Hello from Western Australia. I arrived in Broome last night after a rather epic travel day across New Zealand, the Tasman Sea, a continent, and something like 27 time zones. Australia is big. Out the plane window there was miles and miles of flattish, red, bushy type country which looked hot.
After filling out the form at the Qantas counter at the airport for my lost bag, I walked down the street to my hostel, which is the cheapest place in town. It's still not cheap. There was some sort of techno dance party going on, which I wasn't overly excited about. It's full of young and old, although it seems to be dominated by young attractive tanned types with pedicures. I think you probably have to have a pedicure if you're in Australia, since you wear sandals all the time.
I walked into town to buy some sandals and some food. It is pretty muggy but there is a breeze from the ocean so it's not too bad. There were a few cafes where tourists sat outside and ate and drank. There are also lots of Aborigines huddled together in alleys and behind buildings, drinking and/or sniffing gasoline and looking ruined. It was really sad.
Today I went on a daylong photography tour run by this English guy named Nigel. He has a big burly truck and took us out to a few places around town. There was much camera instruction, and I learned a few things about apertures and ISO and the like. I was a little bored, though, as Nigel was really interested in things that I found uninteresting, like twigs and sand dunes and abstract bands of color. I thnk I took away some tricks for the future, but it was a tedious day in the searing heat taking photos of sand patterns.
Nigel is also a real eco-warrior. Apparently there is a gas company interested in building a drilling facility here and Nigel spent most of the day railing about the injustice of it. He was full of nuggets of information about ecology which seemed rather dubious or obvious. "See these vines? Without these vines here, this sand would just blow away. It would be gone. GONE!" Umm, no shit buddy. But he was a nice guy and was genuinely interested in our success as photographers.
Tomorrow I pick up a 4WD camper and am going to drive it to Darwin across the wastes on the Gibb River Road. It's a pretty sweet rig, a Toyota Hilux with a fridge and BBQ and pop-top. I got a really good deal on the vehicle because it needs to be relocated from one place to another. The fine print on the contract said that due to the cheap price, you aren't supposed to take it off the pavement. I figure they have a car wash in Darwin and nobody will know the wiser. In the morning I will stock up with a week's worth of food and water and also a map or something. Maybe a pen and paper since my laptop computer keyboard stopped working and they don't have coin-operated computers with sticky keyboards like I'm using right now.
This is a camp of protesters out in the middle of nowhere. It is hot and there are lots of flies. Nigel knew them and raised his fist in solidarity.
We spent a lot of the day in the burning sun taking pictures.
In the evening we went to Cable Beach, near Broome. It was a huge beach, with lots of cars on it, and the locals are out grilling and watching the sunset. It's a really nice spot to hang out.
Camel tours! Cue the Lawrence of Arabia theme.
My grocery store thongs still have the tape on them.
I imagine I will have some stories after the next week. There may or may not be some internet at a roadhouse out there, powered by a kangaroo on a treadmill and run through a satellite dish or something. If there is, I'll send another update.
