We manage to reach Broken Hill without killing each other!

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Entry 2 by the Tassie Tigers....

Well, Broken Hill is certainly a bigger place than we expected, there is actually a shopping centre and more than one pub!

After driving for 6 hours on very little sleep we arrived at the staff quarters, attached to the hospital and filled with people like us who are there in the short-term (with the possible exception of one guy who has been there for 2 years....). So, the place has a very fun atmosphere although there had been a bit of overconsumption at a party the night before, so the meeting and greeting was not quite as friendly as it could have been but oh well.

The week was spent hanging out at various clinics and checking out art galleries in any available free time. The place is full of them, sometimes i felt I was surrounded and could not escape... I caught them out of the corner of my eye sometimes, sneaking up on me...



The trip home was fraught with danger, as after hours spent packing, tying up loose ends and saying our tearful goodbyes, we managed to make it only 30kms from Broken Hill before the car broke down for good. We had half a mind to run all the way back to the Ford service centre in Broken Hill and kick the mechanic very hard in the groin, since he had told us 24 hours before that the car was fixed..... GRRRRR. Just in time, however, we remembered rule number 1 in the Australian outback - NEVER leave your vehicle. It's always MUCH safer, of course, to hail down the next car, even if it happens to belong to a man who very closely resembles John Jarrod and offers to give you a tow.... But in these situations, what choices do you have? So, after not getting through to the roadside assistance help-line, we were forced to accept a tow back to Broken Hill. The whole way we were expecting to turn off onto a dirt road and to be towed for miles into the outback... we sat with our hands on the door handles discussing the best commando-roll method for much of the trip.

And so, there we were back in Broken Hill, and wouldn't you know it, the damn car worked as soon as we got to the mechanic. So he changed an obscure part that may or may not have been the problem, and off we went back to the Staff Quarters to eat pizza and watch many movies. Lo and behold, the next morning the car seemed to be OK... and kept being OK... although it was about 2 days later that either of us had the guts to suggest in a tiny voice that the car might actually be fixed this time.

And so we were safely on our way, until we hit the Grampians, that is, where we attempted to climb a mountain called Mt Difficult. We reached the summit without too much difficulty, and began to ask ourselves, 'Why on earth is this mountain called Mt Difficult??' 'Mt Deceptive' may well have been a much more appropriate title, as after walking for the recommended time (2 hours), we still could see no sign of the summit. We trudged on for another hour, keeping thinking we could see the summit in the distance.... but it was always just another hill. The summit itself was something of an anticlimax and very foggy, so we headed back. Along the way, we suddenly realised that we were no longer on the track..... and neither of us could remember the last track marker we had seen..... It dawned on us that we were.... LOST
We backtracked, tried to find markers, followed the logical path, tried to climb sheer cliffs thinking it was the path, sat for a long time, considered callling 000, thought about having a good cry, backtracked some more. We found some rock stacks and got excited until we realised they had been planted by John Jarrat and he was luring us back to his camp. We found a spot where there was a marker, but every direction we headed from there was a dead end. Just as we were about to resign ourselves to spending the night, the track suddenly materialised in front of Lisa's eyes, in a place we had been looking all along. Feeling rather foolish, we dragged our rumpled selves back to camp and sought deep-fried nourishment.

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Photos

Walkabout Man
Lisa has decided, after extensive gender-modification surgery (and purchasing the displayed items from the souvenir shop) that she will become... The new Bush Tucker Man!

Sunset
The Walls of China at Mungo National Park, at sunset

Goodbye Broken Hill!
Leaving Broken Hill (for the first time), with Sharon, Gordon, and the new mascot, Willy. Ah, we thought we'd never be back...