1 out of 400. Not bad at all, however this is not the record. This was the number of us who gathered at the Perth Observatory.

Yesterday I joined other stargazers in creating a new Guinness World Record for the most people stargazing at multiple venues. We broke the world record, 30,000 (some say 40,000 as the record counting is still underway) of us. It is official and will soon be in the Guinness Book of World Records. The previous record created by 7,960 people in 2015 was shattered by us.

Doing this at the Perth Observatory was fun, educative and awesome. The Perth Observatory, currently located in Bickley, is Western Australia’s oldest observatory. It has been in operation for more than 120 years. To show its age, on display at its entrance, is the Transit Circle Meridian Telescope, manufactured in 1897 by Troughton & Simms of London. Its sole use was to accurately determine Perth’s longitudinal positon. To navigators of those days, this must have been a big problem. Not anymore nowadays.

One of the very important functions of the observatory, in its hay days, was to accurately determine the time and communicate this to locations around the city. Existing clocks in those days could vary by up to half an hour! The importance of this may be lost to many but this resounded well with me, having visited the Royal Observatory Greenwich in 2009 and watched a presentation about Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady. Believe it or not, between 1890 and 1930 Ruth went around the city of London selling time. Yes, time. She wasn’t the only one, in fact she was the third time seller in her family!

Looking through the old 12-inch reflector Calver Telescope procured in 1910, I was able to see the moon surface and its craters. This amazing telescope had seen many things in the night sky in its 108 years of existence but not the single thing for which it was procured to see – the Halley’s Comet, a short-period comet visible from Earth every 74–79 years. The volunteer that manned the telescope lamented that as at April 1910 when the comet approached, the Calver telescope had been procured but not yet put in use while at the last approach of the comet in 1986, the telescope was in storage and has not been restored. So on the two occasions that the comet had appeared, the telescope did not get to be used to see it. It was restored and put back to use in 1996.

Talking about Halley’s Comet, its 1835 and 1910 appearances were important because of their association with the life and death of the American satirist and writer Mark Twain. He predicted his death to coincide with the 1910 appearance of the comet. Having been born with the comet appearance in 1835, he has noted in his autobiography published in 1909 that he expected to leave this earth with the comet’s appearance in 1910. He did. I remembered the sayings of Calpurnia, Julius Caesar’s wife “When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”

Earlier, I had examined the Astrographic Telescope and its dome. This telescope, like the Calver, has a lot of history behind it. It was built in Ireland by Howard Grubb and arrived Perth, along with its dome, in 1898. Installation was in 1901 at the old Perth Observatory then on Mount Eliza. Though still in working order, the last scientific observation with the telescope was in 1999. It contributed in no small measure to the Perth section of the Astrographic Catalogues containing the positions of 229,000 stars.

It was while at the Astrographic telescope dome that I came to understand another meaning of the word computers and the significant contributions made by several full time staff who were women. It happened that the complex mathematical calculations, to determine the position of each star, were assigned to only women because they were deemed to be extremely more patient than their male colleagues. They were the “Computers”.

Standing alone and towering above everything else around it, is the Lowell Dome. It houses the Lowell Telescope which was installed in the 1970s as a valued part of the International Planetary Patrol. The Perth/Lowell Telescope had sister telescopes in New South Wales, Chile, the USA, South Africa and Hawaii – all deliberately placed and spaced so that the Solar system could be monitored extensively throughout the 24 hours in a day. While the dome and the 9 meter tower that houses the telescope were built in Western Australia, the 61cm Lowell telescope belongs to the Lowell Observatory in the USA and was funded by a NASA grant

The icing on the cake, for me, was looking at the night sky and seeing Jupiter and four of its moons through the lens of a telescope set up by Clive, another stargazer that partook in the record breaking event. For the event, people were assigned to colour coded sectors, I was assigned to the Green sector. As I took my seat, I exchanged pleasantries with my neighbour (forgotten his name), a middle aged Australian bloke. We agreed at how amazing space was and probably could have continued the conversation more in-depth. He then said that one thing was certain, there was no God out there. It was a test of my faith. My mind wandered between keeping quiet and responding. I quickly remembered Mathew 10: 33 where the good Lord said that “But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven”. I responded and told him I believe there is God out there as well as here in Bickerly, where we were. He remained unconvinced stating the only place God was, was in our minds. We agreed to differ.

