Ouch Baby, Very Ouch Baby

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DAY 190

It had turned out to be quite a warm night; I woke up and opened the inner window flaps to let some cooler air into the tent. We had a little rain last night and it was still cloudy so of course the night was going to be quite warm.

We were awake early, Andy was fidgeting so I knew that something was on his mind and he was not going to be satisfied until he could get on and do what he needed to do and that was to change the wheel in order to get ourselves mobile and sort out some new tyres.

Before I knew it a cup of tea was being brought in to me, but I could not sit in bed and drink it, I had things to do to. By 7.30 I had washing on the go in the camp laundry, I needed to get some things done before we headed into Karijini National Park. We were still hoping to get out and hook up with the Travelin Trueys who were already there.

Andy already had the spare wheel off the rear of the Patrol and the jack at the ready, I wandered off to camp reception to explain our predicament to Linda and tell her that we either needed a late check out or we may book in for another night, but we could not be certain until we popped into Tom Price and checked out the tyre places.

Linda gave me two business cards and said most locals recommend this one, Tom Price Tyres, quite reasonable prices. I thought great two tyre places might give us a little bit of bargaining power. Linda also said to me that she tells everyone who phones not to come in on the top road, 50% of the people who come that way get punctures, “this is the Pilbarra, I can always see who has driven over the top road, you all pull in covered in red dust.” She advises everyone to take the bitumen road that comes in via Paraburdoo, which does add about 80kms to the journey, but in the long run is more cost effective.

By the time I get back to Andy, the new wheel is in place, we did not have time for breakfast we just shot straight into town (my washing was already hanging on the line) to find the tyre places.

Tom Price Tyres, there was no sign of any life and did not look as if it would open anytime soon, so we went across the road to Tyrepower, explained what we wanted, now it is not that easy here to go and buy tyres, the questions come thick and fast, what terrain do you drive on? 80% Bitumen & 20% dirt or 60% sand and 40% bitumen, the list seems endless.

We knew that we would definitely need 2 new rear tyres but were hoping to make it to a decent size town where we could get some bargaining power, but being forced into a corner we needed two new tyres today and the spare can be put back on the rear door of the Patrol, when the chap looked at the front two he said, those aren’t entirely suitable for off road work (we knew that, but didn’t really want to replace those until we were ready), then comes the conversation “This is the Pilbarra, the roads are bad here, punctures are a way of life.” We knew a lot of people travelled with two spares and we had wanted to do the same, but of course it is about finding another wheel at the right price.

We looked at our options; they had an American brand of tyres in called Cooper, now these really are the bees knees of tyres, especially for off road work, they didn’t have the ones in stock that we wanted (nobody ever does!) so we chose a different model and of course the other model was more expensive.

I said to Andy, shall we go and grab a coffee and think about what to do, also thinking that the other tyre place might be open by now, but knowing really that it was going to mean a lot of messing around, all of a sudden Andy piped up “Right, lets do it, we’ll take four, how long will they take to fit”, “give us 1 ½ hours”, we were told were we could go and grab a coffee.

Andy and I walked back the “short distance” into town, which turned out to be quite a hike and the day is already very warm. On the way we pass a Auto Shop, we look at compressors, after discussion with the guy in the tyre place, we cannot avoid buying a compressor any longer, another piece of valuable equipment and more money, but the truth is looking after your tyres out here is all in the tyre pressure and they need to be the right pressure for the right terrain, sand is different to rocky roads and gravel as well as the speed and how much weight you are pulling.

We grab a coffee and have a breakfast too; by then I was feeling rather hungry, especially after that walk. We were still thinking about heading out to Karijini, but it was coming into question the later it got.

Finally we took the long walk back, the truck was not quite ready, but that was no problem, Andy wanted to chat to the guy about asking him if he knew the best place togeta second hand wheel for the Patrol. The guy at Tyre Power said that he may have a steel wheel that came of another Patrol somewhere in the workshop and he would go and have a look, he came back and said it was a full alloy and we could have it for $300.00 bucks, Andy said no way and the bargaining began, and in the end we walk away with another Nissan alloy wheel complete with the other one of our tyres fitted on to it for $100.00 bucks, Andy’s determination for a bargain paid off.

