog, or where it used to be hosted, that’s for another blog).
Anyways, as I have mentioned elsewhere (that’s what I should have said), I have been trying to see the distances that connect the capital cities by road.
I’ve wanted to do this because I have flown to all the capital cities except Darwin and haven’t really learnt much about how to define or understand the size of Australia. You can measure it on any mapping program, you can see pictures from far flung points of it. You can read about the distances from those who travelled it through history.

But it doesn’t lead you to understand it better.

I have so far visited the Australian Capital Territory and Canberra, New South Wales and Sydney, Queensland and Brisbane, Tasmania, South Australia and Adelaide (Adelaide’s outskirts).

I describe my journey and the journey’s plan as visiting the capital cities, but that’s not quite technically true. On my South Australia trip I skirted around Adelaide’s outer suburbs without actually going into its CBD, because that wasn’t what I wanted out of the trip. For Tasmania there were places I wanted to see which didn’t include Hobart. I also made a mistake with how long I thought it would take to get places in Tasmania, so while I count Tasmania as “done” I will return there in the future and then in my mind it will be “properly done”.

The Perth and Western Australia leg has always been something I’ve been a little intimidated by.
The farthest I’ve been thus far was Brisbane at about 1,800 km. Perth is double that and a bit more.

I had been planning to go last year, but life and all those things sort of got in the way preventing me from going, I did my Woomera trip last year and then once I’d done that I didn’t have enough time to ready and plan for the Perth trip.

At one point I thought to do Western Australia and the Northern Territory in one big loop. But that, as I began to consider the distances was far too much.

So instead I will just be doing Perth. Though it’s hardly a “just”.
One thing that I have tried to do with my road trips is cover different paths, different routes, rather than just travelling along the same bit of tarmac there and back.

When I went to and through South Australia I went along the coast from Kingston SE and then up through Adelaide up to Woomera, and on the way back I returned along the river stopping at Morgan (which was possibly the worst night’s sleep I’d had).

This time it irks me a little that there isn’t an alternative route across the Nullarbor. There is one road. The Eyre Highway it begins at Port Augusta and ends in Norseman (or vice versa).
Yes there are a few towns that you could detour through on your way across, but once you get to Border Village, the creatively titled name for a village / roadhouse that sits on the border between South Australia and Western Australia, that’s it, there’s nothing but roadhouses and no other route to take.

However I will be taking a different route to Port Augusta than I will upon returning home. One the way there I’m going to follow the Murray River, which I did somewhat take on my way home from South Australia on my last trip, but I didn’t really want to have to make my way through Adelaide and up towards Port Augusta. I found the drive along that portion somewhat desolate and thought I’d have plenty of desolation to reflect on going across the Nullarbor.
Upon returning I aim to again bypass Adelaide stopping at Wudinna and Murray Bridge, going along past Bordertown (another creatively named town which sits near though not on the border with Victoria) and through Horsham and Ballarat.

I have prepared and then some, ready for many situations, to camp should I wish I have a swag with me. I got rid of my single burner butane stove (which according to the government is dangerous and prone to explode, I seem to recall buying it last year when I was planning my trip at very little cost <$15), instead I have a Trangia something I have used before, although it was long ago in high school. It’s odd how some things take you back / bring you back.
I got another spare for my ute, just in case (and new tyres, though they were starting to get near the end, I might’ve got another 2000 kms out of them (maybe).
I’ve got 2 fuel cans (technically they’re not “jerry cans” which are a specific design of fuel can). These are plastic and easier to pour than some designs. They’re also made in Australia. I am very thankful to Super Cheap Auto for exchanging my single diesel fuel can a 20L variety for two 10L varieties. I had had the 20L from earlier this year and when I put it in the back of my ute I had the tray open, and I thought it fit. Only recently did I check that the roller door on the back would close with it in, and it didn’t. So instead I have two 10L diesel cans. It’s probably overkill.
But it is better I think to be a little bit over prepared than under prepared.

I am sure though once I have left home I will still discover I have forgotten some things, but fortunately all of the big things I have taken care of; the things that need time to sort out; servicing my ute, tyres, swag. Any other things I think I should be able to purchase along the way.

V Blue review

May 25, 2015

Not...bad.

V is my preferred energy drink of choice, I’m not a Red Bull person, I find it too melon-y.

I did wonder, when I sipped V Blue whether the colour of the can was influencing how it tasted, that ‘hmm, blue’ was my first thought.

Upon reflection I’d say it’s got a hint, or an idea of passionfruit. Not passionfruit in any real sense, more the acidity of passionfruit.

The ingredients list on any product like this doesn’t really enlighten in any way as to what actually makes it taste ‘blue’. All it says is the very vague “flavours”.

I do remember V Blue being something that was released many years ago and you couldn’t buy it in the supermarket. Now you can, and I bought one to try once again.

