Civilization: always a slap in the face.

Location: Margaret River

Kms so far: 10255 (255 kms overdue for a service)

Several things have occurred since the last post, most prominently the triumphant return of Lauper and her increasingly tee-shirt tanned cargo of two fuzzy travelers to proper Aussie suburbia. Combine this with a dying alternator, a hangover that’s directly related to Bundaburg rum consumption (Eh? Bundy? When was that ever a good idea?) and you are looking down the barrel of what promises to be an interesting post…
Last night we caught up with my mate Ryan at the Cat Empire gig in Busselton. The gig was great- the Cat still manage to rock a crowd even though I openly admit that I haven’t listened to much of their stuff in many months. The best bit was catching up with Ryan- seeing familiar faces while you are on the road reminds you why this is an around Australia trip rather than an across Australia trip, terminating in the opposite site of the country from sunny Melbourne.
Busselton itself was quite interesting. I’m not sure what its primary industry is, but it is a bustling suburbia, complete with numerous ‘lifestyle’ shops ready to sell you the latest design of crappy couch and a bigger telly so that you don’t become a social outcast due to the lack of flat panels in your life. Talking to Ryan seemed to indicate that most of the coast south of Perth is like this… perhaps Busselton is like Mornington, part of the unofficial suburban sprawl of its nearby capital.
What was most interesting about Busselton, however, was the return to suburban ambiance. Albany (which we visited a few weeks ago) was a much bigger town by population standards and even had similar retail services. However, Albernites (as I have now christened them) seem to be immune to the sterility that seems to be part of the great Australian suburban dream. Backing this statement up with a solid argument requires more brain cells than are presently available considering the toll that Bundy cans took last night, so I may have to return to this in future posts.
Anyways, the other current focus is a bung alternator. Cindy is displaying a charge light at idle, usually extinguishing at around 1500 to 2000 rpm or so. A mechanic at the Caltex in Augusta kindly put a voltmeter across the battery (for free!) and confirmed that it is still charging, and not overcharging, so we’ve been proceeding with crossed fingers until we can get an Auto Electrician to strip it down and see what’s going on. This happens on Monday, here in Margaret River, so naturally we booked a winery tour for the same day. That way we’ll be sufficiently inebriated when we have to accept what, no doubt, will be very expensive news on Monday afternoon. Cost aside, this needs to be fixed because the Alternator charges both our batteries, one of which powers our fridge, which in turn keeps the white goon (read: boxed wine) cold. Any failure to have Cindy supply us with cold goon would be catastrophic to our morale…
Anyways, I’m off to find meat pie.