Day 206 | lazing at Jarnum, Keep River NP: yes, a rest day, it's me birthday so I can
rest day
Birthdays can be days of reflection but I don’t tend to spend much time looking backwards despite what I write here. (Gee. I have to write something new each day. It ain’t that easy.)
What I did for the first time today for a long while though was to get out the map and plot out a foreseeable future. That’s plans for travelling on the bike, it’s clear I’ll be returning to NZ as soon as I get sick off sitting on that leather seat every day but that’s too far in the future to worry about at the moment.
It’s tackling this huge state of WA that is the main issue. It gets 40°C, 104ºF, fairly regularly across the state in summer. The most sensible place to spend those 3 very hot summer months is down on the south west coast where temperatures are moderated by the westerly sea breezes. That’s the plan for the New Year: Margaret River and beyond in those extensive coastal National Parks.
Now just a question of how to get there. I’m not wedded to the idea of following the ‘coast’ road. For the most part its up to 100 km away from the coast and has plenty of tourist traffic on it. I’m keener to come down the Great Northern Highway which comes through the Pilbara. Its pretty scenic and, I’m told by some, a much better road.
And in any case I want to go to Kulikup, some distance south east of Perth, where my mother spent some early years when my grandparents moved over here for a while just before the Depression. There’s little that remains of the locality I believe but it may be of some interest. That may be vague but its the start of a plan.
At least I finally looked at the maps.