Explore with Fran

Berowra Waters Inn

April 7, 2018 by Fran Leave a Comment

I was trying to remember whether I had heard of this place. I have eaten at a lot of great restaurants in Sydney, but somehow, I found it hard to recall any memory of Berowra Waters Inn. If I am totally honest, which I like to think is my default position, I don’t think I had heard of Berowra, or, as it turns out, its very pretty cousin, Berowra Waters. I feel I should have read of it, being so close to home, and housing a restaurant that gets glowing reviews all over the world in various travel and food publications. I do have a vague recollection of being passed a magazine article, whilst on holiday in the UK. Somewhere I was told I would enjoy. Of a restaurant in Sydney that you get to by seaplane.

Now, there can’t be many restaurants in Sydney, fitting this description, even though I do know that the seaplane, based out of Rose Bay, does serve several restaurants up in the Northern Beaches area. At over $600 a trip, it is somewhat of a luxury. As we were staying on the water for the weekend, our arrival was a little less dramatic, yet still highly memorable. At 1.30pm, a full hour after we were initially told to be ready (river time, apparently), we spotted Andy, our water taxi, in his little boat, coasting towards our mooring.

At least we guessed it was Andy. With each house having its own private mooring, if somebody was heading in your direction, there was only one place they could park. Outside our house.

A bit of a character, sporting a bedraggled pony tail, and a shaggy, somewhat out of control beard, Andy had the air of a man who has never had to don a suit for a work interview. Quite a romantic notion for me, who has spent all his adult working life in this manner, toiling at various large, faceless corporate organisations, to earn the funds that feed my insatiable travel appetite. A kind of modern troubadour, signing for my supper, to anybody kind enough to listen.

Transferring to the Berowra Waters Inn took us all of 5 minutes, quite an improvement on the 20 or so minutes it had been taking us to pass it when out, bobbing on the water, in our own little tinnie. For the uninitiated, as I was before this weekend, a tinnie is a small boat that you can drive without a boat licence. That turned out to be an adventure in itself. Today’s journey, in a much faster boat, consisted of Andy regaling us of tales of life on the river, and the various occupants, which include no other than Cate Blanchett and Paul Keating. In different houses. Obviously.

Other than the 3 private moorings the restaurant has, one of which was currently housing a boat that would set you back a cool $2m, and cost up to $20k to fill up with fuel, the Berowra Waters Inn is a very unprepossessing place. No signage giving any hint to what is behind the floor to ceiling windows that stretch the length of the restaurant. It is the smartly dressed guests sat at smartly laid tables, drinking flutes of champagne, that hint of the wonders inside.

We were greeted on the pontoon of the restaurant by the manager, and whisked through a very large brown wooden door, up the 12 or so stone steps, and into the restaurant. With today’s lunch service only doing 16 covers there felt a kind of serenity that you don’t usually associate with restaurants that have a very open plan kitchen, as the Inn has. The chefs appeared almost graceful, perfecting their works of art, before sending them out to hungry diners.

Our menu, as was everyone else’s, was a set 7 course degustation menu, and was presented like a little origami puzzle, so perfect that it felt wrong to open it. As we were perusing the food we were about to experience, and that is the right word, experience, we reflected on degustation menus. Different to the a la carte type of dining, the degustation menu forces you, if force is the right word when discussing world class food, it forces you to try things you probably wouldn’t ordinarily order. I know for a fact, one of our party of two, and it wasn’t me, wouldn’t have ordered oysters, even though it was an amuse bouche, and definitely would not have ordered the “hapuka, mussels & herbs”, not being much of a fan of mussels. What she wouldn’t have known beforehand, was that this would be her favourite course of the whole afternoon, and the “mussels” were dehydrated, if you can get your head around what that is.

Even before we had a morsel of food, we had our first drinks. And it might possibly have changed my life. The restaurant sells a selection of 3, custom made signature cocktails, in little inviting bottles that are hard to resist. It was even harder to resist, nay, it was futile, once I discovered that one of the 3 cocktails was made on a base of single malt whisky, aged in Pinot casks. Adding some lemon, and paperbark, (I still don’t know if this is an actual thing. I would appreciate your input), a drink was produced that I will remember for a very long time. The whisky was subtle, yet distinctive. And whether it was the lemon, or the paperbark, or the combination of the two, I need to know how to make this drink. My afternoon was made, and we hadn’t yet started on the food.

