Mid West WA, a procrastination blog

I'm procrastinating.. The last night this year I actually need to be up late doing shit (I have an assignment to hand in tomorrow and then I'm done for the year), and rather than do it and go to sleep, I'm procrastinating. Kimberly commented on my blog, which reminded me people actually read it at a time I was open to posting.

So yeah, it's been a busy few months. Work and uni are fully dominating my time. I had three exams this week, which sucked, especially by the third when I really couldn't be bothered. The last thing one wants to do after spending all day at work, is go home and study or do assignments. It's even worse when working away, even if I wanted to there's no time. Oh well, almost there.

Work wise I've been mapping a proposed iron ore railway corridor, 500km long! Plus an 80km spur. So far we've mapped 200km in two trips, and hope to knock off another 300km in the next two trips. That'll take me through to christmas, when hopefully I'll be taking a 4 week break before going back and mapping the 80km spur.

In the first two trips we managed to drive 6,500km. Most of the driving was to and from the place we were staying. So I've seen a lot of this sort of view out the front of the car:




Here I am wandering through the bush.


I should probably mention at this point that I'm not mapping along, I'm mapping with a Sri Lankan engineering geologist. I think the cultural and language barriers are getting to me a little, or it might just be the fact that he's a SHIT driver and he usually drives in the mornings so I can call the office in Perth on the sat phone to check in. He has to learn too I guess. You've never seen anyone stall a car so many times though... I counted to keep from going insane how many times he stalled, it was 5 the first day, then 6 the next day, then 5, then 7, then 6 again. It's insane. It was forgivable the first couple of days, but for the love of god, learn from you mistakes. He's better know... still stalls every now and again but not as much. I'd hate to see him try to park in a shopping centre. So yeah, this is him:



And here he is changing the only flat we've had so far...and that was only a slow leak...well, fast enough to change the tyre but not dead flat.


There's been no shortage of wildlife either... I've seen a whole heap of sheep, cows, kangaroos, emus, goats, lizards and birds. I hate sheep, they're soooooo stupid, so there's no photos of them, but here are few of the other creatures getting about:

Bungarra, or race horse goanna. This one was digging a hole in the road...I'm not entirely sure why but it wouldn't move, so after taking a few photos I just drover around it.


Kangaroo... plenty of them jumping out in front of the car trying to get killed. I hit two so far, both on the same drive back to our accommodation one afternoon within about an hour of each other. They're relatively small so they don't damage the 4wd when you hit them, just themselves. The first one I hit I killed, and technically it hit me...in the side of the rear bumper. I hit it and then went back to check it was dead... it wasn't, but an ever growing pool of blood around it's head suggested it wouldn't be long. I'd grabbed my rock pick out of the car to put it out of it's misery but it died on its own so I didn't need to. This is a live roo though, i didn't take a photo of the one I killed. The second one I hit must have gone between the wheels or something cause I heard it hit, but didn't see a body.


Wedge Tailed Eagle... these are big birds. Sri Lankan guy just clipped one when we were driving home one day...it had been gorging itself on a roo carcass by the road and was a little slow taking off...it got an extra push from the windscreen and managed to fly away unharmed.


Goats... goats run pretty quick when they see you coming, so I haven't got any photos of live ones... found this one on an electric fence...nasty way to die.


The plant life is much more picturesque. Not sure what kind of tree this is, but it has cool bark.


For the first trip and first two days of the second trip we stayed at a mine site.. which was decent. After that we moved to a town called Cue, and stayed at the Queen of the Murchison bed and breakfast. Not a bad place, except there was an aboriginal funeral on while we were there and so we could only buy mid strength beer from friday morning to monday night...at least the view was interesting.



After that we moved to a town called Yalgoo...what a shithole. We stayed at the Yalgoo Hotel-Motel... we saw it from the outside and thought we were at the wrong place cause it looked closed down. It wasn't, and is actually alright inside, but the rooms were questionable. Next trip we're staying at a pastoral station..that'll be interesting.


Well I've written enough I think. I'll leave you with a couple photos of the Dalgaranga meteorite crater, a wholly underwhelming experience :)



oh, and for the record...Nissan Patrols are a shit 4wd. They're okay on the highway, being a turbo diesel, but damn, get them in a bit of sand and they struggle really badly...very underpowered vehicle. I recommend a Toyota Landcruiser for any serious off-road adventures. I haven't tried but I'd also imagine the Patrol to be terrible for towing.