Esperance to Fitzgerald River National Park

It’s raining. Daniel is driving a a steady 109 km/hr, about 150 m behind a petrol tanker with LONG and VEHICLE signs at the back. No, wait, he just overtook them, waving at the driver as he passed the cab (hands on the wheel FFS!).  We’re now stuck doing 100 km/hr behind the campvervan that was hidden in front of the tanker.  It’s been a frustrating hour leaving Esperance. The blue skies and sunshine we enjoyed the past two days has gone, along with any hope that I’d see my Dad again in 2020.  He’s in lockdown in the Blue Mountains and NSW reported another 1,400 or so COVID cases yesterday.  We had planned to be in rural Victoria, reunited with our Victorian and Sydney friends at Gay Ski Week but I’d never even booked the flights, or the tour package.  I had booked leave, in the hope that interstate travel would have stayed open, but I knew it was not likely.  We didn’t have to beg for a refund because we’d paid nothing.  Instead, we’re enjoying our cavemen lives in WA (the Australian PM likened WA to living in a cave – a pretty open unrestricted cave with no masks, no social distancing, no COVID cases, and unrestricted intrastate travel).  We drove down to Esperance on Monday, via Wave Rock.  

I finished a review for JMIRO yesterday and accepted another.  I actually prefer to review scientific manuscripts on vacation than get on a small boat and float about in nauseating swell in nauseating diesel fumes.  Fundamentally I believe that all scientific reports must be published; it’s the responsibility of the reader to consider the study design, results and applicability to other populations (just like it’s a referring clinician’s responsibility to consider diagnostic imaging test results in the context of the bigger clinical picture that I’m not privy to when I report an imaging study).  The primary outcome for me is I write a lot of suggestions for improvements.

Finally, an overtaking lane.  If you’ve been driving along with several vehicles snaking behind you and come to an overtaking lane it’s a dick move to speed up to the speed limit because it’s suddenly a wider road.  All the people that want to overtake you are then forced to speed, unsafely, to get past.  It’s been a recurring theme this week.  It’s like when birds try to run faster in the same direction you’re moving, instead of stepping to the side and letting you pass.  Perhaps these drivers have no situational awareness.  Perhaps they’re just dickheads.  We get less aggression driving Dan’s red Mazda than when I am driving my safety yellow Toyota.  It’s equally amusing and frustrating; I drive the same in either vehicle but people perceive my safety yellow car as some sort of special vehicle that they need to go faster than, or are deeply offended by being overtaken by.  A few of my colleagues have purchased Tesla electric cars now; I think I’ll aim for an electric car next, as the overall impact on the environment is apparently better than petrol engines.  The torque is a bonus.  I just hope it comes in hot pink.  If I’m going to stand out I may as well do a good job of it.

Ah crap, another LONG VEHICLE and now it’s raining again.  We’re 65 km from RA (rheumatoid arhritis?).  Hmm. Ravensthorpe more likely.

We’ve seen a small dugite hiking up Frenchman’s Peak on Tuesday and Daniel saw a tiger snake yesterday while I stayed home and napped. My sister’s third child is due at the end of the month and there’s no chance anybody will be able to safely fly over to the UK to visit the newborn, as we did for the older siblings.  I’d be content (sad but content) to not leave Western Australia until the kids are all in school, if it meant protecting ourselves, them, remote Aboriginal communities, each other, from COVID.  But that ideal, which Melbourne gifted Australia last year with their extended lockdown, is not something NSW is aiming towards.  Some Australians have waited all year for a vaccination.  Some have now died from COVID while waiting.  A lot of incredibly privileged people have declined vaccination because they want a better one. Meanwhile overseas ICU beds are full up, mostly with unvaccinated and regretful people.