I always found it hard to understand why some people say that the sheer boredom of driving through Australia can drive you insane. I mean, yes, I did find it boring as well, when I travelled from Albany to Esperance, but surely all this talk of "deadly boredom" was exaggerated. I don't think like this no more.

Seriously: I must have been on the most boring piece of road today I've ever been on. Between Monkey Mia and the next biggest town, Carnarvon, there is one stretch of road where you are driving straight for hours without any bend in the road and the scenery around you doesn't change in the least. It's just plain, barren shrubland. And it keeps going on and on and on without the least bit of change. You really must have experienced it to know what it feels like. Eventually you become grateful for every bend of the road simply because it gives you something to do - even if it is only turning the steering wheel by five degrees to the right. Now I understand why people warn you against tackling these roads on your own. If noone else was in the car - or if you didn't have some bloody exciting music - you'd simply fall asleep and crash. I don't even want to think about what it's gonna be like when we have to cross the Great Sandy Desert on the way to Broome.

Out of radio land

Speaking of music: before I came here I naively thought that the radio could keep me company in case I can't find anyone to share the car with. Forget about it! As soon as you are further then 25 or 30 km outside a town, the radio cuts out. I mean, I see their point - there is noone here, so why bother erecting expensive transmitters if you can reach 99.9 % of the people with a cheap one. I just find it really unusal to have nothing but white noise on the radio.