At about 6:35pm Perth time, the world record attempt started at the Perth Observatory Stargazing party. We were one of the 285 stargazing parties across Australia. The 400 or so stargazers that we were pointed our telescopes directly at the moon and kept observing it for 10 uninterrupted minutes. It goes without saying that there were some discomforts – neck pains and the cold chilly night. Did someone say “No pain, no gain”?

At the end of it all, we cheered loudly and congratulated ourselves. Now all that needs to happen is for the Guinness World Records to update its records.

Congratulations to all my fellow stargazers and more importantly to the marvellous Francesca Flynn, the amiable Operations Manager of the Perth Observatory. When I showed up earlier in the morning, she was swamped with preparing for the stargazers that would be arriving in the evening. Notwithstanding all the work she was managing, she still had her smiles on and was very friendly in attending to me. Same attribute was displayed by all the volunteers that work with her to keep the Perth observatory functioning, having lost state government funding since early 2015. I met them around the various telescopes and buildings in the observatory, their willingness to help and knowledge about the telescopes’ history and functions were amazing.

A day spent at the Perth Observatory is a day to be treasured and remembered for a lifetime. Please make it a place to visit when in Perth, your gateway to the universe!

The newspaper headlines screamed – Hanson lost. Did she?

You know her, Pauline Hanson. She is the founder and leader of the Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHON), an Australian Political Party with a strong base in Queensland and with four seats in the Australian Senate. The untamed and unashamed Hanson is known for many things, not all good. She stands at the forefront of the anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism campaign in Australia, the two main areas where Australia (the largest multicultural nation in the world) punches high above its weight in the world. Pauline is not only spitting fires against them, she is following up with measured actions. In 2015, it was the Islamic Community in Australia that caught her fancy culminating in her wearing a Hijab to Senate in 2017 in a manner to question the decency of that mode of dressing.

Now that you’ve gotten the idea, there are Xenophobic people amongst us and we need to curb their enthusiasm to run amok before it is too late. People like Pauline Hanson are ecstatic about others who do not speak or look like them. Thank God they are in the minority and the laws had kept them at bay from publicly causing harm and bringing their racial prejudice to the open.

In my career, working in international locations, I have met a few people like Pauline and usually shrug them off. However, I have had two notable experiences here in Australia that were not only scary but instilled some fears in me as to what lies behind the skins of people that walk our streets. It was late in 2016 that I requested the services of an Air Conditioner (AC) technician in my house using the Hipages.com.au website. Leigh of Conway Services Pty Ltd showed up. He was a handful and I can’t forget him in a hurry. He took a look at the AC, delivered the bad news that the refrigerant had to be replaced and invoiced me One hundred dollars as his call out fee. I offered to pay by credit card but unfortunately he had no POS machine. He chose to go the old way, using carbon paper, he traced out all the details on my card and left.  Two days after, I got a call from him demanding for payment and I explained that he already has my credit card details and should charge this. That was when he went into a tirade, calling me all sorts of unprintable, racist names. Honestly, I was very disturbed that I could be the subject of racial slurs and verbal abuse.

Earlier that same year, a couple of wayward white kids drove through my usually quiet neighbourhood and pelted my house with raw eggs. Well, there were no words exchanged but the idea that my house was the only one pelted made me wonder why we were singled out. The only reason I could adduce was that we are not ethnically white. This made more sense since a colleague, living in another affluent neighbourhood, had had his car spray painted with racist slurs about a year or so earlier. For his and his family safety, he relocated from the neighbourhood.

