What time is it there?!

We were now leaving the south of Western Australia and heading for the town of Exmouth, about halfway up the west coast. This is of course a long way, but there must be something along the way, right? Not really. W.A. has a population of something like 2 million, but most of these people live in and around Perth, and most of the remainder live on the coast. So travelling anywhere away from the coast and away from Perth means a distinct lack of people, and in fact a distinct lack of much of anything!

Exmouth is nearly 1300km north of Perth, and besides the city of Geraldton (pop. 19,000) and the smaller town of Carnarvon there isn't much in between. Imagine doing the Lands End to John O'Groats run and only encountering one small town somewhere around Birmingham and another just before the Scottish border.

In fact, when you look at the map it seems that when you are nearly at Exmouth you take a turn off the main highway and follow the road to the end. What looks like a little side road is in fact 230km with nothing to look at but a few termite mounds along the side of the road. The only break in the scenery is the signpost as you cross the Tropic of Capricorn.