Monday 27 August – Well as we have no phone coverage or internet connection here, I’m just basically writing my diary.  The days aren’t getting any cooler, but I guess they soon will and we’ll be whinging about the cold!

This morning we were away by about 8.30, and after a few detours (they’re doing massive roadworks in Port Hedland and South Hedland), we finally got away along the Great Northern Highway, southward into the Pilbara.  The countryside was very flat for quite some way, with nothing of interest to see really, so today’s activity was to count cattle roadkill, as there seemed to be nothing else that had wandered onto the road at the wrong time.  The strange thing was that over the first 150 – 200 km of the drive we counted 7 dead cattle, but in these vast flat expanses of land we hadn’t seen even one live one.  Then we saw a very small group (about 6 or 8) grazing, before reaching our total of 9 for the day dead.  The interesting thing was that none of them was on the sealed surface of the road, but on the gravel verge.  As they would have Buckley’s chance if they were hit by a road train, it almost seemed that there was an unwritten rule that they be moved off the road if they are killed.  But then that’s a stupid idea, too, as I can’t imagine the time it would take for the road train to actually pull up – they’d be kilometres past where it happened.

For the last hundred or so kilometres the scenery changed to what we were expecting the Pilbara to be – more mountainous, very red soil and quite rocky in parts.

 We stopped for a cuppa at a roadside stop and Grant talked to a bloke travelling back to Newman to work.  He was saying that the only ones to work for and get long term reliable work are BHP and Rio Tinto, as the subcontractors who are hired by those two main ones advertise, put piles of people on, get the job done quickly, then sack them.   

We arrived here at Auski Roadhouse at midday.  Auski is about 180 km from Newman and 155 from Tom Price, where we are going.  We turn off the Great Northern Highway just about 30km down the road from here.  It is right on the edge of Karijini National Park.

And that was really our day, because after that it was just the usual – lunch, cuppas, chatting to people, sitting out in the shade, embroidering, playing the odd game on the computer and simply sitting around and doing nothing.