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Animal Crossing, Australia, 1998

"A camel, a wombat, and a kangaroo cross the road: It sounds like the setup for a joke, but there was nothing funny about the Eyre Highway. The main link between Western and South Australia, the route stretches for 800 miles [1290 kilometers] across the Nullarbor Plain but has only 11 roadhouses along the way. While I [writer Roff Martin Smith] reveled at times in the solitude and the company of brightly winged parrots and other wild creatures, the place is so empty it can be truly unsettling. Out here, no one could hear a cry for help."

—From "Closing the Circle: Australia by Bike, Part Three," April 1998, National Geographic magazine

Photograph by R. Ian Lloyd