Muggon Station to Kalbarri, Western Australia
We make a big decision: to head for home today.
And we're completely shocked by the change in scenery.
Last night, we came to a conclusion.
Yesterday was our first day as tagalong volunteers on the seven day Landscope expedition. It was chaotic. We arrived just after sunset, it's dark and cloudy and windy, and had to set up our tent in the dark, behind a tamarisk tree to protect us from the wind and storm that was rolling in. Never fun, but then the station manager comes over and tells us we're right next to the partly collapsed bathroom sump (septic tank), and that we've driven over the very fragile drain pipe as well with the truck. Grrr. Why can't we just stay in the stationhand's cottage, not more than ten meters away with comfy beds, and no one's using them. But he doesn't offer.
The expedition leaders come by after we set up the tent, and told us that we'd all meet at 8:30... two hours away. We did nothing for two hours in the dark; the catered volunteers (not like us lesser tagalong volunteers) sat in the station house, eating their pasta and drinking their Chateau Cardboard wine while we looked in from outside. Finally, I went in at 8 and made the pretense of looking for Chris... Chris followed me in, and we sat and watched the footy for a half hour, not making much of an effort to enjoy it.
Once the meeting started (at 8:45, 15 minutes late), things got worse. Some of the manila folders with the briefing materials were in the wrong order. One of the leaders got up and said 'tomorrow, we go put quadrats in, and write down plants on these sheets'. Then she got in a longwinded discussion about a new acacia species she thinks she saw three years ago--was it on sandstone? or was that siltstone near the breakaways? No, it was down on the flats, close to the saline lake beds. Could we get there? No, the road was a bit washed out. This discussion went on for five minutes, and was tedious.
Then the leaders announced that the dozen or so volunteers were being split into three teams for the survey work--with couples separated 'because we like it like that'. I didn't like that. I'm not thrilled about spending the next six days with some old ladies I hardly know. But it got better--one of the husband/wife couples was in the same team! So they had to rejigger the teams yet again, and everyone was confused after they swapped everyone around.
Next was the 'who's going in which car' game. There are two Landscope LandCruisers that seat 5. We can seat 3, and the Toyota ute can take 2 up front. Other volunteers have cars too. But the logistics of putting three teams of five people into cars proved impossible, even after ten minutes of trying to work it out with pen and paper. So the leaders said 'OK, that's it, good night.'
What are we getting out of this?
So we went back to the tent, confused and annoyed, and there's no way we'll get to sleep any time soon. What are we doing here? Why haven't the leaders explained that? We don't know what purpose all of this plant gathering and quadrat measuring is serving. Are we discovering what plants grow? Or what the sheep on this former station ate? It's all very mysterious
And we discovered that there were many prickly things under the tent. They were sharp three pointed burrs... and poking many holes in the tent floor. So much for the tent being waterproof.
Grrr. Now we're pissed. Chris can't see doing another seven days of this. Neither can I, frankly, and I like botany. So we discuss a few options--should we leave early? When? I think Monday morning is good. And we discuss the rest of our time in Australia.
Quality not quantity
Chris has calculated that we spend a fairly constant $4000 to $5000 US dollars a month while we're here. Some months that's mostly motel bills, other months are mainly diesel. And we have five months to go. We've seen almost all of Australia, save for Perth and Adelaide. Is there really $20000 worth of things left to see?
We decide there's not... and start listing off the things we want to see. Here in the southwest, it's Perth, Margaret River wineries and caves, the place where red flowering eucalypts come from, the wildflowers, the tall jarrah forests, Mt Barker Banksia farm, the Albany-Esperance coast, and the Fitzgerald River heathlands. Heading back east , it's Adelaide, the Barossa Valley, the Grampian mountains, and Federation Square in Melbourne. And near Sydney we still want to see the Hunter Valley.
That all is not going to take five months.
So we're shifting the priority. Up to now, we've had the luxury of having as much time as we want in a place. And, frankly, we've been filling it up with some good experiences, and lots of mediocre ones. We'll shift quality for quantity. We don't need to go everywhere. We'll just go where we're interested.
Maybe three, four weeks in Western Australia: a week in the wildflowers, a week in Perth, a week in the tall trees and wineries of the southwest, and a week through the heathfields of the south coast. And we've already paid for a week in Bali (for visa reasons, we have to leave the country every six months.)
Then maybe two weeks through South Australia. One week through the Grampians, to Melbourne, and back north. One week to Brisbane, and one week back along the coast, and a week in Sydney before heading home. That's ten weeks total, which means we can head home around mid to late November.
The drive away, to civilization
Well, as I wrote the above, we were driving back to the Northwest Highway, then we passed the Billabong Roadhouse where we met the rest of the group. Coming into Billabong on the dirt road, we raced an emu--hee! The emu had no clue what to do, silly bird, and ran in front of the car for a good kilometer before we passed it on the left. They can run! This guy ran at about 30 to 40 km/h!
We haven't been south of Billabong yet... and expected more of the dry sandy scrubland that we've seen, more or less, since leaving Alice Springs.