It’s not bad. V Red I thought wasn’t good.

There is a flavour within V Blue that’s hard to identify. Now that I finish the can I think maybe it’s the Red Bull-style melon-y sort of flavour, which I at first thought was passionfruit acidity.

I’ll probably buy it again, though probably wouldn’t buy a four pack of it.

MICF 2015 - The Little Dum Dum Club (4)

April 20, 2015

3:00 pm - Sunday 19th April 2015

The stairs up to The Joint were working, albeit only the ones that led up to the venue, not the ones that lead down.

For the first time I didn’t get a seat in the front row, but managed to get one in the third where I could get a clear view of the stage for the most part, next to the sound desk.

This was the final recorded show of The Little Dum Dum Club podcast for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2015, although there would be the DrunkCast™ later in the evening.

Today’s podcast was epic for its guests and why everyone should be buying season passes to podcast shows at the MICF. I had bought a season pass for $60 which means each show cost $15, plus a ticket gives you access to the DrunkCast™ should you wish it.

On Sunday joining Karl Chandler and Tommy Dassalo were; Wil Anderson, Hamish Blake and Adam Hills. Plus Dilruk Jayasinha dropped in near the end.
Wil Anderson’s show sells for $35 plus alone. Yes he’s not performing his show at The Little Dum Dum Club. Instead what all the guests are being is improvisational, being comedians, in front of an audience.

Also included in the price of any ticket is entry to the DrunkCast™, the final unrecorded Little Dum Dum Club. I went last year. I elected not to go this year.
In part because it’s freezing tonight in Melbourne. I also had no other shows to see tonight so didn’t fancy the 6 hour wait between when the Dum Dum Club finished and around 10:15 pm - 10:20 pm when the DrunkCast™ would begin. Also where The Joint is isn’t the nicest part of Melbourne, the bottom end of Elizabeth Street isn’t entirely nice during the day.
There’s also my dislike of roudy drunk people. I am a person who can drink maybe 2 ciders and think ‘yep that’s enough for me’.
Plus having driven up to the city I’m not going to get drunk.
Also, by the end of last year’s DrunkCast™ it began to feel like a comedy hostage situation with Gary Chook holding everyone in to tell his racist jokes to.
From what @DumDumClub have tweeted it seems they’ve hit the limit for people going to the DrunkCast™ anyway, so me not going gave one extra person the ability to get in, while I’m sat at home with my feet in ugg boots and my hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

The final recorded podcast of the MICF was amazing, super funny, and brilliant just to see that many comedians together.
Being dickheads.

MICF 2015 - I Love Green Guide Letters (4)

April 20, 2015

4:00 pm - Saturday 18th April

For the final I Love Green Guide Letters for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2015 Steele Saunders guests were;

and

Merrick Watts

All except Dave O’Neil pictured in the photo, Dave is obscured by someone’s head in the front row and I didn’t want to move to try and take another photo for this.

This week probably won’t need too many edits or <Mr Black>s needing to be added by Steele when he’s editing and post producing this episode.

At the beginning there was some relatively insightful discussion of ‘where did everyone go to school’ and which other famous people went to their school. Steele didn’t answer however.

Merrick Watts observed the Athenaeum Theatre space that the podcast was being recorded in resembled a beer hall / Nazi party meeting meeting. I thought when he began he was going to make a Hogwarts comparison, but no. Nazis.

That led to a rather interesting discussion of the World War II and how Australia was to have been divvied up had the Germans one. Supposedly they’d have grabbed Tasmania for themselves while Japan took the lion’s share of our country.

This conversation dovetailed into World War I chats and Watts’ appearance on the Book Club on the ABC. Broadcast on Sunday, I think I missed it as I was driving home from the city.

There was some interesting insights into Swan’s time on “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”, including some truly fascinating information about farts.

Steele also managed to get through several letters about the guests and some letters from this week.

All up it was a great fun, interesting, insightful, honest and funny show and a great end to the MICF run of live podcast recordings.

MICF 2015 - Fiona O'Loughlin - “The One Where She Left Her Husband and Moved to Melbourne!”

April 13, 2015

12th April 2015 - 6:15 pm

Theis fancy, in fact all of the Arts Centre seems fancy when you walk in.

It also kills all phone reception.

Which means while waiting for the show to start I took copious amounts of rambling notes.

I hated the people who were standing next to me almost immediately because they tried to jump the queue. Considering it’s numbered seating I don’t know what the point was in trying to jump the queue.

It was a theme for the evening though. The people on my left it was discovered as more people arrived had decided to grab some better seats, (I was in second row from the front). But then the people with tickets to those seats arrived.

To the people behind me during the show...the reason I kept turning around is because you were twisting a plastic cup that made a squeaking noise every time.

The people who jumped the queue ended up being right next to me. And they were taking selfies while waiting. Sigh.