Being Black and speaking with distinct African tones, I had thought that I was subjected to these racial slurs because of my skin colour. I was wrong and did not know this until I sat down with ML (full names withheld) this week for coffee. I had met ML at one of the social tennis clubs that I am a member of. He is lovely to talk to and of good manners. As we talked about different life issues that caught our fancy, the discussion drifted to racism. I had responded that racism is inherent in us all but at different points on a spectrum. Some unfortunately have a high concentration of it and are on the intolerable end of the spectrum while others are on the lower rungs. Our biases reflect these and are reflected in the way we see the world and act.

When ML said he was being discriminated against by Australians, he lost me. How can you be discriminated against – you are white and Australian! I am British and not Australian, he responded. Now I was completely disoriented. To understand him, he had to tell me a bit about himself. He has been living in Australia for more than 40 years, married here and established a business here. It’s most likely that I am racially blind – to me, he is Australian. His look, name and knowledge of this great south-land reveal nothing otherwise. Even when he speaks, there is nothing in his tone that makes me see him as different from any other white Australian. And yet he is on the receiving end of racial slurs.

He complained of being called a Pom, I never heard of that word until now. What it means and how derogatory it is, I had not the faintest idea but the mere fact that he felt offended by the use of the word was all that mattered. He cited instances of his experience and I could not but be sympathetic to him on these. He is a painter and had been called for a job in Mindarie. He had arrived timely early in the morning and knocked on the door to announce his presence. When the door opened, the guy on the other side was angry that he is a Pom and asked where all the Australian painters were. He said he countered the offensive by telling the guy that the Aussie painters were probably still all asleep, wearied from the binge drinking of the previous night. In another instance, his pronunciation of the word “Cup” had been ridiculed by some Aussie as being wrong and mimicked in a way that he felt offended as well. I could feel his pains.

So I asked who really is an Australian? Except my knowledge of history is deficient, there is only one group of people that can truly lay claim to being full bred Australians. These are the indigenous people, the Aborigine or the First Australians. Everyone else is an immigrant. Whether first or third generation immigrants, we are all immigrants and equally lay claim to being Australian. When next someone questions your “Australianness”, remember you are not alone. I encourage you to question theirs. No one has better rights to this piece of God given territory that any of us. Australia is a nation of immigrant and arriving first does not anyone superior to those that arrived last or will be arriving in future.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/protesters-take-their-pom-whinge-to-un/news-story/5c5ee5fd8c0ce9c58541e2b27cbfe7a0?sv=c1e87bf522110a51aeafe693d1d56496

Day 5 [21^st September]

I did not wake up early the next morning, 21^st September, the sun was already high in the sky. It was International Day of Peace. As I came out of my swag, Batman was dressed in the most colourful jacket that I had ever seen. It was reminiscent of Joseph’s Coat of many colours. Give it to Greg, he was fully prepared for this trip, he looked great. Kristina followed suit with her faultless dressing to mimic Elvis Presley. She was stunning with her red glasses, long trouser and colourful dress. We had planned on driving 650kms to the Woomera campground. A chance meeting with a couple of folks, recently come all the way down from Coober Pedy made us to jilt that plan. There is a short cut that we could take between Smoky Bay and Coober Pedy and avoid the long route to Port Augusta. We reviewed the road using the Hema maps. Heading north from Smoky Bay, we would take a diversion eastwards to Wirrulla and then head through the remote Australian outback cutting close to the Lake Everard Homestead, a cattle station of some sort. We would continue on gravel through Kokatha and come out at Kingoonya from where we planned to join the Stuart Highway heading North Westwards to Coober Pedy.

