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lindoig · 7 years

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Days 133 to 141

Firstly, a couple of minor things I should have included in my last post.

Our arrival in Mt Magnet was just in time for lunch and being Father’s Day, we decided to shout ourselves to a pub lunch. Alas, all three pubs in town were closed (obviously not the place to be for fathers!) and there was nothing else open so we enjoyed sangers in the van again. But there was another little milestone to celebrate – we had ticked up over 20000 km this trip on the way in from Sandstone – justification for a bottle of bubbles.

And we called in at The Granites just north of Nallan on the way to Cue – yet another fascinating area of dramatic and unusual hills and rock formations, very colourful and craggy, and we drove several kilometres around the area to see a few of the different sites.

We quite enjoyed Cue, but stopped in Meekatharra for lunch and drove out to Peace Valley: so-called because they had a big town picnic out there to welcome the diggers back after the end of WWII. Would you believe, there is an area adjacent to it called The Granites – déjà vu all over again! Two Granites in one day: coincidence or just plain lack of imagination/creativity? It could be confusing if you arranged to meet your mates for a picnic at The Granites!

After our bush camp and campfire near Kumarina, we went on to Newman. There was one really pretty area not far out of town though – a few square kilometres of pink! Absolutely stunning display of small pink flowers as far as the eye could see – vivid pink and crowded against each other so it was like a bright pink sheet across the whole landscape.

Wednesday was a stop-start day, with many more pauses to inspect plants than usual. I chased birds a couple of times too, but we were mostly in spinifex country so escapades in the bush were a little painful. At one point, we saw something we wanted to inspect a bit more closely and there was a place I could get off the road immediately in front of us so I hit the brakes hard and pulled into it. When we got out of the car, we noticed that the caravan door was open with the keys still in it. Seems that we never locked up securely when we started for the day and braking hard allowed the door to fly open. Not much of a problem in normal driving because the wind is always pushing the door closed, but braking hard had the opposite effect. Fortunately, no damage, but something to watch, especially because locking the door securely is getting a bit difficult at present. Another day, we had a somewhat similar surprise when we checked our mirrors and saw that our little fold-down table on the side of the van had dropped open – obviously, I had not locked it securely after doing the cooking the night before. Maybe I am getting forgetful?

We had lunch at a wayside stop and went on to Newman, unrecognisable to me, having visited it in 1981 or ‘82 and thinking I would see at least something that rang a bell with me. It is probably even uglier now than it was then, but maybe that is the way of mining towns anyway. Maybe an extra shop or two, but still pretty ugly, even for a dormitory town. Certainly not a place that holds any attraction for future visits, just a rundown version of what I saw when it was all pristine so long ago.

From Newman, we went on to an overnight camping spot under Mt Robinson. Not really a great camp: a bit crowded, about a dozen other campers, some being a bit rowdy too, and with poor facilities. This was complicated by me jack-knifing the van trying to get it into a spot that afforded us a little privacy and the gas cylinder dented the car near the left-hand stop-light. Not really a bad dent, but frustrating anyway. It also bent the weakened sway-bar anchor that had been repaired in Port Hedland 6-8 weeks earlier so we drove the next 1300 km with no sway-bars. We had enjoyed many short stops that day to look at plants and flowers and thought it would be nice to relax and review our photos around another fire so I set our fire-pit up on top of the place the previous people had had their fire. I was just going to drop a match into it when I saw the sign that said ‘Strictly NO Fires’. More frustration - and then we found our toilet wasn't operating properly so we had to use the long-drop at the far side of the parking area. One way and another, it was a disappointing end to what was otherwise a really nice day, enjoying the best of what nature had to offer.

Next morning, we spent an hour or so fixing the tap over the sink. One of the anchor bolts had come out and the whole tap was loose and couldn’t be positioned properly. When encountering a difficult task, my Dad used to say ‘if only man had been born an octopus’. Better believe it! Inserting one bolt and tightening another shouldn’t be that hard, but it was almost inaccessible and it took both of us ages to get the job done. Fnigres corsesd that we don’t have to do it again in the near future.

Then it was on to the Munjini Roadhouse to set up, do some washing, empty the toilet and give it a good clean so it operated a little better – and a wonderfully welcome shower after 4 days without one! During the afternoon, we went out to visit a couple of the absolutely gorgeous gorges in Karajini National Park. The roads in the park are diabolical and the distances are considerable, but despite the atrocious shaking about in the car, the sights were fantastic. I am not good with heights so standing on a flimsy grating overhanging the sheer cliff, looking 4-500 feet straight down into the gorges was a real challenge, but definitely ‘highly’ rewarding. They are quite spectacular, really beautiful, and we saw the best of them almost on dusk – utterly magical! We also saw quite a few birds, including some black-faced cuckoo-shrikes that looked a bit odd to us until we realised that they are a different species in quite a small area just where we were. Another little tick for us.

