Now where WAs I??

A ridiculously late blog post to complete the Aus jigsaw, apologies. This is being done as I wait for my friends to give me a lift to Heathrow for the next research trip!

Anyway, Western Australia (WA) was immense, dry (until the winter storms hit) and yet again subtly different from the other states. Vast driving distances through flat desert plains to reach towns who really shouldn't exist but for mining (largest diamond mine in the world Kimberley diamond anyone?) and pearls. But worth all the effort.

• The Kimberley mountain ranges, coastline and rock formations
• Shark Bay world heritage site (the oldest living organisms on the planet, stromatolytes, which convert nitrogen into hydrogen and oxygen and were instrumental in creating the atmosphere we breathe today!)and the Ningaloo reef, the only reef on the western side of a continent - dived with manta rays, dolphins, dugongs and nurse sharks cruising past! Dugongs, sea cow type things and supposedly the origin of the mermaid myths - how pissed were those old sailors??
• The Bungle Bungles sandstone rock formations, only publicly discovered by white folks in 1982 when a film crew asked locals for somewhere interesting to film! Now world heritage site but with private aboriginal areas as they are still believed to practice sacred burial rites inc. termite burials of elders - period of mourning lasts until the termites have completely covered the corpse
• Broome for the "Staircase to the Moon", the moon rising over the sandbars and shallow sea and reflecting a prism of lights onto them from the setting sun.Also for the open air Sun Pictures House, the oldest operating open cinema complete with deckchairs and old benches
• The Dampier peninsular, home to many aboriginal people but with a catholic missionary twist
• Then to the south of Perth,the giant Kauri pine forests and bleak Capes with Margaret River wine district sheltering behind them
• Fremantle, a preserved Victorian city centre of grand terraces of villas and shops and public buildings, esplanade leading to the harbours and the brewery! And a party town too

Sorry, a brief summary but too late to start waxing lyrical really, but also because as I neared Perth, so my deadline loomed and the last 2-3 weeks were a real whistle stop tour and the weather went sour with gales and storms as soon as I headed south from Shark Bay.

A few last thoughts:

• Best road signs "Local Police Are Targeting...", normally D&D, speeding, etc but these were "Fatigue"! Instant visions of sleeping policemen (real ones); quiet crimes during siesta times
• Whim Creek Hotel, re-built by Rio Tinto Mining Corp after hurricane a few years ago, and now the mining teams@ work camp but still open to public! Ate with miners in their mess rooms and a few beers too. Amazing
• Road kill (again!), emus - just the most brainless things in the world. And in Exmouth are often seen wandering down the high street - weird
• Wedding, WA-style: women in party dresses, blokes in ironed shirts with shorts and flip flops but loads of beer all round - hooray!

Handed Lindie back on time and went to local "skimpies" pub (only one near camp site, honest) - barmaids and pole dancers entertaining a load of very bored looking blokes just finished work and intent on watching the horse racing in the bookie area. One of them had bra, knickers and ugg boots on, coz she was cold!

So, would I go back? Yes but would need a team and two vans better equipped so that could do the even more remote places. Would I live there? Perhaps in Sydney or Melbourne or a diving / sailing place, the country towns are as dead as Alton but without history as we know it.

Enough! Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Aus_WA_2009

Cheers!