Continued west until the road ended in Warrawah on the west coast. By now the sun was starting to shine, so I didn't bother with the sleepy village and headed for the beach. The beaches were fantastic. Long stretches of white sand, beautiful rocky coves, excellent surf, and no one to be seen. No one, no cars, no houses - perfect. Except for the wind.

I went to Nettle Bay first. The road ended on a rocky point a hundred yards from the sand itself. It was a great beach, and the surf was huge - though to blown out to do much with. Obviously beaches aren't in high demand here - this one was deserted except for thirty or so head of cattle!

At the next beach (Warrawah Beach) it was so beautiful and quite sunny that I decided to try to get wet and lay out for a bit. Again there was no one to be seen - not even cows here. Found a likely spot out of the wind behind a small dune, but it didn't help much. The wind continued to get stronger and stronger and in less than an hour I gave up. I've been debating whether to head south on the unpaved roads or to back track most of the way on the good road then head south on the highway....

Went back to the car and started it up, but when I went to put it in gear there was trouble. The clutch isn't giving me enough play. Figured it was probably the fluid level (though I'd just checked it two days ago) - and since I didn't have any fluid at the end of the dirt road I was on I decided to go until I found a garage - guess I'm backtracking. Turned the car off, put it in gear, and started it again. I was able to manhandle the car into gear one it was moving, but every time I came to a stop I had to turn the engine off and restart it in gear. About an hour down the road I found a mechanic so I stopped the car in a lot next door and tried to figure out what was wrong myself. Plenty of fluid so I guessed that there must be something wrong with the clutch cylinder - uh oh.

The mechanic was on the phone so I had to wait about half an hour. I told him what was up and he went and took a look under the car and under the hood - nothing looked wrong to him. He got in and tried - everything is working! I hate when that happens. He took a look at the fluid and said it looked as if it had never been changed so it might have boiled - that was the only explanation that we could come up with. He flushed the system and put new fluid in, I paid him ten dollars and was on my way. Whew!

Stopped at Stanley, a small town on the end of a peninsula with Circular Bluff looming over it. Circular Bluff (usually called "The Nut") is a big rock about 1,500 feet high. It was way to windy (it's even more windy now) to climb but the view is nice and the storm surf is beautiful. At one point I got out of the car to take a photo and I couldn't keep my eyes from tearing up long enough to take the picture! So I left. Ended up at Boat Harbor Beach - a small town on a beautiful beach. Checked in to the hostel - deserted, only one other person staying here. Only one restaurant (of two) in town is open so I went and had a magnificent (and expensive) diner then back to the hostel. Sat up talking with this old guy who's staying here. He's definitely a redneck and I had to work at keeping my cool about some of the things he said... when he came up with his solutions to the Australian aboriginal problem ("Shoot the lot of them...") I couldn't deal any more and went to bed.