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This is China
China the Sharpei, I commented to his owner about the size of his testicles and he said he polished them on the backseat of the carDAY 189
Just when you think things could not get any worse, well ok so yesterday was not a disaster and in the grand scheme of things we have not had that many problems, especially not big ones so we have been exceptionally lucky. Not every day can be a good day and we find that out again today.
Last night we were in bed by 9.00, we needed an early night and the camp lights were going to be turned off at 9.00 so it was the best thing to do. We had all of the inner flaps open as it was such a warm night, the light was shining in and at 9.10 the lights went out and not only were we plunged into darkness but the silence also, apart from the Crickets, the bats and any other animal or insect out there making a noise.
We slept very well, very comfy and a cool breeze occasionally washed over us in the night. Andy was out of bed early, could not make the tea because we have no cooking facility, we just hoped upon hope that the lovely Margaret and Clive next door would offer some
Giralia Station
685,000 acres of land at Giralia station hot water.
Anyway, with both of us up early we commenced with packing up, however when we were unrolling the external shutters on the tent, I jumped off the trailer shouting “oh! Redback!” as a nasty looking Redback dropped out of the rolled up canvas, near my hand.
Of course before we do anything else we take a picture, now I was all ready for giving it a spray but Andy wanted to let it go, most people say to us to kill a Red Back, but as it is in the wilderness Andy suggested it should be set free, so it was set free and then I set about spraying the tent anyway “just in case”. On the outside is one thing but believe me if I found one of those little monsters inside, I would have taken everything out and fumigated it. Looking at the picture I think it is a male Redback, but who cares it is still a Redback, it is still horrible and it still has 8 legs.
It was not long before we heard Margaret shout, “would you like some hot water for a cup of tea?” Margaret, you angel, “Thank
Red Back
This was the baby that fell out from behind the shutter you,” we are truly grateful for being able to start the day off right with a cup of tea.
We packed in record time, making sure that the rest of our gear was free of things with eight legs, ok so paranoia set in and I sprayed just about everything.
Before we set off we popped round to say goodbye to Clive and Margaret and then Clive asked the question!!! Oh no! Andy shouts at me “Don’t answer, otherwise we will be jinxed.”
You will have to wait until later to find out what the question was.
As we were chatting I said that I was disappointed to see so many Eagles dead yesterday, Margaret explains that once the Eagles have had their fill on the road kill they cannot take flight so easily so end up as road kill themselves. However she does say that you will see plenty of Eagles the further north we travel.
8.15 and we are on the road already, a mere miracle for us as we usually don’t get underway until 10.00 most days.
We head back out towards Highway 1, to make our way up to Nanutarra
Dunny
A long drop loo on the road somewhere Roadhouse, this is where we turn off onto the 136 and travel east towards Tom Price. We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are prepared for it.
The terrain is quite flat, except for a ridge that appears every now and again, we drive through the ridge and on the other side it is very flat and in the distance yet another ridge, I am not sure if these are sand dunes that have been blown this way by the wind or if there is something significant when the sea receded thousands of years ago.
The landscape starts to change and we see rock formations coming into the picture. The dirt/sand also gets redder. We can see mountainous terrain in the distance, the day is very cloudy and the sun is barely able to struggle through.
We are now approaching Nanutarra Roadhouse and just before we pull in we see a pair of legs hanging out from the engine bay of another 4x4. We decide to ask if he is ok, so applying the usual rules, door locked and window slightly open we shout out to the legs if he is ok (had to
be a man, couldn’t be a woman with those legs!), a voice comes back “Yup, good thanks”. So we drive on.
At the Roadhouse, we stretch our legs grab a coffee and gather our thoughts, we have ¾ tank of diesel, but Andy decides that a top up would be in order, you never know. We have been told that this place is excessively priced, but to be honest the price is about the same as Minilya Roadhouse.
There is a constant flow of travellers stopping here either fuelling their vehicles up or fuelling themselves up on coffee. The coffee is expensive for a mug we paid $4.75, but I am talking “you make it yourself instant coffee using the hot water in the urn provided” which means if you bought a litre of coffee then you would be paying nearly $20 per litre and we grumble about $1.50 for diesel.
A Roadhouse is a good place to stop to see what type of campers/vehicles people have better than going to a showroom. We also see a dinky little caravan, but that is not what grabbed our interest, dutifully sat by the drivers door was a Sharpei,
Cattle & Roos
For the next 220 K's (That's just mad) he did look rather rugged yet cute. We went over to see him and he got up and wandered over, well this dog has the biggest set of conkers that I have ever seen (sorry Jack). We chatted to his owner who told us that his name is “China”, laughing about his conkers the owner said he sits on the back seat of the truck polishing them all day.
Fully fuelled we are back on the road and slightly further north of Nanutarra is our turn off towards Tom Price. We have a long way to go but as we set off early today we are confident in our arriving in Tom Price mid afternoon. We will stop here to have a decent shower do some last minute washing before heading into Karijini National Park. Then tomorrow we hope to hook up with the Travelin Trueys, they should still be in the National Park but we are uncertain when they will move on. Andrew and Kirsty will be in the National Park a day later.