Over the course of the next few hours we had spanner crab, the afore mentioned hapuka and mussels, pork with apple and bacon, wagyu beef, goats cheese, and a frangipani sponge that took my breath away. A 2015 Walsh & Sons Cabernet Sauvignon from the Margaret River in Western Australia was an excellent accompaniment.

Whilst time had been passing blissfully, the sudden arrival of the seaplane, coasting down the river, to the restaurant’s pontoon, brought into sharp relief that it must now be past 4pm, and almost the end of lunch service. A lunch service that I was very lucky, and very grateful to have experienced. Sadly, it was time for us to leave

As Andy whisked us home we were left reflecting on an experience that will live long in the memory, and long on the waistline.

Byron Bay

March 8, 2018 by Fran Leave a Comment

It is no secret that I like to step off the hamster wheel of city life now and again, even if only just a few days. My trips to Mudgee will attest to this. The 3 and half hour drive leaves enough distance between me, and the madness that is the Sydney CBD. As we come up through the mountains, pausing in Bilpin for a slice of home made apple pie, then drop down into Lithgow, and onto the final stretch into central New South Wales, I feel an immediate sense of zen. Something not even daily sessions of meditation with “Calm” can replicate.

The latest decompression trip was a return to beautiful Byron Bay, last visited in 2015 at the back end of our East Coast road trip. Memories of that last visit, those that I still have – post the marathon Sunday session we had, remain stuck in the mind as “that time in Byron we woke up amongst the detritus of the previous night’s kebab takeaway.”

This trip was to be much more civilised. I had promised myself. In January 2015 we had just finished a long road trip, with long stretches of driving each day. We couldn’t allow ourselves to over indulge on the evenings before. For what I would hope are obvious reasons, we moderated our alcohol intake. This was, until we dropped off the campervan on the outskirts of Brisbane, on New Years Eve, and proceeded to spend the next couple of weeks rampaging through Brisbane, Surfers Paradise, and then Byron Bay, like teenagers on spring break.

To reinforce the fact that this trip was to be more sedate, we booked Airbnb accommodation in the village of Suffolk Park, some 6kms south of central Byron, and a short 25 minute mini bus transit from Ballina airport with Easy Bus Byron. The selling points were the proximity to a wide stretch of beach, Tallows, the fact the village had a pub, a cafe with great coffee, and a couple of push bikes giving us easy access into Byron.

We were dropped off along Broken Head Road, and being a little early to check in, we crossed the road with our hand luggage, to the pub, the Park Hotel. Being in this part of the world, a lot of the pubs are similar, in that they are mainly outdoors. Fully covered, as it does rain a lot, not just here, but in the whole of Australia, but the rest of the pub is open. Byron Bay is only about 70 kilometres from Queensland, and this tells in the humidity. Byron feels tropical. The day we arrived felt particularly humid, and the best solution for this is always an ice cold Stone & Wood Pacific Ale. I was now definitely on “Byron time”, and ready to kick back.

Our accommodation was just what I had pictured, a small, self contained cabin, up a short drive way off the main road. The only clue we were in the right place was the number 244, stencilled into the white, metal post box by the side of the road. Up a steep incline, seemingly into the wilderness, we came across Quambi, our home for the next 2 nights. We were met by Subi, a very friendly Staffordshire Bull Terrier, who often popped in to see us through our stay.

Byron is almost at the most northern part of New South Wales, and Cape Byron, hosting a wonderful lighthouse, is the most easterly point of Australia. And over the years it has become a haven for visitors. It started off as a place the attracted those seeking an “alternative” lifestyle. What you might call hippies. People who chose to drop out of conventional life and live differently. Nearby Nimbin has been described as lots of things, including “an escapist sub culture”, and has always been closely associated with cannabis, which is openly traded, despite being illegal. If Nimbim is the young upstart, Byron is the big sister. Slightly more grown up, but still rebellious.

My impressions are that, reassuringly, not too much has changed on the surface of Byron since my first ever visit in 1994. Cheeky Monkeys still regularly entertains drunken backpackers late into the evening. The Beach Hotel still holds its piece of prime real estate, over looking, yes, you guessed it, the beach. And walking down Johnson Street, you can still get your cold beers from the Northern, and the Friendly Railway Hotel, pubs which don’t seem to have changed with the years. Byron still feels like Byron. People care about each other. Hitchhiking is still a thing. I saw a few by the side of the road, thumb stuck out, successfully getting rides. And I was given a guilt trip in the pub when I had the temerity to ask for a plastic bottle of water. Byron has been waging a war on plastic well before the current global push to minimise our use of it. And rightfully so.

