Geraldton has an historic centre and pleasant suburbs facing the Indian Ocean. Otherwise it has little to remark on other than the view of the drilling rig that sits prominently in the centre of the bay. We do a little shopping, visit the second-hand book shop which, rather enterprisingly, doubles up as an internet café, so that as I spend half-an-hour or so browsing the shelves, Andy can occupy himself researching accommodation in Bali. After selecting three books and exchanging three, we visit the post office to get prices for sending some of our stuff back to the UK. We are determined to seriously reduce the weight of our backpacks so that we don’t spend the next three months struggling under the strain of ridiculously heavy luggage on the next leg of our trip.
We leave Geralton behind and arrive in the small seaside town of Dongara further down the coast by mid afternoon. Dongara’s outstanding feature is the majestic avenue of fig trees that line Moreton Terrace in the centre of town. A visit to the visitors centre which is housed in the Old Post Office is rewarded with a list of things to do in Dongara which runs to an implausible three pages of typed A4. This is followed by another session on the internet. We have been trying for what seems like weeks to find an internet café that has Skype and stays open beyond 4.30 pm so that we can make some calls to the UK. Firstly to chase up on the status of our insurance claim for the expenses we incurred at the Hanoi French Hospital and secondly to change the tariff on my mobile phone which has come of contract and, for a phone not getting much use, is costing far too much at 35 pounds a month. In Dongara of all the unlikely places there is a electronics shop that has broadband access and stays open normal working hours.
The Amex claim has been dogged by problems; the delay caused by the Hanoi French Hospitals administrative failure to take the payment from our account meant that the claim couldn’t be submitted until February; the discovery that the claims email address quoted in the policy handbook delayed the claim by a further month; and since we sent the claim to the correct address in early March we have heard nothing. All call to the London claims office reveals that due to an administrative error in their automated system the claim has not been allocated to a claims officer. I’m assured somewhat apologetically that the claim will be prioritized today and someone will be able to speak to me about it if I ring back tomorrow – no-one in the claims team is available to speak to me at the moment as they are all in a meeting!
The call to Orange is more successful but only marginally less frustrating; Orange have a complex, multi-level IVR system, the sort that involves choosing from several options only to present several more and several more after that, by which time you’ve lost the will to live and are selecting any option a random just to get through to someone who will talk to you. On the first attempt I speak to the retentions team who provide me with another number to call, which turns out to be discontinued. The second attempt gets me through the phone upgrade team who transfer me to an Indian call centre and a person I can’t really understand but it seems that I can’t have the tariff I want because I wasn’t on the right contract. So I ask to close my account and, yes, I’m once again talking to the retention team! At this point I’m offered a sim-only contract with double the minutes of the tariff I had asked for from the Indian lady for 15 pounds a month. A result, but surely it shouldn’t be such hard work.
We camp just off the Brand Highway at the Midland Road Rest Area. It’s a pleasant shady site, if slightly noisy; there seems to be an electricity generating plant somewhere close by but out of sight. There are three other groups of people here including an Australia with a Japanese wife who we never see. He on the other hand is very chatty and brings over a beer for Andy as he sets about lighting the camp fire – not one for me of course – this is strictly a boys’ tete-a-tete.
Which brings me on to the absence of a well-developed sense of political correctness in this country, which in some ways is refreshing and in others quite shocking. For example, a whole variety of gollies are sold without anyone seemingly batting an eye, Wicked have a slogan on one of their vans that contains the word ‘poofter’ which would probably cause uproar in the UK and terms like ‘coon’ are used by some people without a second thought. Our self-styled pc police would have a field day here, I’m sure.