Memorable Topics – Threads and posts that are just too good to lose > Plant Information and Portraits
Australian Native Plants at the ANBG Canberra
Paul T:
I'd still consider it fairly intrepid now!! :o
;D
jomowi:
I seem to remember the tarmac was laid after we left Australia in readiness for the Commonwealth Games in Perth.
Yes, it was quite a journey. The quality of the road left a lot to be desired. Where it had not been recently graded, it had become corrugated through use and you could not do more than about 20 mph. Then there was the “bull dust” which could be up to a foot deep which could hide the pot holes. Large uncovered potholes could be just as deep, and you often got warning of them because some kind motorist who had found out the hard way had left a branch sticking out of them. That is, where there were branches to be had. After all Nullabor means “no trees”
Just after we left Port Augusta there was a large sign full of bullet holes which read "No water for 700 miles". Highlights that I remember were stopping at Eucla and seeing the remains of the old Telegraph station (including the privvy!) almost completely covered by drifting sand. Another memory was lying flat on the ground between the longest straight stretch of railway line in the world to take a photograph of the track stretching into the distance and ‘meeting’ at infinity. Do they still run the “Tea and Sugar” - the train which takes a week and stops at remote locations where station owners can come on board and do their shopping, banking, have a haircut etc?
When we got to Coolgardie, every garage amongst other services advertised vacuum cleaners for hire. This was to get the by now ubiquitous dust out of the car. It even stuck to our eyelashes. We visited the gold mines at Kalgoorlie. On the return journey, we decided when we were close enough to civilsation to use our emergency fuel. When we got to the first filling station to replenish, there was a power cut, and we had to sit it out, entertained by a pet sulphur crested cockatoo.
Sorry, I seem to have digressed from the thread topic.
jomowi:
One last tale I remember: because we had underestimated the time the journey would take and had a deadline to meet, we had to do some night driving which was even more challenging than the day. At one stage we spotted headlights coming towards us. Estimating that the other car could travel no faster than us, and noting the time it took from first sighting to when we met - about half an hour, - we calculated the distance away he must have been when we first saw him. Can't remember what it was, - probably the maximum it could have been before the effect of the earth's curvature intervened? When we drew alongside, the other car stopped. We stopped to see if he was in any trouble - "no" he said "I just stopped for a chat!"
Paul T:
No idea about the Tea and Sugar run, unfortunately. A very, very long way from here.
I love the "just stop for a chat".... on straight roads like that you can see for such long distances that it can be very confusing to judge how far anyone is away from you..... it's hard enough on normal straight stretches, but given the sheer scale of them out west, I can only imagine. :o
MarcR:
Those of us in Western California can grow most of those plants; and those, like me, in western Oregon can grow very many of them. So for us there is no need to wish. I believe that the same is true of Southern France and Italy ; and likely Western Spain, and Portugal. It may also be true of the west coast of southern England.
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