But what is obvious, is that there is now a lot more money in Byron. It no longer caters just to hippies. With local residents such as the actor Chris Hemsworth, his reported new neighbour Matt Damon, and Aussie singer Natalie Imbruglia, all calling Byron home, the bars and restaurants have had to up their game. Porsches and Audis share the streets with decades old campervans. Boutique hotels rub shoulders with the many backpacker hostels. And the Balcony Bar does a “Bottomless Bellini Breakfast”. A far cry from the vegemite on toast of my backpacking days.

Beautiful Byron is a place where you can’t fail to immediately relax. You sense the slower pace of life as soon as you disembark the plane. The three days we had there felt like much longer. We packed our days with long bikes rides, along the many, flat, bike lanes in and around Byron. We had some great food out at The Three Blue Ducks, on The Farm. Cycling the 13kms back we called into the excellent Stone & Wood brewery, sharing a paddle of their finest beers. To walk off the excellent lunch we had at Mez Club, the margaritas, mai tais, and mango pina coladas, we took longs walks on the amazing, wide expanses of beaches that line the northern, and eastern coast of the town.

Waking on the third day, to the sound of tropical rain pattering on the roof of cabin, we looked at each other and said, “shall we just stay”.

Road trip continues to Esperance, on the South Coast, WA

February 18, 2018 by Fran 3 Comments

The last time we spoke, a couple of weeks ago, it was to run you through our Melbourne trip. Where might you wonder is the rest of the Xmas Western Australia road trip? Well, rewinding back to December, and Xmas, part of it is here.

Now that we don’t have to talk about malfunctioning Fitbits, and quibble about how many ghost steps the aforementioned Fitbit was creating, we can focus once again on the beautiful part of the world that is WA. For the record, my Fitbit was accurate. Just saying.

Rising early, with the morning sun, and battling very persistent flies, that seem determined to either fly directly into your mouth, eyes, or ears, we took the short bush walk to Wave Rock. We could hardly drive 4 hours, through the middle of nowhere, no disrespect to the many small “towns” we passed on the way through, and not get at least one picture of Wave Rock.

Picture taken, we left the hustle and bustle of Hyden, and it’s 400 hundred population (it may have increased by a couple by now), and hit the dry, dusty, open road once more. Hyden is about half way to Esperance, our next destination, and the second 4 hours of the journey mirrored the first. If I only glanced very quickly at the names of the towns, they could have even all been the same, save for a couple of different consonants.

Last nights roadkill, freshly oozing scarlet blood on the side of the highway. Signs reminding you of the Fire Danger level. Nothing much else to break up the monotony. Thank god for music playlists, and my excellent signing voice, to while away some of the time. Munglinup Roadhouse told me it was now only 1 hour to Esperance.

Enjoying one of the many beautiful beaches of the south coast

Whilst Esperance undoubtedly has some amazing beaches, the town leaves a little to be desired. Not one of the picture postcard places we were yet to experience. The town had the look and feel of somewhere that had fallen on hard times. A little shabby around the edges. We also nicknamed it the “town of myths”. Why? Well, the pictures below give you an idea. Researching our stay in Esperance we had a list that included, “visit the Pink Lake”, and also, “see kangaroos on the beach at Lucky Bay”. Maybe we just weren’t lucky. These are the “tourist brochure vs reality” images. Guess which is which…

Pink Lake takes it’s name from the beta carotene, as found in carrots. The carrots must not have been working on the days we visited. Still, the lake is on the Great Ocean Drive, leading to 10 Mile Lagoon, and Twilight Beach. Oh my!

Each of the beaches we visited took my breath away. The amount of times the only word I had was “wow”. Just wow. Nothing else. I immediately knew I had found the best beaches in Australia. In my opinion. I don’t anybody trolling me on the virtues of the respective beaches in the many beautiful parts of Australia. We can all have our own opinion people, and this is mine.

On another scorcher of a day, who could resist?

A great aspect of road tripping is the serendipitous nature of it. The things you come across, that you weren’t looking for. Such as the Lucky Bay brewery. Spotting the roadside sign, we followed the road and found a tiny little micro brewery, brewing, and serving up some great ales. The amount of microbreweries in Australia, as I imagine in other parts of the world, have exploded in recent years. And beer drinking is much the better for it.