We followed the plan and arrived at Wirrulla where we stopped to refuel. Fuel was becoming expensive as we move inwards. At Wirrulla, it was $1.41per litre of gasoline. Knowing that there is no fuel stop again until we reach Coober Pedy, I ensured that the Explorer had enough to drink, giving it 120ltrs. The town, Wirrulla, is the starting point of any adventure into the rugged Gawler ranges which is home to rare animals and amazing landforms. The town is dominated by the Tricia & Stokey’s General Store which stands massively on the left of the Hay Terrace, the main road in the sleepy town. The Gawler Range is posted as being 126 kms, Kingooya 249kms away and Coober Pedy 535kms. We would later find out that the 249kms to Kingooya will be gruelling, dusty and corrugated going through some of the remotest areas of South Australia. I looked through some adverts posted on the community board at the General Store and noticed the adverts for houses. Nothing special with Wirulla, it is a backwater town that happens to be a gateway.

A little further to the right of Hay Street, not far from Trici & Stokey’s general store are a couple of silos. Nothing else seems to be happening in the town. The town has positioned itself as a low cost settlement area for nomads – the group of Australians that are constantly on the road but need a low cost permanent structure to call their home. A 1 room, 1 bath wooden house with a 3 car park space was advertised for $69,000 with a rider that you can lock it up ad safely travel wherever you want to. No wonder the town seems devoid of human presence. Just ahead of the general store was the Wirrulla Hotel which provides hot meals and has accommodation available for travellers. One notable weird attraction of this town is the presence of an Inland Jetty, yea, you read that right. It is probably the only Jetty of its kind in the world, a Jetty where the tide is always out and has never been in water. Why the Jetty was built or what purpose it serves may well be the secret the town has been keeping since it style itself as the “town with a secret”. Having used the restroom and filled up our various beasts of burden, we headed towards the Gawler Ranges, northwards from Wirrulla.

On this trip, distances became mere numbers. It is given that we are covering vast space of land and we still have more to cover. We didn’t blink twice before we roared the vehicle engines and took off. The road was dusty and corrugated. We let down the pressures in our tyres so as to reduce the bounciness of the vehicles. The thick vegetation around Wirrulla son gave way to little shrubs and in most places the soil was bare of any vegetation. A couple of salt lakes lined the road as we move north, heading towards the Gawler Ranges. To the observant traveller, it becomes easily noticeable that South Australia is blessed with huge salt deposit. We soon came close to the Lake Everard Homestead and saw some wombat holes. We took a break from driving and went to take a look at the holes. We saw no wombat but met the skeleton of a few birds around the hole.  As we walked back to our vehicles, a discussion ensued regarding the importance of the homestead to Australia’s Agriculture. It was from this discussion that I learnt that the homestead are actually cattle stations. What they do is to buy calves and release them into the wild, to fend for themselves. Of course there are no carnivorous animals in the wild that poses significant threats to cattle, apart from the Dingos possibly. Having secured the territory through which the cattle may freely roam, the homestead waits until the time that the cattle are sufficiently grown enough and round them up for the market. I was also made to know that despite the arid nature of the environment, there are pockets of water available and that the cattle could smell water from afar with their noses. Hence, it becomes easy for cattle station owners to know where to find their cattle, hey simply target the body of waters near their stations.

The heat was terrible and everywhere we looked, we were accosted with amazing view of the Gawler range. As we approach the range, we came across a large flock of Emu, those flightless ugly birds. They are the second largest living birds on earth. As it is with their other fellow country animal, the Kangaroos, the Emus can survive for days without water.

The South Australian Government warning that we were heading to one of the most remote and isolated places in Australia was not a joke We were soon on the worst road that I have ever driven on in Australia. Each vehicle was kicking up clouds of dust and we needed to provide good space amongst ourselves in order to have some level of visibility. The Explorer was rattling, from the corrugation on the road. It was the voice of Greg on the road that drew my attention that we would soon be coming across a pack of camel, on the left.  A little north of the Hiltaba Homestead (HS) we stopped to examine the holes that were created by Wombats, that Australian native full of muscles. On our left was Death Valley, the name stirred up a discussion as to why a queer name for the valley. The wombats, were unsurprisingly not at the holes but we could sew the carcass of what looked like a goat and knowing that Wombats were no carnivores this was looked at as a mere coincidence. We took a few pictures at the area as it has a beautiful lookout of the surrounding hills and gently undulating landscape with virtually no tree cover. The homestead itself is neatly tucked into a cleft of the hill.

