^{It’s winter in Western Australia, and on this day five years ago I was on the road, tapping out a story for my blog on my iPad, perched on my lap in the front passenger seat of our Toyota Landcruiser.}

^{MJ and I were driving north, chasing the sun. And escaping the cold! Like the rest of the world, we had cabin fever from covid lockdowns. At the peak of the lockdowns, we weren’t allowed to even travel outside of our small regional area of the State of Western Australia. We had to get special government permission to drive 3 hours to our capital city for our son’s wedding – a ceremony restricted by law to 12 people! Admittedly WA is a very big State of Australia – covering approximately 2,527,013 sq kilometres. It accounts for about one-third of the entire Australian continent.}

^{WA is so big it has various climates. When it’s winter in the south, it has summer like conditions in the north. To travel north in our winter is a no brainer! And we do it in our thousands – mostly in 4WD vehicles, and many towing caravans.}

^{We travelled on ‘a straight and narrow highway’, spinning our wheels for more than one thousand kilometres to be transported from the chilly south of the State to high temperatures in the north.}

_{Famous winter holiday upmarket places in the North such as Broome were packed out with holidaymakers in that winter of 2021 – elbow room only. So we opted for the less busy Gascoyne region capital of Carnarvon, by the Indian Ocean.}

^{Carnarvon Shire covers nearly 50,000 sq kilometres. We were rewarded for our mammoth road trip effort as the temperature warmed up to a sunny 23 degrees.}

^{I’ve written about Carnarvon on my before.  So take a look at that article – WA’s REMOTE UNIQUE CARNARVON on April 14 2021 – if you haven’t already read it. I’ll try not to repeat myself!}

^{My camera and phone were both at my feet as we drove north – at the ready to take photos, and keep me amused on this long trip.  The phone was pretty useless for anything else, as there is scant phone communication available outside of the main towns en route. As many photos are taken from our moving car, they aren’t the best quality.}

^{As we drove, we managed to tune into some reasonable radio coverage with one regional station pumping out endless blocks of music hits from the 70’s and ‘80’s.  Very little commentary, very few ads.  No annoying talkback.  Bliss. Bryan Ferry is singing ‘Let’s stick together’! Of course, we had playlists at the ready from our own music collections. But that presents a travel debate ..his music or mine 🧐}

^{Because this highway north is so incredibly straight, you can read without motion sickness.  I had ‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ loaded onto the iPad.}

^{As we moved further north, the opportunity to read goes. I need to keep my eyes peeled on the road ahead, watching out for stray cattle, goats, emus, kangaroos and sheep that might wander onto the road.  A major traffic hazard in the Australian outback.  MJ is driving, and he needs all the help he can get to spot them and avoid a collision. We see many of them feeding by the side of the highway. At one point a small family of goats ambled slowly across the highway ahead of us. We quickly reduced our speed. I like a good goat curry – but not one mixed with a Landcruiser!}

^{The weather changes as we travel. Overcast and drizzle, clear skies and then back to clouds and more light rain.
But the temperature is rises, which is what we want. The mix of rain and warmth seem to bring out the birds}.

^{As we get closer to Carnarvon, we spot egrets. The Gascoyne region is a birder’s delight!}

^{I spotted a little pipit bird standing stock still on the road centreline.  He didn’t seem at all bothered by us or roadtrains thundering past.  Was he being daring or just experiencing a zen moment?}

^{Eagles soared above us …. two wedgetails in a playful tussle in the sky.  A flash of bright lime green to the side of the car captured my attention.  A flock of parrots flying low, parallel to us.  Were they trying to keep pace?   We love going birdwatching in the north of the State – so much to see!}

^{The countryside surrounding the road is flat, apart from Mensa that suddenly rise up ahead in the landscape- imposing, magnificent.}

^{It was very green on this trip for June – unusual for the Gascoyne region.  A cyclone 8 weeks before had passed through here, and there’d been a lot of rain since. Rivers like the Wooramel below had water flowing for the first time in years!}

^{The rain had seen floods close many of the unsealed roads and tracks that we usually follow to some of the region’s natural attractions. Floods are a common occurrence in the far north from tropical rain and summer cyclones.}

^{The north of Western Australia – the Gascoyne, Pilbara and the Kimberley regions – is an area where you drive hundreds of kilometres without seeing a building.  And when you do see one, it’s likely to be a Roadhouse .. basically a service station with a small convenience shop, public toilets, and sometimes some very basic accommodation.  We pulled into one – the Overlander – for morning coffee.  Diesel cost close to $1.50 cents a litre. We thought that was very high. Currently, it’s around $2.43 . In the cities (2026) it’s around $1.97. Times have changed and the cost of driving north is a lot more expensive!}

^{The car park at the Overlander was packed with 4wD pulling caravans or boats!  The coffee was not good, and I poured most of it into the dirt, which up here is orange. It becomes more red the further north you go. Hopefully, the coffee has improved since then.}

^{We  hoped to reach Carnarvon in time for a late lunch.  We would have been on the road already for about five hours after overnighting at the coastal town of Geraldton en route. That’s a relatively short hop going north. If we travelled further than Carnarvon we could be looking at 8 hour drives with very little in between.}

^{Carnarvon is a fruit bowl for the rest of the state during the West Australian winter. Plantations grow a variety of fruit and vegetables, including excellent mangos, bananas. I particularly look forward to fresh mango smoothies there.}