It's only right and fair that we start with a picture of Dani's lovely car. Granted, it wasn't too good at the acceleration and overtaking apsects of driving but that was of no concern, the open road beckoned; we had an iPod full of good hard-core driving music, a full tank of petrol and a map that didn't quite show us where we were going. We did know it was North, what more do you need? Couldn't be that hard, it's a small place after all...Cervantes is the 'Pinnacles town' which is a good 3-4 hour drive up the coast - not that you saw much of the coast as the highway is inland. What you did see was endless road, scrub, heat haze and very long lorries, which they call road trains. A huge Mack cab and three trailers. Three! Bloody things go on forever, especially when you're trying to overtake in an under powered car. We made it before dusk and found a nice motel. Well, actually we just booked into the first motel we found (which turned out to be pretty much the only motel) - a Great Western. Somehow finding a chain hotel in the middle of nowhere was a bit disconcerting. what next, a KFC drive thru?
Anyway, we booked in, booked a table for later and headed off for the desert. It's not like the Sahara or anything, in fact it's quite small by desert standards but it makes up for it with weirdness. It's a collection of stone formations that have been eroded and shaped over the centuries and it is absolutely amazing. There is a track that leads through the stones so you can drive a circuit - I say track, I mean a desert trail but Dani's car managed it well and, as it had never been to the desert before (shame on you Dani!) we took a snapshot as a momento. Then we, or rather I, went snap happy. The light is amazing and the effects are stunning.
We drove a bit, photographed a lot, drove a bit, photographed a lot - you get the idea. The other thing we did was scout for the best locations for dawn as we didn't want to be stumbling around in the dark trying to decide where to set up in the morning. And we took photo's, have I mentioned that?
The problem with taking photo's (usually) is that there's always one person missing from the shot. As most camera's have a timer you can get by, but a tripod really makes a huge difference. Trust me. Buy a decent tripod with extendable legs and then you can do silly 'Walking out of the desert' type shots. The sun beat down, but we soldiered on. Water, water, oh the thrist bequeathed by the unbearable heat. How we would survive? Oh yeah, air conditioning....
What was really amazing was how the colours changed as the sun went down, every minute made a change in how the environment looked. The rocks changed colour, the sky changed colour, the desert floor changed colour. Take the same shot 2 minutes apart and it looked totally different, take it from a different angle and not one colour was the same. Fantastic. This is why photographers go mad for dusk and dawn light. It's truly amazing.
But, like all good things, it had to end and we drove carefully out of the desert by the last of the dying light and headed back down the unlit road to the motel keeping a careful eye out for kamikazee kangeroo's (they love to scare drivers after dark, it's a genetic thing I think). If this was dusk, just how spectacular would dawn be?
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