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https://thedriven.io/2024/08/08/good-luck-with-your-ev-in-outback-wa-on-the-slow-road-to-stunning-karijini/>
"We are in Karijini, Western Australia’s second largest National Park: the sun
is a smudged vermilion marriage mark on the earth’s forehead – my Bengali
iconography evokes a bride’s shyly sweet morning after the wedding night
before.
The sound track is the song of unknown birds. The fragrance on the cold morning
breeze is an unfamiliar presence for this urban dweller from the Australian
coastal south.
Years of hoping, months of planning, three days and 1600 kilometres of driving
has brought us from Fremantle on the south-west coast of Western Australia to
the ‘glamping’ spot in the Karijini Eco Retreat.
Read any travel magazine and you would think it is impossible to get here
without one of those humongous 4WD diesel-fed vehicles. The travel editor of a
WA-based newspaper dismissed my plan of driving to Karijini in at electric car,
with his smirk barely hidden behind a curt email ‘Good luck with your EV in
outback WA!’
Over a pleasant dinner at the Cheela Plains Station, our last stop before
Karijini, I pin down a friendly grey nomad, almost by definition driving a 4WD
dragging a motor home. He pays over $250 for every 500 kilometres or so. And
that is not including the environmental cost of fumes from thousands of ICE
cars in and out of these ancient and fragile landscapes.
According to recent government figures 650,000 people visit Karijini each year.
It takes a lot of cars to transport all those people!
EVs are not a final solution of course, but with no tailpipe emissions, they
are a move in the right direction for pleasure travel."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
