maqh just cruising along

411/2009 10

Driving around WA

I just love driving. Some people get tired when they even think about getting behind the wheel for few hours or so but not me. Give me the opportunity to drive somewhere very far and I'm most likely up for it, of course if there's something interesting to do at the end of the journey. And that's why - among other things - I enjoyed September this year so much: I drove almost 3.000km in 2 weekends. Second trip was up north and few photos from there are here and here. First one on the other hand was completely the other way - down south and few shots from there should be coming soon. So if you want to see how Denmark looks in Australia, stay tuned. But first, few photos from the road.

1. Typical WA road few hundred kilometers from Perth

This photo shows a typical WA road few hundred kilometers from Perth and it doesn't really matter whether you go south or north. The difference you may notice would be the ratio between red and green you see around. It's much hotter up north so orange and red colours will be all around you there. Plus you'll be passing way more other cars if you're heading south, the other way once you're pass Geraldton (around 400km from Perth) most drivers will greet you to congratulate you've decided to drive to the middle of nowhere.

2. Side of the road up north

That means you can sometimes drive for an hour or so between passing other cars so make sure you have some good music on and a good company next to you (I definitely had both!). Oh, and make sure you have all the equipment you may need in case something goes wrong with your car, chances are if you're between towns there's no mobile reception. It's also handy to know how far can you go on fuel you currently have in the tank as sometimes you may have more than 100km between petrol stations. When we were coming back from down south we got to the station with around 2 liters left, let's just say I definitely don't encourage this kind of adventure in the middle of nowhere.

The roads are generally in a very good condition, speed limit is 110km/h and most of the time that's your average speed. Unless you're testing your car like I was at times then... hmmm, well... your average is bit higher. Every now and then you'll have to overtake so called road trains that can be more than 50 meters long:

3. Road train

But even if you get stuck behind one of those for a while don't worry, most likely within next 5 or 10 km there will be an overtaking lane so you're not really slowing all that much. And they're not actually going that slow anyway. It's definitely a good idea to "hide" behind one of then at the dusk, down or after dark. That's when kangaroos are not your friends, they can jump right in front of your car and as they're quite big depending what kind of car you're driving, it can get messy. We actually had a chance to find out how scary it is to hit one at night, in the middle of nowhere, with around an hour to our destination and no cars driving that late. Fortunately nothing serious happen but I don't recommend this kind of adventure either.

So if you're going somewhere far you're most of the time on a highway going pretty fast and as long as your car is fast and comfortable enough you're sweet. But of course sometimes you want to stop somewhere interesting and obviously not all the best spots are next to the main road. That's when you can experience a typical red gravel road and your car is going to get dirty. And that's when 4WDs, so popular here, come handy. They're not always required cause often its just couple of hundred meters to get to the ocean for example.

4. Local gravel road

5. Another shot of typical local road

On the other hand if you're for example in Kalbarri and have to drive on a road like below for 30km they're definitely better option than your everyday city car.

6. Road inside Kalbarri National Park

Generally in my opinion drivers in WA are not too bad but then again I was driving in Poland for a fair while. And that's why every time someone whines about how bad people drive in here I send them to Europe, at least some parts of Europe to see some really bad driving (and some really bad roads). Interesting thing you may find here would be random checks if people are not drink driving. It's not a single police patrol randomly stopping few cars, they'll block the whole road and get everyone into bus like the one below for tests, You should see how many cars sometimes stay next to that bus cause people are not allowed to get back to their vehicles.

7. Police bus

One more interesting thing, down south I drove my own car but for a trip up north we rented one of those camper vans and it was awesome fun. If you ever have a chance to go for a road trip in one of them I definitely recommend it.

8. Our camper van

The company we went for (Wicked Campers) gives you a car that has graffiti all over it and you're even encouraged to add some paintings or writings inside. Its definitely not a 5 star hotel but I enjoyed it heaps.

9. Yes, you even sleep inside this thing

Plus you meet a lot of other vans on the road:

10. Another wicked camper

Now after writing this post I feel like getting behind the wheel again, maybe I'll go for a short drive right now and plan my next holiday.