With hindsight, it was a master stroke buying a very large tinnie of ice cold Sandy Hook pale ale, poured, and canned right in front of me as I waited. You see, we were very happy to make use of the BBQ at the Pink Lake Tourist Park, but less happy with our choice of burgers from Woollies. Once cooked, it looked like, and had the consistency of a breeze block. Note to self, don’t buy the cheapest burgers in the whole supermarket tomorrow night.

Our last full day in Esperance saw us having a drive out to Cape Le Grande National Park. Incongruously this had us driving past “Stonehenge”. A full size replica, in a field, in the middle of nowhere. One of those moments when all you can do is scratch your head, take a photo, and move on.

One of the many “wow” moments in Esperance

After being woken by our neighbours on the camp site at 5am, they no doubt had a very long drive ahead of them, we were on the road ourselves by 7.30am, after coffee, breakfast, and ablutions.

Starting the day with my priorities right

Saturday December 23rd, and we had a 4 and half hour drive to our next stop, Albany. Cue, more long, dusty, roadkill filled roads. And dodgy singing.

See you in a few hours…

The Melbourne Open and the Yarra Valley

February 6, 2018 by Fran Leave a Comment

Having been two years since our last visit to Melbourne, we thought it long overdue that we visit again. And what better time to go, apart perhaps than for the Formula 1 grand prix in March, but at the end of January for the Australian Open, which is exactly what we did last time. It has to be said our previous semi final lasted longer than this one proved to be, but more on that later.

Leaving a day later than our previous visit, this time flying on Australia Day (January 26th), coinciding with my first anniversary of being an Australian citizen, we set our alarms and made sure there were no hiccups as we negotiated first the big yellow bus, then train, to Sydney Domestic airport for our 7.55am flight. Flying with JetStar, the antipodean equivalent of Ryanair, you are never quite sure what to expect. On this occasion our short flight, under 2 hours, was on time and very painless. However, unlike last time when we flew into Tullamarine, today’s flight on the big orange airline had us landing at Avalon, some 60kms from Melbourne CBD.

From the big orange plane, onto the big red Skybus (I’m sensing a colour theme), and for $42 each for a round trip, we were transported the 45 minutes in to town. Transferring to a cab by Southern Cross Station, I was glad the ride was short, as we had Walter Mitty driving us. Not only did he provide free advice on how much I had been ripped off by the Skybus, but also regaled us with tales of him being very senior in the Israeli military, how he was the most senior person, and therefore in charge, of the planes he flies on, and also that he was a life saving paramedic. I tried telling him I was an agent of Mossad, but this cut no ice with Walter.

Our accommodation, in South Melbourne, was a fantastic apartment booked via Airbnb. Twelve floors up, a few wines were drunk on the balcony that had sweeping city views. The Eureka building dominates the city skyline in the CBD, and across to the right, the magnificent Melbourne Cricket Ground dominates. If I had to gripe about one thing, it would be advertising a coffee “pod” machine, as a prominent selling point on your Airbnb listing, then only providing 2 pods. 2 pods! For 4 people, for 2 nights. Are we on rations? If any landlord, in any city knew how important coffee is, surely a landlord from Melbourne would know more than most.

We were lucky that the weather improved from the cold, grey skies that greeted us on arrival. In fact, there was a bit of a heatwave whilst we were there, and judging by colour of some people’s skin, present company included, more sunscreen would have been a good idea.

Unlike Sydney, Melbourne really knows how to put on a sporting event. The Open is so well organised, you could easily spend a full day just soaking up the atmosphere, and enjoying the entertainment outside the actual stadiums. With hindsight, maybe we should have done that. From the off it was obvious that it was going to be a routine win for Federer. From entering the big blue, very blue, court, there is that colour theme again, the speed with which he dispatched the first set was pure Roger. What we, or the rest of the Rod Laver arena, didn’t expect was the match to be over before all the sets were played. When Chung pulled up, and retired, there were audible gasps all around the stadium. Gasps were replaced by expletives by one of our party. Understandably upset, the booing wasn’t appreciated by the lady in the row in front. Oops.

We resolved to make up for the disappointment by getting suitably inebriated on the wine tour of the Yarra Valley the day after. If you fancy doing something similar I would highly recommend Chill Out Wine Tours. Starting the day with a typical Melbourne breakfast, well, one of us did, at Bowery to Williamsburg, we then met the bus at 9.25am, by the side of St Paul’s cathedral, opposite Federation Square in the city. A quick roll call and we were soon on our way for the short 1 hour trip to the valley. As always with these trips, the driver does a great job in getting everybody talking. At the start of a wine tasting day, most people are very quiet. They either haven’t woken up yet, the caffeine hasn’t kicked in, or are displaying natural shy tendencies. I fall firmly into the second camp. Or maybe the third! No such issue on the way home, when everybody was best friends forever, and were getting invited to a pool party! Yes, you had a very “interesting” job, of designing door handles. In fact, you were probably the first designer of door handles that I had met. But do I want to sit in your hot tub with you, in your bathers? That’s another question.

