Wandering in Western Australia

The first thing you need to understand is that Western Australia is big - really big. On a comparative basis, it’s almost twice as big as Alaska and almost four times as big as Texas. In Canadian terms, it’s almost three times as big as our largest province, Ontario. We flew into Perth on July 11th , picked up a rental, drove as far north as Exmouth and then back to Perth to begin the trip home on July 21st. At one point, I checked the GPS we’d rented and it showed our destination some 700+ kilometers down the road with a right turn coming up in 340 klicks. You don’t want to run out of gas here or have any kind of breakdown–not a lot of traffic.
In ten days we drove 3600+ kilometers and used 244 liters of gas at an average cost of $1.62 AUS/liter (that’s $6.14 AUS/gallon) with the price peaking at $1.708 in Exmouth. The cheapest gas we found was in Perth - $1.395/liter ($5.28/gallon). And we think we’re paying a lot for gas. And in all that driving, we saw live kangaroos exactly twice - a single just outside Cape Range national Park and a double on a side road in Greenough after we’d missed our turn.
Everything in Western Australia is expensive. The economy is booming and prices have risen accordingly. And Australians love to travel and see their country. And we were there during a school break when families are also on the move. The result was a dearth of available accommodations at the budget level. We spent $100/night for a hostel room with bunk beds and no private washroom facilities in Coral Bay and slightly more for a cabin in Denham where the washroom facilities, though private, were in a separate building.
Eating and buying groceries followed the same trend. Think $20 for take-out fish and chips and $4.25 for a small coke to go along with that. Or, how about $13/kg for bananas? At home, people get upset when the price of bananas gets to 99 cents per kilogram. The sticker shock was exacerbated by the fact that we’d just come from Bali where we could have a lovely lunch in the Lemon Grass Café for just 100 000 RP (about $12 Canadian).
Driving in Australia requires certain adjustments. Because the driver sits on the right of the vehicle, I wanted an automatic - changing gears on a manual transmission with my left hand was more than I wanted to try. Hard enough to remember left hand for wipers and right hand for turn signals. Surprisingly, I had little trouble with that in Australia this time (some problems in 2000) but, in the first week I was home, I had several instances where I used my right hand to signal a turn. Go figure.
The driver sits on the right of the car and you drive on the left side of the road so the driver is closer to the middle of the road. That also takes a little getting used to - it’s like a mirror image of the North American road and that changes the perceptions. Doreen never quite felt comfortable and had a tendency to drive very close to the shoulder of the road. The sparseness of traffic made it easier to settle in and allowed leeway for mistakes.
The main highways in Western Australia were basically two lanes (one in each direction) with a paved shoulder and semi-frequent passing lanes to allow you to get past road trains and slow moving campers and trailers. The speed limit on these highways was 110 km/h - a little faster that the 401 in Ontario. When you got off the main highway, the paved shoulder disappeared (so did the passing lanes) but the speed limit only dropped to 100/km. When the road became too narrow for a center line, the speed was dropped to 80/km. And everywhere there were warnings to be careful about wildlife on the road.
Outside the urban area, Australians don’t seem to believe in stop signs. Even in urban areas, they rely on round-abouts to facilitate traffic flow. You just have to remember to look right as you approach the round-about. In the north, they just leave it to the driver to watch for traffic. This grabbed me one day as we drove back to Exmouth from a snorkel trip to Turquoise Bay. As we approached the intersection with the main highway, our speed limit dropped to 90 and I began to brake in anticipation of a stop before entering the highway. Surprise! No stop sign - not even a yield sign - just make a right turn and continue on your way. Definitely wouldn’t work around here.