It was quite dark as we drove the 150 clicks back to Munjini and we saw a few large birds that we were unable to identify as they flashed past. We also saw a couple of snakes on the road and I don’t recall seeing snakes on the road at night before.

Next day, we took our lives in our hands and went across country to Roy Hill and up the Nullagine road to Marble Bar. Nobody at the Roadhouse knew anything about the road and expressed some doubts, but it turned out to be quite good. It was very narrow in places and the massive road trains from the mine don’t move over for anyone even in badly damaged areas, but we survived and actually enjoyed the drive, particularly the second half after the mine turnoff. The main road through Nullagine to Marble Bar was probably worse than the Munjini-Roy Hill road, but we survived that too. Several people had recommended that we visit Nullagine, but in retrospect, we wonder why. It was a bit quaint in an old-fashioned rundown way, but maybe we just failed to note the big attractions there. On the other hand, we did enjoy Marble Bar and stayed there three nights.

Lots of amazing hills along the way that day (are there days when this beautiful country could be boring?) The heat seemed to hit us hard that day – maybe because Marble Bar is noted as the hottest place in Australia, but it has stayed hot ever since with maximums in the mid and high thirties. Interestingly, I saw more birds in this area than we had for weeks – maybe they just like the hot weather more than us. We had lunch beside a big lake near Cooinda, accompanied by a small herd of cattle and lots of interesting birds. There was a lot of fairy martins flitting back and forth picking up mud and returning to add it to a large colony of nests under a huge branch of a tree not far from us, all very busy with their construction work and household chores.

Next day was basically R&R in the van with the A/C going flat strap all day. Can’t recall much of what we achieved, but we went out late in the afternoon to get fuel, to suss out the town and check out one of the three town lookouts – at the water tank immediately above the van park. We called in at the Ironclad Hotel for a pre-prandial libation – a really quaint place, made from corrugated iron and decorated with a wildly diverse collection of kitsch and memorabilia, mainly about the town and its history.

The following day was really nice. We took our breakfast out to Marble Bar Pool, dropping in at Chinaman’s Pool on the way. Heather had a swim and really enjoyed it, but I chickened out, guarding our towels and food instead. After brekky, we scrambled around the jasper rocks from which Marble Bar owes its name (the original explorers were not geologists and thought the huge reef of rocks were marble rather than jasper. I am also not a geologist and thought they were stone). Some of it is quite beautiful, with dazzling colours, particularly when wet, with intricate webs of mainly red, orange, black and white threaded through the stones, mainly all treacly smooth to touch, but with some areas heavily textured as well. Quite unique and we spent maybe an hour exploring the Bar. There are huge penalties for defacing or removing any stones from the area, but there is an area nearby called the Jasper Deposit where you can go in and chip away to your heart’s content. We explored some of the lower slopes, but the heat and spinifex made it hard going. Heather collected a few nice specimens before striking up a conversation with a guy who had collected some nicer pieces from way up on the cliff and he gave Heather a couple of really nice pieces. He is an artist from Augusta and visits the area each year for inspiration and ideas to paint when he is at home.

We then went to the Comet mine – or ex-mine, now a museum. The guy who runs it is a strange coot in his 80s, but told us all about the history of the mine, some yarns about local people and events (some of which may have contained an element of truth) and we spent a fascinating hour or so, sitting on the verandah with him, listening to his stories and swatting flies. It was a really interesting story and we learned quite a bit more about both the history and the techniques of gold-mining.

We called in at the pub again, hoping for a nice roast or similar for lunch, but unfortunately, they were short-staffed with no cook at present so we went away hungry.

Monday, we were on the road again, again taking the road less travelled through Muccan and back on to the Great Northern Highway north of Pardoo. The dirt road was quite good all the way through to the highway with numerous changes of scenery and lots of stops and starts to look at things by the roadside. We thought we would have a bush camp at the same place we camped on our way south – with memories of my first disastrous attempt at cooking a ‘brick’ damper, but it was still early when we got there so we drove on another 200km and camped by the side of the road 118km north of Sandfire. Whilst setting up, something happened to our power and we lost all DC power so spent the night with no lights other than torches and candles, no hot water (needs DC to fire the piezo), no pump for the water, no DVD on the telly, etc., etc – but we were creative and managed pretty well: very well as it turned out.