The surface was hard and of course with no water only the most stubborn of plants survive here. The few trees that are, are perched as if a fire has just swept through them. They are devoid of leaves or fruits with blackened soothe colour appearing all over them. It all look sombre, like a scene from a horror movie.  Yet, despite this eerie looks, the vegetation, sombre, has a sort of beauty to it. It presents a clear contrast to the beautiful, well-nourished green vegetation that most Australians are familiar with in the city. Thinking deeply, one will really appreciate the creator as one who marvels in diversity. Unseen to the naked eyes, would be the snakes whose skins blend perfectly with the environment.  We saw a clearing on our left, on a small hilltop and drove into it in a file, this was our lunch break. We all reached into our stock of food and were soon feeding our tommies. It was also an opportunity to urinate. I was scared of snakes and felt certain that this environment provides a very great opportunity for those slimy crawly things that are masters of disguise to cause harm. I picked a dry stick and used it to clear the path ahead of me until I go to a little distance from the team to do “my thing”.

With lunch done, we continued our journey through this remote wilderness. Every now and then, the road is broken here and there by Cattle Grids. These are well spaced rows of iron rods built into the road to prevent cattle from crossing from one station to another. The idea is that cattle likes feeling the grounds under their hoofs and with the iron grill, they will either get their hoofs stuck within the grid or feel unstable and would not cross. They work effectively as containment barriers for the free roaming cattle. A little before Kingooya, we got a distress call on the radio from Greg, the other Greg. He had lost his rear windscreen. Shattered, a piece of rock from the road had hit it and broken it up.  At this time, Greg and a few vehicles were looking at the damage out of my visibility. I pulled the Explorer to the side of the dusty road, allowed he dust on the roads to settle and alighted from the vehicle.   Everywhere I looked, there was no sign of life at all. I actually felt like I had been transported away from Earth to mars. All that surrounded me were just red plains and rolling hills for as far as the eyes could see. I am no geologist but looking at how ancient these lands were, I was convinced that it holds abundant mineral resources. I took a few pictures of the landscape and also took he time to walk around the Explorer, just to check if there were any visible problems. It was the voice of Greg on the radio that brought me back to Earth. They have settled on a fix-up plan for the damage on his vehicle. His would be done as soon as we get to Kingooya. I relayed the message to the team ahead of me and we all continued the trip.

It was a little to 6pm local time when we made it to Kingooya. Kingooya town is not a remarkable place, it is a small almost totally abandoned farming settlement in the central outback of South Australia. One can count the number of houses in the town, not up to ten. From their looks, one can assume that they are not fully occupied all year round. We were told that they are sometimes occupied by people involved in mining exploration and kangaroo shooting. One could easily miss the town if not for the hotel, well visited I suppose by many other travellers who chose to take this outback short cut to reach Smoky Bay or Tarcoola. By the time we arrived, there were about six 4WDs packed in front of the hotel. Of course, the ancient looking red truck with Kingooya Hotel inscribed on what would have been a windscreen could not be missed. A couple of tourists were having their beers in the front porch of the hotel and a few more taking pictures as we eventually did too. The Indian Pacific Train passes through the town on its 4,352km trip from Perth (on the Indian Ocean) to Sydney (on the Pacific Ocean) and so also does the Ghan on is way from Adelaide to Darwin.

We got to take a look at the damage that had been sustained by Greg’s Nissan Navara. The windscreen of the canopy on its back was completely shattered. There was red dust everywhere and on everything.  We thought of any known bush engineering practise that can be used but our knowledge failed us. We finally settled on having a bathroom towel taped to cover the gapping space that was previously covered by the windscreen. It worked. The plan was to get to the ARB store in Coober Pedy for a replacement windscreen, when we arrive there. At this point, I also discovered that the rear license plate on the Explorer was about to fall. I got a plastic cable tie, two of them and get the plate hooked on again.

