Back to reality

 After the excitement and demands of the three week road trip coming back to reality in the form of the big empty house and the confronting fact that I would never ever see Val again hit me really hard last week. That there is no cat here either just made the emptyness worse. I have sought  professional help as well as the support of friends to get me through.

This week has been a lot better. The support is kicking in and  I am starting to make the adjustment but it will take time. I did not have any enthusisasm for the blog last week. It is beginning to return. I just need relevant material now.

In the short term I have dug into the folder of photos I took on the road trip.

Firstly below are two shots of typical the scenery I drove through. The top shot was taken on the road south from Stockinbingal. It's rich agriculatural country. Notice  the absence of traffic. That was the situation for most of the trip. The eastern coastal  strip of Australia is crowded. Inland it is almost empty.

 

The second photo was taken on the road between Dubbo and Lightning Ridge and again the scenery is typical. The hills in the very far distance are the Warrembungles in the Warrembungles National Park. Otherwise it is flat and featureless. Cattle country.

 In this photo there are power poles but for hundreds of kilometres I was looking onto country without any signs of human activity. Just country. No houses, power poles, roads, sheds, silos, barns or even animals. Also when you have not seen another vehicle for some time-like an hour or so -and then you see that there is not a trace of a phone signal then you reflect on how big Australia is. Out there petrol stations are a long way apart -not a problem in the frugal Mini -but something drivers of thirstier vehicles have to be mindful of. It most definitely is not Tesla country.