When Fiona O'Loughlin came out onto the stage I was struck by how graceful she looked. Composed and calm. I had seen Fiona before at live I Love Green Guide Letters and The Little Dum Dum Club shows. At those she was random, insightful and blisteringly funny and honest. Yet here, there was a grace and brilliance to her.

Fiona spoke of her boarding school days and early married life. Many of these stories I’d heard before. Fiona having related them on The Little Dum Dum Club and I Love Green Guide Letters. But life other shows like that I’ve seen by Wil Anderson, Tommy Dassalo and Steele Saunders all of whom have podcasts and have related stories on those, they were the original raw stories. In their shows they have the polish, flare and context for performance.

The audience, notwithstanding the selfie takers, cup fondlers and seat squatters were something of a mix. I and the selfie takers appeared to be some of the younger members. Actually if I’m honest I was older than the selfie takers. But I would guess that there were a lot of people who had experiences like Fiona’s Catholic upbringing or things like it. Just the way they laughed and related to her stories.

At the end of her show Fiona meets people outside to sign her DVD and to say "Hi". I almost went up. There were people hugging her and everything. But all I would have said was that "I saw you on the Little Dum Dum Club" and I have something of social anxiety / awkwardness and well, I just didn't want to queue up to say that. I just felt a little awkward so just left.

But I did enjoy Fiona's show and will most definitely see her again next year.

MICF 2015 - The Little Dum Dum Club (3)

April 13, 2015

12th April 2015 - 3:00 pm

Fat jokes, racism, the Westgate Bridge and Tommy’s parents were in the audience. Welcome to the Little Dum Dum Club. I’ve taken to writing notes and ideas in a little notebook, which also means reading my hand writing after the event. That’s basically what I wrote in my notebook in order to remind myself when I came to write this up. It’s not a lot, annoyingly I’m sure I recalled more after it. Or perhaps not. Laughter is an involuntary act. It goes through and is processed in a different way.

The guests for today’s club were:

Celia Pacquola

(who had to leave early),

Dilruk Jayasinha

Nazeem Hussain

(who subbed in for Celia) and

Dave Anthony

. Also

Gareth Reynolds

came on half way through. I found Celia’s accent notable, very though not quite entirely English accented. Still recognisably her accent of Australia, though quite influenced by an English accent.

There was a performance of Australia’s longest running and most professional podcast-based comedy series based on a Target catalogue audition “Rad Dad”. Nazeem gave quite a creepy performance as the police detective. Anthony was somewhat disappointed by his lack of lines and professionalism on the part of Tommy and Karl.

Rad Dad scripts under stools

There was more talk of Karl Chandler’s show which still sounds like an awful nightmare performance which I don’t know how he manages to do every night. Just the thought of that much heckling and contention in the room is enough to put me off from going.

I’ve always thought that everyone who’s at a comedy gig is there to have fun, to enjoy themselves. But Karl’s description of his show and the antics of the crowd it most certainly doesn’t sound like that.

Aside from this breakdown of Chandler’s most recent performance there was general random chats that were full of hilarity...along with some of the Dum Dum trademark ‘hanging shit on Dilruk’. Some of it seemed to shock / surprise Celia.

There’s one show left, plus the drunk cast. Get tickets, arrive early. Enjoy the sticky floor of the first floor bar while queuing for entry into The Joint. There are lifts if you’re curious about access that doesn’t involve stairs.

MICF 2015 - Wil Anderson - “Free Wil”

April 13, 2015

11th April 2015 - 5:45 pm

I was glad I’d left the I Love Green Guide Letters live show early as it’s a surprisingly long walk from the Athenaeum Theatre to the Comedy Theatre. It’s the elevation changes that make it surprising.

I was curious about what Wil Anderson would be doing for his show this year. As a fan of his podcast TOFOP / FOFOP he’d talked at length about touring his previous show “Wiluminati” and also performing it at the Sydney Opera House for his DVD release. It meant that he began work on his Comedy Festival Show later than he usually does.

It doesn’t show, it’s still a fantastic mix of stories and tales of his life.

Like Steele Saunders’ and Tommy Dassalo’s shows where they related tales that they had previously mentioned in their podcasts (“I Love Green Guide Letters” and “The Little Dum Dum Club” respectfully), Wil also mentioned things that he had previously mentioned on TOFOP/FOFOP. But these stories had been crafted and remixed to create a story for performance.

Wil did a large amount of crowd work with the front row and the late comers before the start of the actual show, which included some tales from some of his other shows around the country.

Seeing Wil’s show and the variability of his material, along with the callbacks to the crowd work at the beginning does make me wonder about seeing his show a second time, to see what is different from seeing it the first time. It’s unlikely I will however, as I’ve said I’d heard different versions of some of the stories in his podcast. Seeing his show a second time might be a case of seeing the same story too many times.