Pardoo Station

On another beautiful warm day, after breakfast, I checked out of the Courthouse B&B and drove back to Europcar at the airport to check some things, having read sections of the car manual overnight. The manager connected my Samsung phone to the car's Bluetooth which enabled me to use GPS via Google maps as well as charging the phone. The iPad with downloaded music was also connected to the car and charged through its battery.
Having sorted out the car, I started my journey south having set the route on Google Maps which showed me the upcoming straight sections when it was feasible to overtake.
The Broome Highway had a section which was perfectly straight for at least 20km.
The first stop was at the BP station at the turn-off from the Broome Highway to National Highway 1 where I filled the 20 litre gerry-can.
I listened to Bach, George Shearing, and Sergeant Pepper, having a break in lay-bys or roadhouses to change the music on the iPad.
Once I'd done a few kilometres, I got used to driving the car which was very comfortable with its power-steering, and AC keeping the temperature inside at 20C whilst it was 32C outside.
The speed limit was generally 110km (70mph) per hour but it wasn't difficult to creep up to 120 or even 128 (80mph). Sometimes a signal appeared on the dashboard about keeping to the speed limit but I saw hardly any speed cameras on the whole journey. There was hardly any traffic except near urban and mining areas.
In planning the journey, I'd overestimated the time it would take to drive between my overnight stops, not realizing that the driving would be so easy. As it turned out, I could have stayed an extra day in Broome and then driven straight to Port Hedland but Pardoo Station was an interesting place to see.
The landscape was mainly flat bush with stretches of flood plains and floodways signposted. There were a few early-spring flowers. The straight road had occasional mirages.
I had a snack lunch in one of the regular lay-bys which were usually unsealed. There was no other traffic, just a warm breeze and the bush.
I saw alive and road-kill wallabies, a road-kill cow, and a feral cat.
I filled up regularly at the infrequent roadhouse service stations, often 200km or more apart. At the first one I stopped at, I got stuck in "park", changing the controls and putting my foot down on the accelerator in the wrong sequence. I asked one driver if he could help but he, like the majority, drove a diesel. Fortunately, I spotted an X-Trail which was driven by a French couple who had collected their car from Europcar in Broome just after me. We concurred on the difficulty of the controls but eventually found the right sequence. You had to put your foot down on the accelerator, release the override Park button, put your foot down again, and shift the gear from park-neutral into forward or reverse.
Later on, I filled up again at Pardoo Roadhouse with the help of a policeman who knew how the pre-pay worked. 29 litres of 91 unleaded cost A$70, A$2.40 per litre, equivalent to £1.20. It got cheaper later on when petrol stations were more common. The General Sales Tax (GST) was 10% compared to 20% VAT in the UK.
I estimated that I could drive 640km (400 miles) on a full tank at an average speed of 110km per hour although 700 km may have been possible. I didn't let the tank get anywhere near that empty although, on the last day, I was on the last bar (one-eighth or 80km) on the fuel gauge.
In the afternoon, the sat-nav packed up and I couldn't find the turn-off to Pardoo Station. Having returned to the Roadhouse to enquire, I eventually found the turn-off which was an unsealed red-dust graded road for 13km to Pardoo Station.
Pardoo Station was a very large ranch with wagyu cattle plus a caravan park, and cabins for tourists and drovers.
In the early evening, there was a poetry reading by a WA Bush Poet around the camp fire. It reminded me of the poetry about gold prospectors in Dawson City.
I had to show my driving licence in order to buy a can of lager from the shop. This was a WA-wide policy.
There was a hot buffet dinner for the visitors and staff, some of whom were foreign.
Start: 14792km. Finish: 15331km. Distance travelled: 539km.
I'd driven from the Kimberley district into the Pilbara district.Läs mer