I parted with $1800 for our new tyres, but they are the Jimmy Choo of the tyre world and we are really rather pleased with them, we have excellent tyres now more than capable of doing the job, especially of course with the compressor and the little booklet which tells you what tyre pressure for what terrain.

I joked about buying the new cooker yesterday, as we would be on bread and jam for the next month after our expensive day. We got some groceries, I handed over my card with my fingers crossed that it would not keel over at the last minute, but we were ok.

Getting back into camp, Linda tells me that she would need to know quite soon if we were staying or not, I had a chat with Andy and we both agreed that we should stay and head off in the morning when we were fresh.

The afternoon was spent doing some relaxing, which involved sitting and looking at our new tyres, how sad are we? We had to look for a way of storing our new wheel (which had one of our salvaged tyres put on it). There was a nice spot on the front of the trailer where we already have a spare for the trailer, so it was perfect, making sure that it was securely tied on, as we do not want it to roll of while we are driving, that would be a disaster.

We were disappointed that we would not meet with the Travelin Truey’s but also there was no way to get a message to them. The plus side was that we would wait for Andrew and Kirsty, hoping of course that they would stop in Tom Price before Karijini.

Andy tidied up the back of the truck, but while he was standing there with the doors open a Galah dumped on his shoulder from a great height, and then another dumped on the paintwork of the truck that incidentally he had only just washed (I don’t know why, as tomorrow we will get another covering of red dust).

When a bird does the business on you that is supposed to be lucky, so with the little run of bad luck Andy asked if we could do the lottery, too late I have already done it, so fingers crossed we could be doing the rest of our trip in a flash Winnebago. You never know!

Late afternoon I was sat typing, in amongst the squawking from the Little Corellas, I hear a vehicle come round the corner as I look up, it is Andrew and Kirsty, they have spotted us. They did in fact ask for the site next to us, but they were all booked down our row so are much further down, after a quick chat they go and settle in with the promise to come back for a cup of tea.

Andy promised dinner for Kirsty and Andrew so when they came round we went to the camp kitchen with our stuff and Andy knocked up a great meal of bangers and mash with onion and bacon gravy, yummy.

While we were eating an Australian chap came in to chat, he said that he worked in the mines driving the trucks, told us that he earned $500 per day. I could not understand him very well he spoke very quickly, but when I spoke to him he said, “sorry I cannot understand a word you are saying, I only speak Australian”. He did say that he came in to invite everyone in the camp kitchen to dinner as he had a great bush meal of kangaroo on the go said he was married to an aboriginal woman but she was in bed asleep. Somehow we were not convinced about the meal, we thought perhaps it was the other way round and he was hoping for an invite to someone else’s.

Dinner went down well, but with the washing up done, we retired back to camp for a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit for dessert. Leaving a couple of young travellers at the mercy of this tough mining outback Australian guy.

We sat outside, it was a cold night, we were wrapped up warm, the stars were glorious, a clear night always seems to bode well for a cold night and we are in the desert. We sat up chatting until nearly 11.00, which is quite late on a campsite, the lights were out and most caravans were in complete darkness.

Getting into bed I could feel the cold air, it took a while to warm up in the sleeping bags again grateful for the extra weight provided by the two blankets. It had been a long and tiring day so sleep came quite quickly.

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Photos

New Boots
The Patrol shod in its new boots

Caroline & Little Wal
Caroline & Little Wal fooling around

Cooper Tyres
Cooper Discover S/T tyres, they cost a packet so we hope they are worth it, they tell us they are

Being fed
A liitle boy was feeding these 3 Roo's maze, and they loved it

Our new wheel
we managed to get a second hand Patrol wheel and put th nest tyre on it so we now have 2 spares