Thanks to a lift from Emma and Rachel – who’d I’d been bumping into since Geraldton – I was in Exmouth at 11pm instead of the Greyhound time of 4am. After having to show the bar staff at the YHA Potshot Resort that one of their duties was to act as an after-hours reception (luckily mentioned in the YHA hostels guide) I got a 7 bed dorm all to myself.
I wasn’t really sure what I was actually doing up in Exmouth as, much like some of my previous destinations, I’d done little reading up on what went on in the place. The first thing I did notice the next day was a distinct change in climate – a tad warmer and muggy-er due to it not getting a direct breeze off the Indian Ocean. This meant that the plan to hire a bike and see how far up to the Cape I could get went out the window and the only bit of exploration I actually did was to go round to the shopping centre. The Potshot was the first place that I found had computers that you didn’t have to pay to use, that doesn’t mean the internet was free, but that’s still so much better than having to pay $8 for an hour just to copy your photos from a memory card to a hard disk. So, taking full advantage of that I made a bit more of an effort to get my blog up to date – I’d written one entry on my phone and that was pretty painful and limited how much I had to say. Now I’m in Kununurra and obviously still not up to date, but at least I’m getting somewhere without bruising my thumbs or clearing my pockets of change.
Staying, cooking and generally living in so many dorms and kitchens in hostels soon meant I’d met so many people, some for a bit longer or who had made a bit more of an impression than others. Cooking my pasta for tea on Saturday evening I got talking to a guy who, by the way him and his girlfriend spoke to me, had obviously met me before. After wrongly guessing him as a Liverpudlian I remarked that it was funny that I’d guessed him wrong cause I’d spoken to a guy from Newcastle back in Denham; after a few seconds the memory which sparked my remark cleared up a little and I realised that guy was this guy – oops. I’ve met Martin quite a few times since then so at least I’ve had a few chances not to make the same mistake again.
Saturday night was pretty busy at the hostel, as the backpacker accommodation is only one part of the resort which also has a bar – one of two in Exmouth I think. I met a few folks who were travelling in the same direction as me so it was nice to know there’d probably be a few more familiar faces when I got to Broome.
Sunday was spent doing not much, I still couldn’t get over how dibilitating the extra heat and humidty was. Due to a fairly strong feeling that the money that I’d transferred from home into my ozzy bank account was pretty much all spent by now I was starting to think a bit more seriously about finding some work, but a call to the Harvest Trail wasn’t overly helpful. Apparently, due to mining workers losing their jobs, there wasn’t so much harvest work available in WA and I was told to phone back when I got to Darwin. Darwin is quite a long way from Exmouth so I was hoping I’d be able to come across something else myself before then.
I did eventually make it out for a walk to the town beach – on the grand scale of ozzy beaches it’s pretty uninspiring, especially after the waters of Coral Bay. Still, it was a nice spot to chill out for a while and there were loads of interesting little rocks that were imprinted with marks from even smaller shells.
After an unfortunate encounter with a cockroach – unfortunate for it as it was crawling on my bag and, after a swift contact with my foot was probably having its first and last experience of flying – I was getting on the Greyhound again for what, hopefully, will have been my most annoying trip in Australia. But that’s for another time…