On the Indian Ocean

Oh, no! We are a third of our way through our holiday. The good news is, we have half of the driving behind us – pretty much according to plan. We have about 10000 km left to complete the loop, and abut 70 days left to do it in. You do the math. Should be a bit of a saunter from here on in, not that we have pushed that hard to get to the West Coast. I would say that driving around Australia is a bit more of a task than driving around either Portugal or Ireland, our two most recent circumnavigations.
We were familiar with the long lonely roads in Queensland and Northern Territory from earlier trips, and thought it might be a bit different in Western Australia, but it really isn’t. There are still long stretches between any evidence of human habitation (200km +) and straight stretches that go on for tens of kms (the longest in Oz is actually 147 km, but we haven’t done that one – yet). It is nothing to drive for 15 or 20 minutes and not meet another car. Anyway, the enclosed photo of the Great Northern Highway is typical. We expect to see less and less of the long distances between towns as we move down the coast, although there will be more across the South Coast.
I will take some photos of the functioning of the van – our routines are getting pretty well established. It is not large, but is still quite a bit bigger than some others we see on the road and in the Caravan parks. I am grateful that I can at least stand up in the thing.
We have enclosed some beach photos: one of Cable Beach at Broome – with swimmers on it. Water temp that day was 28 degrees (and, yes, that is Celsius), one of 80 mile beach, so called because it is apparently that long – did not walk it.
The birds included this time are a pair of red-tailed black Cockatoos – we were lucky to catch them posing together in a tree near where we were camped.
The lizard is a frilled lizard that Sylvia chased down and photographed. A bit of a story behind that one.