Eyre Highway

Sunday, August 10, 2008

What is clear thinking? It is not not clear thinking.

Here is an example of not-clear thinking:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/08/2329021.htm?site=goldfields

A Victorian man caught driving at 185 kilometers an hour after leaving a Eucla roadhouse without paying for fuel has narrowly escaped jail. Eucla Police arrested Jason Kirk Andreasen on the Eyre Highway on Sunday and found the car he was driving was stolen and had stolen number plates. The 37-year-old yesterday pleaded guilty to two charges of bringing stolen goods into the state, one charge of stealing and a charge of reckless driving. His lawyer Antoinette Fidelle told the court her client had secured work near Carnarvon and was trying to make a fresh start in Western Australia. Magistrate Denis Temby said the offences added up to a serious set of circumstances but was prepared to give Andreasen the opportunity to make a fresh start. He sentenced Andreasen to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 15 months, and fined him $1,750 for reckless driving.

Here is a map of part of the lower portion of the state of Western Australia:

Yes, that’s the gold-mining city of Kalgoorlie upper-left, and the border with South Australia on the right.

To give you an idea of perspective, the stretch between Caiguna and Balladonia contains arguably the longest straight stretch of highway in the worlds – 90 miles, dead straight, dead flat, with a difference in elevation between the ends of about ninety feet. That’s dead straight, rising at the rate of about one foot every mile. That’s straight and flat.

Last time I drove this highway, gas stations were few and far between. If you left Eucla without a full tank, your next opportunity was at Mundrabilla, then Cocklebiddy, then Caiguna.

It is a 496 kilometer drive from Eucla to Balladonia, that’s about 100 kilometers between gas pumps, and nothing in between. No farms (the stations are set many miles back from the highway), no grocery stores, no schools. Nothing. Not many trees either.

So the question arises: What are you thinking when you steal gas at Eucla and decide you can make it to Carnarvon 2,247 kilometers away, without getting caught?

Or even Mundrabilla a mere 64 kilometers away? All the gas station proprietor has to do, really, is pick up the phone and wait. It’s not at all like scurrying into hiding amongst the back streets of Etobicoke, or weaving in and out of the expressways of San Diego.

You stand out, in that country, like a dunny in the desert, as they say.

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