That was an interesting drive.
Long, but interesting. The strangest part was the first hour or two - I'd spent the last three months in and around Broome, where the longest I'd ever driven (in the car) was five minutes: that's all you need to get from anywhere to anywhere else in Broome. So, understandably, getting out onto the highway, setting the cruise control and letting the kilometres pass, hour after hour, was strange at first.
Overnighting in Halls Creek was interesting, as that was the place I came to Western Australia for, but spent more time there just passing through, than actually while I worked for that company. Then on to Katherine, only 800km down the road. A quick up-and-back to Darwin, overnight in Katherine again. Then a Rather Long Day, with 1296km of asphalt under the wheels. Out in central australia, you can set the cruise control and it becomes your average speed, not just your top. And with long straight stretches, all you do is keep the wheels straight. The longest straight stretch i found was 270km without so much as a curve in the road. And it doesn't rate a mention in the guide books, because that's unremarkable. The 800km stretches are written about. Though, it made the next day comparitively easy, only 900km to Townsville, and the coast. At last the scenery changed. From Broome it's been desert all the way, but in queensland the desert is broken by trees, hills, towns, and even the rare, but present, city. Crossing the Great Divide and coming in to tropical queensland, my nose was reminded of the area, by the faint, but present smell of sugar cane...
Cairns is an amazing place. It feels like a combination of Dickson, Lygon st, St Kilda, and Osaka. Shops have signs written in Japanese everywhere, even the Thai restaurants proclaim their Thai-restaurant-ness in Japanese.
I had a real Japanese crepe for dessert, tonight. Not quite the same as from the fellow in the green caravan in Okazaki, but still pretty good.