We are now in very different terrain, it seems greener here and we are driving down in between some mountains, Mt Stuart, Mt
Cows
The Cattle stations are so huge they don't fence them Elizabeth, Mt Edith to name but a few, the scenery is beautiful, despite still being a very overcast day the sun still wants to break through the cloud and a tiny piece of sky in the distance is blue.
We stop to make lunch and eat it on the go, we see small flocks of Budgerigars flying quickly in formation, I was pretty sure that I almost hit a flock of them earlier.
Up ahead we see some cars parked on either side of the road, we can see a very old scruffy Range Rover with the bonnet up, there are plenty of people around and they signal that they are ok, so on we drive.
This road is heavy with cattle, some places we find that they just stand in the road or they just wander into the road without a care in the world, reminding us that we should proceed with caution.
Eventually we get to a junction, do we turn left and take the bitumen road to Tom Price or do we save ourselves approximately 80k’s and take the dirt road, of course after Andy and I do a 3 second negotiation we
Dust
We ate his dust when he overtook us take the dirt road, another 4x4 overtakes us and soon we are eating his dust. The views of the mountains are spectacular; in the distance we can see Mt Nameless. We will be driving around the back of Mt Nameless to get into Tom Price.
We pull over to the side of the road to take some pictures. When you stop you can hear nothing but silence, well almost silence, the wind makes an eerie sort of sound as if it is blowing through a flute, but there is nobody to play the right notes.
We see 3 working vehicles on the side of the track, as we pull out to overtake we can see that they are changing the wheels on one of them, looks like a puncture.
We drive on to another junction, we see roadwork signs ahead of us, indicating that there are roadworks where we want to turn left and take the final 20 kilometres into Tom Price. They are busy working, it looks as if they are going to lay this dirt track to bitumen. In the grand scheme of things this track has not been as bad as some of the
corrugations we have already tackled, especially those on Kangaroo Island.
Soon we are past the roadworks and onto the bitumen, Mt Nameless looks glorious, we now have sunshine lighting up its rocky face.
We know that there is only one Caravan Park in Tom Price, but we drive straight past it to head into town, we stop at tourist information, as we need to know a few things. When we jump out of the truck, I glance at the rear tyre, I think it looks a bit soft, but we don’t take too much notice.
In tourist information, a lady behind the counter confirms that the caravan park we passed on the way in is the one and only, so no choice there. We ask, “Is there a camping shop in Tom Price?” the reply came “hardware”, “No, camping” we say, “we need camping equipment”, she then responds, “I answer question, already” Andy and I shot a glance at each other, this lady can barely speak English and with her from, somewhere in a perhaps Eastern European accent, it is difficult also to understand what she is saying, we reckon she is Russian. “Camping in Hardware”. Andy
Red Dirt
The accumalation of red dirt and I deduce from this very bad conversation that there is obviously no camping shop, but there is a hardware shop that sells camping gear. We ask another question, the response comes back “hardware”. You had to be there to appreciate this one, it is hard to relay the funny side of this except that this is now the butt of all of our jokes, and every time we ask each other for something we say “hardware”. We will get a lot of mileage out of this one.
Once we have all of our information, we leave tourist information, hop into the truck drive to the caravan park, drop the trailer, set up and then head back into town to do the few things we need to do, the most important one being “Hardware”, we need to go to the hardware store to by a new gas cooker as, if you have been reading the blog you will know, that ours has broken. The next most important thing to having a bed for the night is to be able to cook, so after a lot of deliberation we get one and we are on our way again.
Back
at camp we set up our new cooker and put the kettle on, joy it works we successfully boil the kettle and we have a cup of tea. We rest up, I was going to do some washing, but it looks like rain and as it is getting a little bit cooler there is no chance of it drying now, so I will do the wash first thing in the morning and then we can hang it out to dry when we get to Karijini. I sit and do a little bit of blog work, amongst the squawking from the Galahs and the little Corellas, they do make quiet a noise, there is no peace and quiet in the countryside here!
Andy starts the dinner; we are having chilli tonight, yummy. While I help get a few things ready I go to the back of the truck and get something out, then I realise that the back of the truck is looking too low, so I walk round with my torch and find that the rear nearside tyre is as flat as a pancake. This is not good news, we do have a spare but it now means that
Red Roo
Isn't she pretty we have to get a new tyre in the morning, which could also alter our plans. The problem being that we were due for a new set of rear tyres anyway, so instead of buying one new tyre we may need to get two.
Clive, why did you have to ask us that inevitable question “Have you had a puncture yet?” Yes we were truly jinxed with that question; still we are truly initiated now.
There is nothing we can do right now except for carry on and cook the dinner, but we need to sit inside as it is starting to rain, not heavy but just enough to make it uncomfortable outside.
After dinner I catch up on uploading the blog and photos, call my Mum and Dad on Skype for a long overdue chat. Andy is reading, he cannot put his book down at the moment (Diamonds and Dust, Sheryl McCorry), but by 9.00 his eyes are hanging so he jumps into bed while I finish up on the blog to make sure you all have something to read.
The rain has stopped now, but it has turned a little bit cold, I sit
New Cooker
We could boil again until 10.00 just making sure photos are uploaded and then I have to go to bed, as I am so tired.
Without another thought of Redbacks I find myself slipping into a nice deep sleep, this bed is so comfy! (although I am pretty sure that I will have another longing to sleep in a proper bed with lovely crisp sheets).
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