Road Train

Driving on the left side of the road is one thing. There are other tweaks to the vehicle and some slightly different road hazards here that add to my general state of confusion as I remember Maria's mantra to me - stay left. Luckly she was here for a month and could keep gently reminding me of this on a regular basis. I have only driven on the wrong side of the road once. It was only for a brief stretch, when I was making a right turn in Dongra. Fortunately no one was driving towards me at that moment, despite the fact I was in town and there was plenty of traffic.

The most important first step in driving on the other side of the road is to remember to get in to the truck on the right side - literally. This seemed to be a relatively easy adjustment and I don't have much of problem with this anymore. The blinker versus the windshield wipers is another story. Whenever I try to put on my blinker I almost inevitable turn on the windshield wipers instead. It could be I am not getting better at this because I am not driving much. Lack of practice is leaving me a poor study. Most days my most adventurous drive is to cross the highway at the entrance to the Caravan Park. Then when I do have to go somewhere away from Eneabba, it is generally a long way to go before I need to turn. Another surprising thing is that I seem to have lost my intuitive senes of being able to use my mirrors. Since my brain feels like everything is backwards, it just does not occur to me to use my mirrors - I am forever looking all around me in those situations where I would normally look in my rearview or side mirror.

Gas goes for $1.35 to $1.45 a liter and there are roughly 4 liters to a gallon. The first time I filled the truck, I was shocked when I looked at the dials on the pump and saw them moving so fast. It took me a moment to realize that the quantity of gas was liters - the gallons seemed to be adding up awfully fast! It costs around $80 to fill my tank and I go roughly 400 km (250 miles) between fill ups.

Road trains are trucks that can have up to three trailers and can be up to 120 feet long (the truck in the picture is not the largest I have seen). I don't think road trains are allowed in Perth as I did not see any on the highways there. Western Australia, on the other hand, is mining country and there are a lot of these lumbering beasts out here. This part of Australia is in fact undergoing an economic boom since the Asian market is buying up natural resources at a furious rate. Traveling any distance on the highway here means you will get stuck behind a few of these large trucks. The country highways I have been on have all been two lanes and are quite windy. It has been interesting trying to find a good place to pass and then actually attempting to get past 120 feet of truck as quickly as you can. There are passing lanes every so often but they are a little to scarce along some longer stretches of the road.

Driving out in the country in the U.S. after dark, in many areas, means you have to watch out for deer. Here you need to keep an eye out for kangaroos. Fortunately I have not seen any in the little bit of night driving I have done. There is pleny of evidence that they get hit often enough. There are dead roos on the side of the road and, in working just off the highway in the bush, there are plenty of kangaroo bones. The folks who run the caravan park also have a number of kangaroos they have raised from joeys - individuals they adopted because people found the joeys after their mothers got killed on the road.

All in all, a big change from driving around Boston.