The Gift

---

DAY 214


Andy was up with the lark this morning, he was not feeling well yesterday so it is nice to see that he is feeling better, on the other hand whatever he was suffering with yesterday seemed to hit me, we both said it feels as if you are going down with a cold yet nothing happens.

I remember Andy getting up just after 6.00 and the next thing I knew it was 7.20 and Andy was handing me a cup of tea!

We were supposed to be moving on this morning, however I was not worried too much about moving as we are not under any time pressure and I felt that a day rest here would be a good idea as we were both feeling a little unwell, also if only to do some washing, as we will probably bush camp tomorrow night and then go into the Bungle Bungles on the following morning.

We will go into the Bungles with Andrew and Kirsty, but they will have to leave their caravan at Turkey Creek as caravans are not allowed in the Purnululu National Park, it is strictly 4wd and off road camper trailers only. We quite by accident hooked up with them again last night when we both arrived at Fitzroy Crossing, as they want to do Gieke Gorge today they decided to stay in Fitzroy Crossing.

Just behind our trailer is a large overhanging bush, underneath this bush we see that a Bower Bird has been busy impressing the girls by building a gift. “The Gift” is a structure built on the ground using twigs, bones and other bits that he can find, sometimes shells or bits of plastic, the Bower Bird can be very fussy as they have to be of a specific colour otherwise he won’t use it.

I get some washing on the go while the machines are quiet, for the fact that this place was so busy last night, it certainly emptied quickly this morning. I managed to get to the machine in time to put the fabric conditioner in, this is the problem with the top loaders on campsites they don’t have the facility to add conditioner at the beginning, but you do get used to timing the wash in the hope that you get there just in time for the rinse cycle.

It was a fairly relaxing morning, I sat and did some photo management and Andy washed the car, amongst one or two cups of tea. It has been pleasant sitting in the shade of the Frangipani trees, which also gives it a tropical feel along with the heat of the day that is.

I started to get lunch ready, however when I put some crackers on the plate, I realised that I needed to bring my chair closer, so I turned my back for one minute to retrieve my chair only to find that as soon as my plate of crackers is back in my sight again, I see the Bower Bird swoop in and nick one of the crackers off the plate when my back was turned. I watched him for a while as he flew into the Frangipani tree and every time he took a bite the rest of it would drop to the ground, he would then follow to pick it up again and fly back into the tree.

During the afternoon we popped into “town” I use the word town loosely of course, there is a fairly small population so the town centre itself consisted of the Tarunda supermarket which was also a newsagent and two petrol stations.

Our drive around town was all of 5 minutes; quite a pleasant little place out in the middle of nowhere; I cannot imagine how it would feel to be here in the middle of summer with the heat and the floodwaters.

We fuelled up in preparation for moving off tomorrow morning, so we drove into the Shell station and as it was a Coles Express station I had a voucher that allowed me to have 4 cents per litre off the diesel, every little helps.

I noticed while Andy was filling up that a young Aborigine woman wandered into the station, she was in there for a while before I wandered in to pay for the fuel, I joined the queue but she remained off to one side waiting with a bottle of fizzy pop and not once did the chap behind the counter look at her or offer to take her money when it was her turn in the queue.

So he served all the white people who had bought fuel first, including me but I knew this girl had gone into the petrol station before me and had been waiting in the queue for 5minutes. Then while he served me, he put a sign up saying the till was closed and she needed to go to the other one. I was a bit shocked, as I did not think this practice existed here, especially in a community, which appears to be a majority of aborigine; it begs the question about how they can respect us if we show no respect for them?

Back at camp, I had one last wash to do, only so late because I decided that the pillow cases needed to be washed and I thought it would be easy just wash and then put in the tumble dryer. The first bit was easy, however what I had not banked on was when my washing was done the campsite was suddenly very busy with people pouring in and doing their laundry so I could not get near the tumble dryer.

I thought that I would wait until after dinner when the laundry would be quieter. So for dinner I unfroze the remainder of our chicken curry that we had at Windjana Gorge, while I used the camp kitchen I was chatting to a lady and her husband that had also been travelling for several months, we chatted about the benefits of using a camp oven, we both agreed that because of the camp oven we felt that we probably ate better than we did at home because we actually have time to cook things properly.

After dinner I kept wandering over to the laundry to sort out my tumble drying but the machines were still being used and finally I managed to get my washing in at 8.00, but when I went to get it out half hour later there were two women in there waiting for my tumble drying to finish.

We had a good conversation, they were from Port MacQuarie in New South Wales and this apparently is the 2nd time they have seen a washing machine in 6 weeks. They explained that they pretty much bush camp all of the way, the first main stop for them was Alice Springs. They have another 8 weeks before needing to get back to Port MacQuarie.

When I got back Andy was talking to Andrew and Kirsty about plans for tomorrow, in the meantime my parents Skyped so I had a conversation with them before retiring to bed.

The nights are definitely cooler here but still nowhere near as cold as they have been in some places, the last really cold nights that we had were in Karijini National Park, once we got back to the coast the nights warmed up again, we are a long way from the coast again and I am sure that as we head into Purnululu National Park we will get some more cold nights, but we have blankets at the ready.

---

Photos

The Gift
The Male Bower Bird makes a gift for the female to try and win her affections, personally I think a diamond would work just as well!

Bower Bird
Beautiful, not sure if this is the male or the female

Plumage
I hope that you can see the pink plumage on the top of the male Bower Birds head, he shows this when he is doing his mating dance

Frangipani
An abundance of Frangipani can be found in this part of the world, makes it feel tropical.