And oh, did we underestimate. About 50km south of Billabong, the landscape changes... the scrub and low mallee goes away, and we're suddenly driving through cypress woodlands and the most fantastic flowering shrubs, all yellow and green and red and cream. It's unlike anything we've ever seen before, and we pull over to take a picture, running over wildflowers that you'd pay $4 a stem for at the florist's. The ground is now yellow sand, and there are banksias and hakeas and other odd shrubs I can't identify. Chris thinks it's so manicured it looks planted, but I know it's not.
Then, just as quickly, we're driving through a tunnel of eucalypts. They're not tall, but they overhang the road. This is a shock--we haven't seen a landscape this lush and temperate since southern Queensland.
That's quickly replaced by--yes--wheat fields. We're back across the 250mm isohyet! That's the boundary between sheep and cattle grazing land and farmland. And the rain starts coming down... and with the rolling fields, and 'hedgerows' of native bush between the fields, the cool temperature of maybe 15C, it looks English. It feels... civilized. We go through Northampton, a small town of 1000 people, with old stone buildings from the 1860's and a nice funky old cafe that the town vegans probably hang out at and grassy roadsides filled with lupines that are just starting to bloom on this first day of spring. It looks normal and regular.
Plants from another Planet
The countryside looks normal for long stretches along the road, with boring acacias and eucalypts backing onto wheatfields that could be somewhere in the Sacramento Valley foothills. But here and there, things change, and it gets sandy or rocky, and suddenly weird native plants come onto the scene and there, and I realize this is really Western Australia. Suddenly, there's a huge grevillea that reminds me of agave or yucca, some more strange banksia with orange coneflowers, and a bush that's 2 meters tall covered in purple flowers. There's a spiky red grevillea. It's all very gaudy and strange, like plants from another planet. Even though we have grevilleas and banskias in the backyard in California, these are far more strange.
To Geraldton
We call up, and get a decent room at the Best Western in Geraldton. The rain and the wind are pretty intense at times, and we arrive just after sunset, but we're amazed at how 'civilized' and 'normal' it looks. There's Red Rooster, Domino's Pizza, Blockbuster, McDonald's. There's welding shops and dressmaking shops and places to buy pool and spa supplies. This is by far the biggest town we've seen since leaving Darwin, a good thirty hours drive away if you drive straight through. It feels civilized.
The room's a lot more comfortable than our tent. And we can get on the internet, and remove a bit of the social isolation we've felt.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
The silly emu that raced the car! Also, I saw a bright blue fairy wren this morning, but didn't get a picture of it.
Comments
I don't think it's so much as having their heads up their asses... it's more like they don't know how to lead a group of people. They're very well regarded as good scientists.
There's a clear analogy in the software development world. You take a star programmer, one that can solve difficult problems and rearchitect large chunks of code without destabilizing the product. Then make him a development manager, since he obviously knows how to code. And things will go to hell.
The project will suddenly be behind schedule, the testers will be all pissy because its so unstable (if it runs at all), and developers will be given free rein to work on whatever esoteric features they want, like redoing the interface in XML or ripping up the entire codebase to be object oriented.
It's like that. Really technical people have a hard time directing the efforts of others. They'd rather work in their own world of TCP/IP stacks... or proteaceaeous plants.
Exactly. But being smart doesn't prevent a guy from having his head up his ass. I see countless examples at MIT every day. :)
They may be smart people, but their intelligence clearly isn't in the realm of the task they were supposed to execute. Perhaps they lack training and support from their employer. Maybe they lack enthusiasm because the task was forced upon them and they didn't have the gumption to say "no". Maybe they snorted coke, ran several businesses into the ground, and ended up as President of the United States. Who knows.
For my money (and others' mileage will certainly vary), at the end of the day I look at results. "But... but... I'm really good at paleoecology" wouldn't cut it for me when their task was to organize a group of volunteers. If you can't cook, you probably don't belong in the kitchen. However, I do recognize that it often isn't the case in the real world, exhibit A being President Dubya.
That sounds fair enough. It's a big ask, exclusively travelling for about twelve months. You've come, you've virtually done everything, you can go home.
Mind you, keep me posted when you want to do the Hunter - can Russel and I come along?
If it's up to me, absolutely. I'd love to spend some time with you guys in a non-Sydney context. Let's work up some plans. My only must do would be the super secret special tour at Lindemans - it's actually called the Ultimate Indulgence, but I am too embarassed to type that - which costs $30 per person. Other than that, all I'm really interested in is going by some of the better known large commercial producers, having a really good meal somewhere, and sleeping in a motel that costs $120 a night or less. Time frame's probably late November... let's work it out!
I'll talk to Russel about it. I have holidays from about the 4th to the 17th, I think, and head back to work, but could arrange to have another weekend fully free if I know about it this week (have to put in my weekend requests for next term now).
Let me know which weekend (or during the week before the 17th) you're considering.
Sure! That'd be great. We want to do some wineries, and I want to see the graveyard where my great grandfather's buried, near Paterson.
Those people in charge at Landscope... Do you have a tape measure handy? I'm curious as to exactly how far their heads are up their asses. Seems like a pretty negative experience, but you sound pretty positive about your refocused travel schedule. Hopefully it's all fun and goodness from here on out.
Oh, and the emu picture is way cool. Esp. how the road looks like a Martian landscape.