There is always a breaking point.

Sleep is important; as I intimated in the last post each evening's rest is a fine balance of comfort, protection, cost and facilities. This particular day was already becoming frustrating and I was having a very robust internal conversation about where that night's bed should be, the sort of terse to-ing and fro-ing, that used to happen externally when I was a two. In the continual search for free accommodation, of which I am only one of many out there, such is the thin veneer of this part of the great Australian dream; there maybe many thousands of square kilometres in the country, but there aren't that many roads and we are all scurrying along them looking for our own piece of wilderness. What spare land there is along these corridors of travel has already been long claimed, in the Goldfields by the mining corporations, on the coast, by farmers and the National Parklands. I quickly got very adept at driving with one eye on the verge eagling any sign of a track or run off into the bush for a free nights accommodation. As I suggested it is not just me, I am ever mindful of my bank balance as it is of course tied to the longevity of my escapade and frankly, as I adjust to requiring only what I need; the back of Silvio to sleep, or the tent - well you'll find out about that in a minute, an occasional shower and some form of internet connection once in a while, paying over a hundred dollars each night quickly seems wasteful. At least I did not fork out for a camper van, these are the people I feel sorry for, sold on this idea that Australia and WA is just one big opportunity to live free, which in reality is quite far from the truth. They have paid up front for the luxury, but quickly find that in this State, there is no easy ride. Skipping forward a bit, I was recently higher up the coast around Geraldton and saw a lot more camper vans of all shapes and sizes, buzzing around as the night drew in trying to find somewhere suitable to camp, and there just wasn't, it was either the campsite I was on or an uncomfortable night in a lay by. The next day, bored with the rain, I spotted a sandy track off the road, one that doesn't lead to someone's front door, therein lies the art of this technique and rolled up to a sand shoreline with a view in either direction of camper van ten pin bowling, two or three parked abreast in the next clearing down, and again, and again and upwards two more.

So anyway, before. There I was, having a row with myself about how much that evening's rest should cost. It was raining as usual, windy of course and I had been in the car for far too long and needed a break. Then finally the sign for Mount Franklin (south) campsite appeared along the roadside. Things looked up as I pointed Silvio around the small forested loop that made up the tent pitches. Beautifully laid out, with a kitchen in the middle, obscured as all the other pitches were by medium forest brush, it was looking good and if not by the sea, at least there was a river nearby. Best of all, I had it all to my self. Tent was erected, chair was brought out and I relaxed into a pleasant afternoon in the bush reading a book, waiting for sunset and bed, it had only rained for half the day, things were positive by recent standards. The general rule out here in this surprisingly crowded environment, as you can imagine, is to give every one space, so it was a bit galling when at sometime past six, just as sunset was dipping its toe into night, a pickup roared up and stuck itself in the next bay to me, right by the camp kitchen, just as I was considering half an hour running around in my pants - because I can, and don't think that you wouldn't either. After sunset I went to bed, slightly grumpy that my freedom of expression had been curtailed by these now very noisy and inconsiderate bedfellows.

The wind rustling through the trees was a nice replacement for the sound of the sea to drift off to. It woke me several hours later with a more aggressive tone, its force increasing until I had cause to appreciate just how flexible the carbon fibre poles in my tent are. The outside cacophony was having a fair attempt at reclassifying my almost geodesic dome tent as an isosceles triangle, rhomboid and then pancake flat, almost, with me in it. The wind was predictably joined by rain that I had no choice but to abandon ship and make for the car. The morning, when it came, sleep deprived and achy, revealed a wet everything. Truly I had had enough of this. Still a coffee improved my mood as did the discovery that one half of the noisy couple was now sleeping in a nearby hut and the other was swagged up in the kitchen area. As testing as my current life can be sometimes, at least I would not have to be tending to the damp embers of a relationship that morning.

This event signaled the abrupt end of my travels in the south west corner and we made upwards for, if not better weather in the perth area, at least more sturdy accommodation and more things to occupy my time during this inclement period.

However, before we go further, if anyone asks; oh yes I did all the wineries in the Margaret river, it was great and the tree top walk too, twice! (of course I didn't, what would I want with a crate of wine at this moment in time and I don't drink and drive. The tree top walk was ignored purely out of spite and my previous Kuranda experience)

Perth was a startling disappointment. From far out, the road in was escorted by big blocky residential estates of the type I strongly associate with America and more accurately the back to the future films. These are massive clumsy one storey houses of no real architectural value or individuality, here all arranged with one road in and gated in the non physical sense by a sweeping brick wall declaring "Blue waters golf club estate" or "Sunny Pines resort" or whatever forgetable aspirational name the place has. Perth has a massive residential sprawl, my experience starting a good hour out from my destination, Fremantle. Freo' as the locals call it is the hip and trendy art side of Perth, found at the mouth of the Swan River. It is not a big place, but has retained almost all of its colonial architecture and has also added a marina and the Little Creatures Brewery, which I was particularly pleased to see, as well as a massive industrial port. This area's history and prior usage is never far from view; the campsite I stayed on, a mere ten kays further south, was a rare bit of greenery sandwiched between the WA Potato council and WA Salt Refinery, which I point out, had an electric fence! and on the other side, the Perth Power boat association. It is a very industrial coastline constructed almost entirely in a palatte of sandstone and rust, even the spiky robust bushes out here are a bleached olive green. It is also a place in transition, the gentrification of urban renewal, brought on I strongly suspect by the need for ever more elaborate and expensive housing, which is sprouting up in between the iron work.