We thought of camping here, at the open space in front of the Kingooya Hotel, for the night but there was a revolt, from not a few members. They were concerned that the noise of the passing trains will not make for a restful night after such a long exerting trip.  We drove another 30kms, northwards before we found a camp at an altitude of 146m. We were now 331kms away from Smoky Bay, at least that’s the reading from the electronic gauge of the Explorer. The camp was left of the Gosses Road, the intersection with the Stuart Highway was still a little bit ahead of us. We set down to camp for the night around 6:30pm. The sun was still in the horizon causing Diane to spend some time to decide where to set her tent. If there is any talk of the lonely solitary road, this was it.

To answer nature’s call, I crossed the dusty road in front of the camp and headed some few metres into the open land. Having a little bush covering, I dug into the grounds and deposited my waste therein, ensuring that same was well covered away from foraging animals to dig out. Other team members did the same.

There is no service or utility anywhere near where we were. Kingooya is so remote to any infrastructure or utility provision. There is no water, no phone coverage and no filling station of any sort. Each traveller has to be reasonably sure that he is self-sufficient otherwise danger looms. Tales have been told of missing travellers whose vehicles were found but they had wandered away in search of help…and died. It goes without saying that before you head into the outback, please be reasonably sure of your equipment, your provision and emergency plan. Any failure could cause the traveller his life. We were at the camp site for more than 19hrs and only 2 vehicles, solitary souls, passed our way. This lends credence to the advice by the South Australian government that we were headed into a remote area.

If this were another country one would, and should, reasonably be afraid of attacks and robberies. This is Australia and is not the case. There have been few occasions where campers have been attacked and murdered but it is generally rare. The film, Wolf Creek, attempted to document such an incident whose true event happened between Alice Springs and Darwin on the Stuart Highway on 14^th July 2001. Being lone travellers on the highway, British tourists Peter Falconio (then 28) and Joanne Lees were roughly half way between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek, when a mechanic called Bradley John Murdoch managed to make them pull over, telling them that sparks were coming out of the exhaust of their van.

Peter went to the back of the van with Murdoch to have a look and that was when Murdoch shot him an attempted to take Joanne, who managed to escape, as hostage. The tale is reminiscent of similar events that had happened in other countries and I am pretty sure that were Peter a Nigerian, he wouldn’t have fallen for this trick which is an old one in the books of Armed Robberies.

I took a look at the Explorer and was again convinced that I made the right decision. I had bought it as a go anywhere car with all the necessary gears and equipment for solitary life in the outback installed. You don’t buy such a car and keep in your garage. They are meant to explore places like this, the outback.

Mark brought out his fire pit and a fire was kindled. The entire team chose Mark’s troopy spot as the place to gather and share the warmth radiated by the fire from Mark’s fire pit. Discussion moved from one topic to another and then to religion. The concept of modern ay Aussies approach to religion came clearly to me. A few team members professed hat they were Christians but do not go to church.  The issue of adoption was openly discussed, especially as it relates to the family that had to adopt a Chinese baby. They remain convinced that their decision worked in the child’s favour and theirs. They are a happy bunch and once can notice he happiness in the child as well.

The night itself was devoid of any notable incident. I had taken my leave from the group earlier than others and settled into the comfort of my swag. I slept off, deeply and soundly.

Day 3 & 4 [19th & 20th Sept]

The night had been freezing cold. Probably due to the southern ocean being just a few kilometres to our south and the cold currents from Antarctica must have been blown over land at night causing the cold temperature that we experienced.