Tuesday, it was an uneventful drive into Broome. I had previously booked the car in for its 80000km service early on Wednesday – it was not quite there, but we had driven 12000km since the last service and I wanted Toyota to check out a couple of things, including possible metal particles in the fuel filter bowl. We booked into the same park we used on the way south and arranged to have the lights fixed on the van and get a full service on it immediately after the car was serviced. The best laid plans of mice and men….. We did a bit of shopping in the afternoon, knowing that we wouldn’t have the car the following day – mainly groceries, but a few other little things from Bunnings and a sand flag from ARB just in case we needed it on the Tanami – we could have used one on a couple of occasions earlier in the trip.

Wednesday was a crazy day! Up around 6am and left before 7 to take the car to Toyota for the service. I thought I could wait and get it back in a couple of hours and return to the caravan pretty quickly, but it was scheduled as a major service with a 2.30pm pickup! This was a problem because I had pulled all sorts of strings to get the service on the van at 12.30! Frantic phone calls to try to delay the work on the van, but with limited success. We had to wait and see! That presented us a problem because checkout time at the van park was 10am and we didn't know whether we would need another night or not. The Toyota courtesy shuttle got me back to the van around 8.30, but we still didn't know if we could get the van serviced later in the day or if we would have to stay another night. We packed up a bit and attended to quite a bit of business, including phone calls, one of which lasted well over an hour arranging our travel insurance for our trip next year.

I negotiated a late checkout at the van park, but it was all a bit embarrassing. I had a few phone calls from Toyota and they eventually told me I could pick up the car early at about 1pm - but their shuttle couldn't pick me up until after 2pm! I decided on a taxi and was assured that one was on the way. 30 minutes later, still standing out in the street in 35 degree heat, the people from our neighbouring van saw me sweltering and offered to drive me down to Toyota. Very thankful for the offer, I jumped in and cancelled the taxi. I collected the car (almost $1000, but happy to have the work done before hitting the Tanami Track) and drove back to the van park, only to see my taxi waiting for me!!!

I had confirmed at last that we could still get the van serviced and Heather had done a wonderful job, packing up almost everything while I was collecting the car, so we connected up, checked out of the van park and raced off to the workshop to get the van attended to. Alas, they discovered major issues with the undercarriage alignment, another tyre completely cut out, mashed springs, loose and bent U-bolts - and the job would not be finished for 4 or 5 hours. We still had the car so went shopping again! Spent an hour cruising in Bunnings, called in at ARB again and drove around to kill some time. It was a very hot day so we sheltered in a shopping mall where we could buy drinks and ice-creams. Even bought a few little Christmas pressies!

Very quickly bored with the mall, we drove around some more and ended up at a bar where we had a drink, made some phone calls and sent a couple more emails. We then decided to go out to the Port (close to the caravan servicing place) to watch the Sun go down, but by the time we got there, it was well and truly down and it was completely dark. We sat in the car overlooking the ocean (overlooking is not quite the right word - it was pitch dark so there was no looking, over or any other way) and wrote a bit for our blogs until the guy rang to say the van was ready.

We had to repack a lot of things he had removed to do the work and there was some paperwork to do to ensure he got his $1300 from us so it was almost 8pm before we got on our way. They had replaced our sway-bar anchor so we were back to driving a safer more stable rig. We only needed to drive 30km or so to the Roebuck Plains Roadhouse where we stayed the night. Not easy getting the van into another very tight spot in the pitch dark, but we managed with no more damage. A bush camp may have been better, but we had to return to Broome next day to get two new tyres to replace the ones that had been completely scrubbed out due to the alignment problem. It was nice to have a shower and a huge meal and crash into bed after such a hectic day. At least, with the new tyres, we are very confident that we are as set up as we could be for the next phase of our adventures.

We drove back into Broome to get our tyres on Thursday - but we should have let our fingers do the walking before we left camp. We went to 4 of the 5 places you can buy tyres in Broome and rang the other one and NONE of them had suitable tyres in stock. One woman tried to sell me 16 inch tyres for our 15 inch wheels, but I declined. We then tried Willare Roadhouse and both suppliers in Fitzroy Crossing without success, although they said they could probably order them in within about four or five working days.

We ended up ringing a guy in Derby who was able to help. He couldn't match them exactly, but had suitable compatible ones in stock, so we decided to do the 115km detour to get them fitted on Friday. We had expected to bypass Derby on the way up, but having reliable shoes and socks for both car and van is pretty important when you are going off the grid for 1000 clicks or more. As it happened, we made good progress along the road, made it to Derby, replaced our two scrubbed tyres (a tad more cheaply than expected) and still got back out to the Willare Roadhouse that had been our intended campsite for Thursday in the first place.

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