Beneath the Southern Cross, Part Three

Because bookings had been made, we drove north. We stayed a night in Freemantle which is a town right on the edge of Perth. We were told that Freemantle is a colorful, alternative town. I was eager to see it. We read somewhere that historically, it was a port town and that a hundred years ago, it was a really rough place to hang out--men brawling in the streets, women of the evening lurking on every corner, etc. It also is the home of a very large and well-known prison though I don’t know if there is any direct relationship between it being a rough town and it having a big prison. Anyway, while it has changed its appearance from a major port to a touristy coastal town, it still felt rough around the edges. We had more issues with street people, there were lots of ruffian-looking kids hanging around, scantily-clothed women and gawky men. I hadn’t seen characters quite like this anywhere else in Australia so far, except maybe Sydney. I love how the tone or feel of a town can stay with it for hundreds of years.

We had our first caravan park experience in Freemantle. We reserved a little cabin at a few of the caravan parks along our way so that the six of us wouldn’t have to shower, potty, cook, eat, sleep, drive and store everything all in the same 6’ X 20’ space for 2 weeks. After our first night with a cabin in Freemantle, Mark got on the phone and reserved a cabin for every night for the rest of the trip. If it weren’t for those cabins, I can pretty much guarantee that all six of us would not have survived this trip. Who thinks six people should live in a tiny camper van for 2 weeks? It seems to me that camper van companies should take some moral responsibility for the mental health and well-being of their customers before they send six people out in a tiny capsule on wheels for an extended period of time. The cabins we rented saved our souls.

I think we are up to Friday. Friday was a big driving day. We went north, out of Freemantle, past Perth and into new territory. The plan was to drive half-way to our final destination which was Shark Bay and stay the night in Geraldton. It took us about 6 hours to get to Geraldton and it was a long and lonely road. The climate was even drier and we had to take a major detour to get near the coast as the main highway was quite a bit inland.

We stopped at a beach to let out some pent up energy and it was windy, sand-duney and spotted with scrub bushes. The towns were miniscule along this coast leaving us wondering who might venture up this far and why would anyone want to live here. I think we were all holding out hope that even though the road between Perth and Shark Bay was desolate, once we got there, it would be beautiful.

We stayed the night in Geraldton after making a huge mistake of buying a disgusting excuse for Thai food from what looked like a decent restaurant and nobody eating any of it. Except for Dave who enjoyed his meal just fine. We got up early the next morning and hit the road again.

This drive was even more remote. There was absolutely nothing between Geraldton and Shark Bay, 5 hours later, except red dirt, scrub, a two-lane highway and some road kill. At least we thought that was all that was out there. Come to find out, there were also flies. Clouds of them. We stopped at a rest area and were assaulted when we got out of the camper. They were shameless. You could bat the same fly away a dozen times and it would not give up. Back and back and back they came to land on our faces, crawl up our noses, perch on our lips and explore our inner ears. They crawled up our legs and arms and dozens of them at a time would hitch long rides on our backs. I’ve never experienced flies in this quantity in my life. It was intolerable. We were scurrying back to our car from the toilets and passed a couple who wore mosquito-netting over their heads to cover their faces. We knew right then, we were in trouble.

These are a few of our flies on my mother's back.

Kids passing hours in the back of the camper. They were amazing travelers.

It can’t be that bad in Monkey Mia, I kept saying. We’ll see, said everyone else. I couldn’t believe we could have made reservations to spend 3 days in an uninhabitable part of the world.