We started out early this morning. 6:23am and all the vehicles were back on the road, heading towards Eucla on the Eyre Highway. We had spent the previous night just 5km west of Mumrabilla. It is Pirates Day and again, Greg was all for it. We were to dress like a Pirate and speak like a Pirate all day through. I am not well versed in this and simply did much more of listening to the conversations on the Pirate Channel than talking. The bat’s mobile is flying a black pirate flag on its roof and Collum’s car was also having a skull in front of its grills. The two Greg’s, I thought, must have earlier come to the world as Pirates because they just were having fun. As we proceeded Eastwards, the southern sun was ferocious. It was high on the horizon on our right hand side. I was driving as Car # 3 in the convoy of 8 cars and absorbing the sights of the mountain ranges that dot the 70km stretch of road between Mumrabilla and Eucla. The peculiar characteristic was that the mountain ranges seem to be only on the left hand side with low lands on the right hand side.  Looking ahead, we get accosted with the sight of an upcoming pass, a little gap in the mountain range through which the road is laid. The pass seems to becoming more distant away from us, the more we drive towards it and once through a pass, another starts looming far in the distance in front of us. The harsh environment, sparse water and very hot climate, ensures that the gum trees were without competition in this area. The gum trees, having adapted to the environment have become kings. They provide the needed shades to the Kangaroos and seems that the trees and the roos have a symbiotic relationship. A this time of the morning, the road seems fairly deserted, we have driven 26kms and met less than 20 vehicles so far.

The Explorer has been gulping fuel, at 15.6ltrs/100kms. One can attribute this to the strong head winds that we have been battling with all through the morning. Not the kind of news I wanted to hear but it was still much better than the average of 20ltrs/100kms that we experienced in January.

Approaching Eucla, is one of the best views of the mountain range and one gets to the town driving through the Eucla pass. Here a group of Emus crossed the road ahead of us. They are big birds but devoid of anything that can be described as beautiful. Wandering and roaming freely across the wide land, their only predators are men and as such their numbers, if not being culled, would have been uncontrollable.

Fuel was selling for $1.69 in Eucla. My last fuelling at $1.39 in Norseman. While I understand the economics behind the increased costs, it still is difficult to accept. One would have expected that a commercial driven entity would lay an oil pipeline between WA and SA following the Eyre highway to capture the arbitrage opportunity in petroleum pricing and reduce it as well. At Eucla, we were just 12kms from crossing the WA/SA border and from Ceduna 492kms.

Nothing depicts Australia as the brown cement sculpture of a Kangaroo in Eucla. It has a Vegemite in its right hand which it raised proudly up. Kangaroo and Vegemite are native to Australia.  Visitors to Eucla could actually hide in the pouch of the Kangaroo to take pictures. Nothing special is here at the Eucla Road House apart from the Quarantine post for those crossing from SA to WA. None for those from WA to SA yet, that will come up in Ceduna later on.  My radio that developed a mind of its own earlier this morning got eventually fixed by Collum. It required just pressing the SQL button to remove the weird noise that it was making.

A little after Eucla is the Australian Bight lookout, the very first place that we will catch a glimpse of the Southern Ocean on this trip. We took a diversion to the lookout and congregated on the wooden platform where we took a group picture. Everywhere we looked, eastward or westward, we were accosted with the sight of very sharp cliff edges. The rocks are described as unstable and visitors are warned of the risk of falling off the cliff edges. The strong waves of the southern ocean lashing against the rocks. The erosive forces of the water is constantly at work, shaping the Australian continent but the cliffs stood unperturbed. As we drove out of the look out, we came across a road sign warning us to be careful of the three (3) road risks in this area – the camel, the wombat and the Kangaroo.

We arrived Smoky Bay late in the evening. It was a short turn away from the Flinders Highway. A couple of kilometres away from Ceduna, one can’t miss the brown brick sign off the flinders highway on the right welcoming you to Smoky Bay. On our earlier trip in January, we had actually driven past the bay to spend the night at its sister bay, Streaky Bay. The bay was devoid of the usual hustle and bustle of vacationers and it appeared a s a sleepy little town by the bay. We headed straight for the Smoky Bay Caravan Park, passing through a couple of sheds and boat storage lots.

