Day 5
November 3, 2011
My hatred of time zones has been well-documented on this blog. For whatever reason, my brain just cannot wrap itself around the concept. Ordinarily, this is not a massive deal, as I have developed several workarounds to allow me to communicate with friends and family around the globe, namely lurking around on gchat until they show up. Not overly sophisticated, but it works. This trip has KILLED me. We have been in a different time zone every day, thanks to Queensland not believing in Daylight Saving, and the maddening half-hour increment time zone changes which is just like....COME ON. The point of the story is that when we woke up on Wednesday morning, we had absolutely no idea what time it was. My watch said one thing, Jamie's another, the car clock a third and both of our cell phones, a fourth and a fifth. This is how we ended up on the road at 4:30 am.
We decided to take advantage of our bright and early start, and detour to the Caiguna Blowhole, a prominent feature in one of our travel brochures. We followed a sign down a dirt road (as usual), bumping along, swerving to avoid the lizards sunning themselves on the dirt. Right away, we noticed this road was slightly...sketchier than the other dirt roads we had previously ventured down. This one quickly devolved into little more than a set of tire tracks through the brush, and we swerved around in the vague direction of the ocean until we unceremoniously dead-ended in front of a thick patch of gum trees, no path in sight. We had come so far, we figured surely the famous blowhole was just through the trees, but as Jamie disappeared into the bush, alarm bells started ringing in my head: Wolf Creek, Peter Falconio, a dingo ate my baby! We had only made it about ten metres into the bush before realizing the car had all but disappeared behind us, with no sign of the alleged blowhole ahead of us. We beat a hasty retreat and vowed to write a strongly worded letter to the Australian Blowhole Commission.
After all the fanfare about the stark beauty of the Nullabor Desert, I'll admit to being...underwhelmed. Perhaps I was desert-fatigued, but the ceaseless scrub and dead kangaroos just didn't seem as majestic as they once had, and I was glad when we stopped in the town of Caiguna to have our "I Crossed the Nullabor" certificates notarized by the local publican (seriously).
A few more hours and we were in Esperence, a small but pretty coastal town with truly spectacular beaches. At a service station outside town, Jamie befriended a trucker who told us we absolutely had to head to a place called Lucky Bay. Being wary of travel tips from strange truckers (Wolf Creek, Peter Falconio, a dingo ate my baby), I reluctantly agreed. I hereby renounce any hesitance or prejudgement once heaped upon travel advice from potential serial killers, because Lucky Bay and the surrounding areas was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Australia. This time our camera remained functional, so stay tuned for pictures.
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