Perth city was a bit of a non event, I have seen far too many city centres now and care little for them, they are soulless places, however Perth will stay with me as the CBD of least available toilets. It beat any previous record I might have concocted with a 45 minute endurance test following ever more cryptic and unreliable signs for the loo over 5 separate shopping malls. You know how it can be, once desperation comes into play, reason and observation become less discernible to maintaining a general momentum to keep the situation under control whilst managing mild internal panic.

There were two rain free days out of seven, but that didn't matter so much as what was on Foxtel that night, I am allowed to holiday away from the holiday sometimes too. At the end I was rather fond of Feo, partly because I found an italian restaurant that makes the most authentic pizzas I have had outside of Italy - Sandrino's, 95 Market Street, if you are interested.

After a week static in Freo, where the last update was written, the spare ten days before flying to Bali were taken up with a hastily arranged loop of the aforementioned upper coastline and Goldfields. I actually had three whole days without rain, it was wonderful. The Goldfields have a long history and are now mostly the domain of the major multinationals raping the environment with massive open pits (in my opinion). I did spend an evening camped next to a couple who were prospecting, though as they admitted, after thirty years, they were now being squeezed out by a combination of the multinationals, the same camping and caravanning act that makes my life difficult and the current high price of gold - because everyone is having a go. Gold comes and goes, seams promise great riches and then don't live up to their expectations, mining is like that and there are many ghost towns in this area, Gwalia being one of them. I caught the sunrise there one morning. Along the way, just before the major town in the area, Kalgoorlie, I took Silvio to see some culture at Lake Ballard . Antony Gormley, a highly reputable institutional English figurative sculptor has a piece on the lake there. I have always liked his work, though it is not particularly challenging, it is popularist and that is always a good thing. You know him in the UK as the creator of the Angel of the North in Gateshead and in Europe and America possibly for his very eary, but utterly humanistic installation of many thousand of little clay people called Field for the British Isles . Here he digitised the dimensions of fifty five of the occupants of the nearby town of Menzies, having been there I guess that was about all of them, it is a one horse town where the horse has long since died. The digitised figures were then recreated in a reduced size and cast before being erected on the salt lake. My pictures are below along with the Gwalia images.

Here again I thought I had the campsite to myself; it is suggested that the best viewing times are sunrise and sunset, so a free night's accommodation in Silvio was again accepted. What tends to happen, I have learnt is that just as I think the deal is done, maybe just before sunset, or as was last night, half an hour after, some fucker always turns up and usually they are accompanied by a monster truck and caravan. This couple, with their two kids, were slightly over friendly, which with their arrival ruining my solitude - just so you appreciate, I have been totally alone whilst camping only twice in the last month - made me initially a little spiky. She was a talkative one too, I know far too much about her life and wanted to mother me because I was alone, which actually eased my ill temper. I mention them for the next reason, as sunset came I stayed out on the lake taking photos into the evening dusk and then attempted some shots of the stars which in this hemisphere are utterly stunning. I think that we see the Milky way here, it is worth coming to this country just to see the night sky in my opinion. I work well in the dark, having quite good night vision and did start to wonder why there was a torch going this way and that around their caravan and the campsite in general. Only in coming down from the hill I was on, using a torch, my eyesight is good, but this was a very steep slope, did the reason for this frenetic lighting occur. It really isn't difficult to show due care for a fellow human, she was worried that I hadn't come back yet, this being the Outback proper. So I was guided back into the campsite literally by the light of her kindness, it was a lovely thing for someone to do.

These recent days have been almost completely split, the first five fine, positive and upbeat and the second a struggle, the mid three before arriving back in Perth particularly hard, due to more bad weather, bad signage, longer detours and the utter dull boredom of hours in a car on your own. I have noticed that I seem to be unfortunately trapped by my age in these travels, being neither young enough to fit in with the young backpacker crowd - No really have you heard the vacuousness insecurity in their conversation, Jesus! - and am myself far too young for the most prevalent travelers I see, the Grey Nomads. Something will happen, I feel that my lot may improve when I venture upward toward the top end and then down the middle, we will see. This post is not my best work as I am sure you can easily see, but it is indicative of where my mind is currently, my Ying and my Yang as so far out of balance that I fear that they have completely lost touch.

Bali then.