We formed a queue at the entrance and had to step out of the vehicle one by one in order to confirm our booking and make the payment of $30 per night for each site. Each family was provided a site number and the PIN for accessing the park and its amenities.

Smoky Bay was devoid of many vacationers when we arrived here. It was quiet and we were able to get all the sites that we booked for. Not long after we settled at the sites, with a spirit of adventure a couple of team members were insistent on going on an adventure. Batman, Batgirl & Diane were hooked on oysters and went to an Oyster farm. The rest of the team settled to have a walk to the Smoky Bay Jetty to observe sunset on the bay. I had the opportunity to converse with Mark, as we walked to the Jetty. We somehow picked up on the same-sex marriage issue that has polarised Australia. Mark, being the artful dodger that he is was not in any definable camp. He felt, at the same time, that the two (2) camps deserve a listening ear but was more troubled that the NO camp had approached the issue more from the religious ground and since a party’s religion is not necessarily binding on others, this was a false premise. I had mentioned that the issues goes much further than that. The experience in Ireland was brought up by me that accepting same sex marriage would, at this time, be curtailing on the religious freedom of many employees who would not be able to recluse themselves from offering their services to gay couples, which will be against their religious dictates.

The Smoky Bay Jetty was beautiful at this time of year and with the sun disappearing in the horizon, its rays turned the water colours and made them splendid to look at. We took a couple of nice pictures on the Jetty, having been joined by the other Greg.

I had planned to do some fishing and had carried my fishing rod and accessories all the way from home, expecting to have the opportunity to fish. No one was fishing at the Jetty and even the Ocean pool, highly barricaded with strong Iron grill was empty. I noticed the warning posted about Shark and I was told that this part of the ocean is notorious for shark attacks. We walked back to the beach only to meet our other team members all by the beach enjoying the cool breeze of the evening. Greg, the other Greg, decided to teach Leo how to throw a pebble to skim the water surface and bounce through it. I got to notice Leo seriously for the first time. He looked Asian and my brain was challenged at deciphering the true biological relationship that he has with Tim and Megan, his parents. It was a riddle that resolved itself later.

I took a look at the beach houses, obviously vacation rentals from the looks and noticed that they were majorly unoccupied We were too early with our trip as the majority of parents taking their kids on holidays have not arrived here. The pristine clear, crisp nature of the water is notably Australian. It is not different from what you will find in most other Australian beaches.  The sand was white and the one can see clearly to the bottom of the water. After some while, we returned back to the caravan park. I was tired and wanted to get into the Jerusalem book that I had bought. A couple of folks had heard about the fish and chip store and went to dine there. I settled for a light meal and slipped into my tent for the remaining part of the evening. The hot weather soon gave way to the calm sea breeze and at night the temperature must have dropped significantly as I was feeling chilled in my tent. My wife had persuaded me to travel with a duvet and some warm clothing. I couldn’t understand her logic but I did agree to her suggestions. I said a little prayer for her as I slipped under the duvet and put my socks and hand gloves on.

The fish and chips adventure was a failure, I learnt this the next morning. It so happened that by the time the party go to the shop, it was closed for the night. Dejected they came back to camp. There wasn’t much to do in Smoky Bay and we spend most of the day lazing around. I spent the greater part of the time reading through the biography of Jerusalem. Evening came and we all trooped to the fish and chips sop, being mindful to get there in good time before it closed. Close to the entrance we noticed a dog that was tied to a pole to keep it from walking away. This dog won’t stop backing and it was a nuisance to our quiet enjoyment of the fish and chips. I do note that the fish and chips were tasty and well prepared. Across the road, were a couple of houses and my attention was transfixed at these, trying to immerse myself in their architectural history. A section of the general store, where the fish and chips were bought, was set aside to cater to the needs of the fishing community. Anglers, baits, fishing rods and all similar tools are available at a price to lure the fishing enthusiast to the bay for some fishing.