Our first stop on the trip was at Domaine Chandon, which turns out to be a sister vineyard of Moët (yes, it is pronounced with a hard t, with name being of Dutch origin, and not French), one of several around the world. Part of the global holding company LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). The famous Moët is not made here. As you know champagne can only be produced in the Champagne region of France. What they do produce at Domaine Chandon is some very good sparkling wines. The vineyard, as you would expect, is somewhat of a commercial behemoth, so it was refreshing to move onto Soumah wines.

Named as a derivative of South of the Maroondah highway, this is a boutique winery, one of those that seem to produce a full range of excellent wines. The question that always makes me smile when wine tasting is “so, what wines do you like?” My answer is the same every time. All of them. Which is 97% true. Soumah was one of those special wineries where I enjoyed every wine on the testing menu. White, red, and dessert wines. All excellent. It is these type of tastings that I blame for me having more wine at home than I have books. Yeah, I know, hard to believe right?

After an excellent lunch at Soumah, a pasta dish that is possibly in my top 5 ever, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Italy, we moved on to Di Bertoli for another great tasting. The day was finished at Yering Farm, probably my least favorite wines of the day. It is not often I meet a wine list that I wouldn’t buy from. I did that day. A very pleasant tasting, with a very knowledgeable lovely old mature lady, but the wines did not match my palate. As rare as that it, it happens.

Skipping the pool party, we had our final night in Melbourne, starting with drinks at Pony Fish Island. A great little bar, in the Yarra River, that was first discovered by us on Instagram. Don’t all the best bar / brunch / dinner recommendations come from your Insta feed? Drinking as the sun set, we weren’t in the mood to explore much further afield, so we had a very good dinner at Teatro, on the river, eating, drinking, and chatting about the great weekend we had.

We were a little blue, to be leaving on the red bus, to catch the orange airplane. A red wine on the plane, and a commitment to return capped off a great weekend.

Hello readers, welcome to something new!

January 20, 2018 by Fran 1 Comment

A new year, a new start. After being on the basic Blogger platform for a number of years, I am moving to WordPress in the hope that I can start polishing my content, and who knows, maybe even look a little more professional.

Watch this space my friends.

Roadtripping Western Australia – Part 1 – Perth to Wave Rock

January 16, 2018 by Fran 2 Comments

You are probably more familiar with literature on road trips that detail journeys across the USA.
Who hasn’t heard of the iconic Route 66? It wouldn’t be iconic if nobody had heard of it.
And if like me you enjoy Beat literature, you will no doubt have followed Jack Kerouac’s

Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as they travel west, along Route 66, to California.
The same route the Joads took in Steinbeck’s timeless classic, Grapes of Wrath.
Don’t get me wrong, the States, and particularly up the coast from California, on Route 101,

has some amazing roads to travel on.

Bessie

But, if you ask me, not that you did, I think the country just made for road tripping is Australia. Great distances between places. Vast tracts of nothingness in between, bar the obligatory roadhouse, for refuelling both your vehicle, and your passengers, with decidedly dodgy meat pies. And towns that you will struggle to pronounce, such as Jerdacuttup, Munglinup, and Coomalbidgup. All these towns house at least one obscure museum. What is it with small Australian towns and their museums?

Hyden (or specifically Wave Rock), which turned out to be our first overnight stop in Bessie,
had the “Memories of Yesteryear” museum, where you could step back in time and “see an

Austin car, a bottle collection, and so much more”. My italics. At only $4 entrance fee, try

and stop me!! Once I had done that I could spend all of 5 minutes visiting the “Lace Place”,

and marvel at the “magnificent world renowned lace collection”. World renowned people.

No italics needed. The fact it is world renowned may explain why it was more expensive

than the “Yesteryear” museum, at $5 to get in.

It wasn’t just Hyden. Every small town we drove through had at least one museum advertised.
If we didn’t have somewhere to be maybe we would have stopped. At least once. Just maybe.

