Decisions, decisions, decisions

After leaving Esperance in sunshine on the morning of Saturday 21st, the weather slowly deteriorated and by midday it was raining steadily.  I was aiming for a camping ground about 100kms short of Albany but when I reached there it was still raining and as I didn’t fancy pitching and then striking the tent in the wet I again decide to seek accommodation.  I ended up in a very nice motel/hotel (sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference although I suppose that if you have a parking space outside your door it is a motel) in Albany where I had the best food on the trip so far (calamari starter followed by fillet steak).  Later that evening I received a message from my brother forwarding news that the borders to the Northern Territory were to be closed on Tuesday.  That area was to be a major part of my tour and I considered riding up the west coast to Port Headland towards the northern part of WA and returning south on an inland route to cross the Nullarbor again.  During a sleepless night I decided in the early hours that I should return to my daughter’s home in Wagga Wagga as:
A. The coronavirus situation was likely to become worse before it became better
B. I had heard that most pubs and restaurants in Perth had closed so the same was probably true elsewhere
C. Qantas might rearrange my flight and I should be in Wagga where I could leave the bike and from where I knew I could fly to Sydney.
I departed Albany following a hearty cooked breakfast and headed east(ish).  I looked at the weather forecast and saw that there was a high pressure area sitting off the south coast of Australia.  Great, I thought.  Clockwise winds so they will be behind me crossing the Nullarbor.  There was a great clang as the penny dropped – I am in the Southern Hemisphere so the wind direction around cyclones and anticyclones is reversed.  So, headwinds for the next few days!
Again it was wet (where is the famous Australian sunshine and the droughts I had heard about I thought) and I reached a settlement called Salmon Gums, about 100kms before the start of the Nullarbor, at about 1715 where I found accommodation for the night.  It was described as a hotel but the accommodation side was nothing short of a dosshouse all for the exorbitant sum of £32, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I was the only customer in the bar and the ‘landlord’ and ‘landlady’ more than matched me drink for drink – it was more one for him two for us.  To cap it all they had decided not to provide food that night.  Thank goodness for the earlier cooked breakfast.  It was whilst there that it was announced that SA and then WA were to close their borders on Tuesday afternoon at 1600 as well.  I was very pleased that I had decided to return when I did.  I would not have made SA in time if I had continued for just another day.

I was up at the crack of dawn and on the road with the earlier warning to look out for the kangaroos, camels and feral horses on the way to Norseman in my mind, the period just after dawn being a dangerous time for travellers to encounter wildlife on the route.  Again the weather was atrocious with strong winds and torrential rain at times on the exposed expanses of the plain.  In view of the weather and the border situation I started looking for accommodation from the third roadhouse before the border but they were all full.  My last shot before dark was immediately after the SA border in Border Village.  I was told that they were full!  I was faced with sheltering under the veranda canopy for the night or riding 209kms in the dark and rain (suicide on a bike because of kangaroos etc in the road) to the next roadhouse which would be full as well probably.  It would have been impossible to pitch a tent in that weather.  The guy behind the counter must have felt sorry for me because he went to the office, spoke to someone and returned with the news that they had one room left.  The room
was reasonably comfortable and as well as air-conditioning it had a wall mounted convector heater – dry clothes for the morning!  Coronavirus measures in place meant that only take away food was available to be eaten in the room, wonderful as all I had consumed all day was a coffee at Norseman early in the morning.