Thu 27th of August 2009 Meekatharra to Carnamah via Cue, Mt. Magnet, Mullewa and Mingenew ~ 700km

---

Thu 27th of August 2009 Meekatharra to Carnamah via Cue, Mt. Magnet, Mullewa and Mingenew ~ 700km

Okay the smell did not kill me and hence this is a day or carnage and wild flowers. I know, I know, this is a country of contrasts.

The smell may not have killed me, but I had my worse nights sleep yet. With a bad smell your olfactory senses make some adjustment, and like white noise, you don’t notice it after a long exposure. With a really bad smell, you smell it all the time since those same senses are telling you to get the hell out of there. With this in mind, and with nowhere to go, I slept fitfully and was close enough to the road to hear the road trains pass by periodically. They are the villains in our next act. To escape the smell - I never did figure it out - but it seemed like a drain of some sort - I left early. In the one hour ride from Meekatharra to Cue early this morning I literally passed a herd (100’s) of freshly dead kangaroos (I have yet to see a live one by the way), not to mention a dead sheep, a dead steer and assorted small animals so road trained as be in even smaller bits. How did I know they were fresh? Most of them were still in the middle of the road! I know I have gone on about road kill way to much but I can’t help it. Riding up to a dead steer with its right hindquarter defiantly in the air sitting there in the middle of the road leaves an impression. All the road trains have roo bars in front to avoid damage to the radiator etc. I must remember to have a close look at one when parked and see if I can estimate its bounty.
Cue was another dead end town like Meekatharra except here at least they have tried to spruce it up so its heritage speaks to the tourist. There were a whole series of plagues on the main street in front of nothing that said, “the site of the former blah blah blah.” A great way for all of us to create sites of historic importance.

In Cue my eye was caught by a car I thought was a 1960’s Austin Cambridge, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a 70’s Peugeot. I guess I just wanted it to be an Austin Cambridge since that was my first car and the one I took my Australian driving test in at 16. It still had a crank for heavens sake, and just prior to my test I stripped the carburetor and cleaned it since the needle would occasionally get stuck. What am I talking about? It was such a simple device. The carburetor would fill with petrol and a float would rise pushing a needle, which blocked further fuel from entering and flooding the motor. The idea was to provide a constant flow of fuel to the engine. Problem was on occasion, as the petrol was burnt and the float fell, the needle would stick and the car would stall for lack of petrol - not something you want to happen on your driving test. Unfortunately as I was cleaning it prior to the test I dropped the needle on the street and panic ensued as the whole family tried to find it so I could take my test on time. I am happy to report even with that trauma when the needle was found I passed. The instructor was so amused by the story I think he overlooked my mistakes. “No worries mate, anyone who can find a needle in a haystack can easily drive a car.”

I digress. Turns out there is a Peugeot club in Australia, and as an amicable Victorian told me, every year or two they all get together and circumvent Australia. One time in a clockwise direction, and next time, just for fun, in an anti-clockwise direction. On this trip they had been at it about 4 and ½ weeks and were about half way around. As he put it, “it beats sitting around having grass grow under your bum.” He told me to look out for their leader who has some kind of Peugeot that was converted into a Baker’s van and is painted bright yellow. Thankfully I never saw it.

As I was embarrassingly tucking into my snags and eggs in the Cue Roadhouse my Harley friends arrived. Turns out they are Dave and Judy and we leap frogged each other most of the day as they headed back towards Perth. In our couple of stops together I came to appreciate how wonderfully sincere and nice Australians are, even if Dave was from Blackpool originally.

The Great Northern Road from Cue to Mt. Magnet does not have much to offer, including much less road kill thankfully. At Mt Magnet we turned off the main highway to head SW towards Mullewa and slowly the scenery changed. The road was sealed and still pretty good so we could keep up the 110-120 kph that the engines have come to expect. There was more vegetation and an increasing number of wildflowers. I read that there are 3000 varieties of wildflowers in WA, but all I can say is the off-white, yellow and purple ones are very nice and in places formed a thick blanket and oh the smell. Perhaps it was a reaction to the smell of last evening but as you pass by an area of concentrated flowers a soft scent drifted by. Life does not get any better than this. Try getting that feeling in a car.

After 240 km of west to east at Mullewa we headed directly south and the contrast was amazing. Endless green rolling fields, I assume of wheat, since this is the WA wheat belt, intermixed with patches of wildflowers. It reminded me of England, except each field was about the size of an English county. Other vehicles were rare out here. The towns had also shifted from mining to agriculture and the grain silos were a constant reminder. I also saw my first dead snake. I found that very strange since I was expecting to see them on the road in the dessert terrain, not here. When I was a kid growing up in Australia I remember a tale of an open jeep that ran over a tiger snake, one of Australia’s more unpleasant varieties, only to have it flip up into the jeep itself. In my memory at least the trick was to lock the breaks and skid on the snake to prevent it flipping into the car. This story kept coming to mind as I would spot the odd black mamba at the side of the road, only to see it turn into a bit of tire tread as I passed by. I can’t shake that vision of a tiger snake wrapped around by leg with only denim to protect me from a horrible convulsive death.

The riding weather today had been just about perfect, but as the sun started to sink it was time to get out the inner lining of my spiffy motorcycle jacket and cover those near black hams at the ends of my wrists that have sat exposed to the sun these past days. To avoid stares, it will be long sleeve shirts for a while when I get home. By the time I stopped for the evening in Carnamah, about 350km north of Perth I was really cold, but felt good that I have covered so much ground. I found a cabin in the local caravan park and immediately made an instant coffee. Only the day before I was dying for that ice-cold beer at the end of the days ride. Ones’ situation can change very quickly when you are on the road.

---

Photos

The Royal Mail Hotel
Beware of the smell when you stay there, not to mention the karaoke in the bar

The WA Wheat Belt
Fields the size of English counties

Comments

[Fletch]

Mmm, a nice latte
Too much thinking is not safe for the middle aged man and I would counsel against it. As soon as the meaning of life floats into view it should rapidly be replaced with an analysis of Glenn McGraths line and length or, for example, under what exact circumstances you could get a date with Jennifer Aniston or be called up to open the batting for your country in its hour of need. Furthermore your note about an Austin Cambridge reminded me of my first day at Uni, I was driving there in my Dad’s Cortina MkI when said Cambridge pulled up a bit sharpish at a Zebra crossing and I, being distracted by Tony Blackburn on the wireless, smacked straight into the back of him. The Austin Cambridge had a huge metal chassis. The Cortina a flimsy monocoque. No contest. Finally, and sticking to the subject of avoiding all things philosophical, I too had a Harley which had all the engineering sophistication of a Byelorussian tractor and the exhaust used to fall off with terrible regularity. On a trip to Spain we made it exactly 5 miles off the ferry before the oil tank exploded and we were stranded for 4 days. On the bright side I did later sell it to a London Cab driver for more than I paid for it, which somehow made up many years of being forced to listen to their philosophy of life whislt being forced to pay through the teeth for it…