So it was, this December saw us doing our second Aussie road trip, after driving the East coast a
couple of years ago. In the same size campervan, Bessie, we were this year going to drive through
South West Australia. This was after we first had a few great days enjoying Perth, which as it always
does, looked after me very well. It is a great, compact city, that seems to grow more on me each time
I visit. The food and drink options were the best I can remember, and apart from an erroneous
visit to Durty Nellie’s Irish bar, for which I blame a fellow expat from Halifax, we got to
experience some of them.

The highlights included an excellent Indian curry at Sauma in Northbridge, an amazing old school
cheese toastie, at Toastface Grillah, and at Petition on Barrack Street in the CBD, probably the
best bacon, egg, and black pudding butty I have ever had. In the evening Petition becomes a very
good bar, where we managed to escape the unseasonably cold, wet weather, and sampled a few of
the hoppy ales on offer with some friends from Sydney. Guys, we need a catch up back home, if
only to return the cardigan 🙂

Perth CBD and the Swan river as seen from Kings Park

Kings Park remains a beautiful oasis just on the edge of the city. Swan River seems to get more beautiful each time I visit. And Elizabeth Quay just keeps expanding, which is fine with me, as long as they continue to fill the space with outlets like Gusto Gelato. Am I back in Italy? Beautiful. And for novelty value, for my English friends, I can’t leave Perth without mentioning that we had a great afternoon, catching up with family, and new friends, at the Lucky Shag. It is a shame that by the end of the year it will be completely overshadowed, literally, by the completion of the development next door of the Hilton DoubleTree.

Lowlights of the city break? Well, none really, but watching England “play” in the Ashes, the last
one at the WACA, was debatable enjoyment. The least said about this summer’s ignominious
Ashes series the better.

But, faster than we would have liked, I was saying goodbye to Michael Atherton, who was also staying at the Alex Hotel, as the city side of our trip drew to a close, and it was time for us to hit the open road in Bessie.

Unlike the previous few days, Tuesday dawned with weather that immediately put a smile on my face. After two days of heavy rain and winds, the sun had come out to play. Taking an Uber ride with our driver Sujan, out past the airport, we started the day at Apollo motorhome hire where the smile soon disappeared. We had a long frustrating wait. Not even the sunshine could keep the smile on my face.

We waited so long I thought I would just need to drive a lap of the building when I finally got the keys, and drop them straight off back at the office, as it felt my 2 weeks were already up. Watching plane after plane come in to land next door at the airport I was full of the frustration of the stranded traveller. Bags packed, yet going nowhere.

When we finally hit the road we decided a cheeky wine might help our moods, so we took the very short drive north to the Swan Valley wine region, where we stopped for lunch, and a tasting at Ugly Duckling winery. Despite having had several trips to Perth over the years, and wine tasting being one of my favourite things in the world, I had never made it to the Swan Valley. This despite it being so very close to the city. The long wait to pick up Bessie in the morning did mean that we needed to start heading south relatively soon, but we did sneak in one more winery, the fabulous Sandalford. We proceeded to have a quick tasting, make a purchase, and then were off. Next stop Wave Rock.

Yup, that is Wave Rock

“Why on earth are you going to Wave Rock?” people asked. Well, let’s be clear, Wave Rock is not, and never has been, on our bucket list. But, we did need somewhere to sleep, and break up the journey to Esperance. And Hyden was conveniently about half way. And it had a very big rock as a tourist attraction. How could we not stop? Situated some 336kms (208 miles) from Swan Valley, the little town of Hyden, population 400, home to both Wave Rock and a roadhouse selling the aforementioned dodgy pies, would do for the night. Regarding the pie, I lost count of the lumps of gristle I had to separate from the meagre chunks (pieces?) of meat. Arriving in Wave Rock past 7.30pm is not advisable if you are hungry. I was. The shop, yes, only one, had closed for the evening. With the roadhouse being the only thing open, my dinner options were said pie, a dry muffin, or a bag of crisps. Strewth.

Another reason to break up your journey south is to stop yourself dying from boredom en route.
The landscape is like being in a gallery for hours, staring at the same picture.
A picture made up of every shade of beige and green, only punctuated by the vivid red dirt, and
numerous roadkill, which were also colourful in their own way, lining both sides of the asphalt.
The only thing to keep you awake is the concentration required every time a road train comes
thundering past on the opposite side of the road, almost sucking you into their path. The road trains
are the enormous lorries, dragging three, or four trailers in their wake. Trust me, you don’t want to
mess with them. As you motor on, hoovering up the kilometres, the small towns pass you in the
blink of any eye. Corrigin. Kondinin. Small towns of small populations. But one thing in common.

Oh look, another bloody museum.