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It started off as a coast-to-coast four-wheel-drive odyssey across Australia's top end.

4WD Odyssey

Nickjenkins
2003-11-20 16:52:02

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tricky sections. Since Richard or I individually weighed about one fortieth of the laden mass of the curry wagon we thought that probably wouldn't work for us and gladly followed him.

As it turned out we were to have the beach to ourselves since it was too rough for fishing and our friend went in search of other prey. The weather was too rough for us too with a westerly blowing straight into the cover and we paused just long enough to have lunch. During lunch however we did our bit for ecological preservation and fed one of the local reptilian residents with Twisties and tuna.

Since Golden Gate had proved inhospitable we returned to Shelley Beach for a second day and this time set up the tent to give us some shelter from the sun. At this point Richard introduced me to tea. Now I've known about tea for a long time (particularly having lived amongst the unwashed of London for four years), but I've always regarded as a bit of an inferior version of coffee. At Richard's prompting I tried some ordinary breakfast tea and discovered that sans milk and with suitable lashings of sucrose it actually doesn't taste half bad. Eventually I graduated to Lapsang Souchong and Earl Grey and I quite like them all but I'm pretty sure I won't be giving up espresso in a hurry.

From West Cape Howe we went 100km east along the coast to Albany. On the way we stopped off to take a look at the windfarm on Sandpatch Road which provides Albany with up to 75% of its electricity every year. The rank of twelve gleaming white pylons sit atop the hill overlooking the surf and the bus-sized turbines turn to face the prevalent winds and operate in anywhere from 25km/h to 180km/h of wind. The gentle swish of the 35m blades over your head provide a pleasant background noise and the windfarm itself is an encouraging example of well-directed human ingenuity. It's reassuring to think that if we put our ...