Survivor - Manning Gorge

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We called this next part of our journey as Survivor - Manning Gorge, with bloody good reason. When you read on you will understand why we called it this and that to frame the experience, you need to understand that one of our biggest worries with this trip was a breakdown of equipment or bad weather locking us in somewhere longer than anticipated. We spent quite a bit of time and Amanda’s money (Amanda will tell you that Bruce’s $17/hr at Telstra doesn’t count much) in preparing the vehicle to protect us from the former, with the prudent packing of extra food and water to manage the later.

About the 20th of June, there is always a small smattering of rain in the Kimberley (no one tells you this until afterwards). On the 18th, Bruce suggested to Amanda that the clouds looked like rain bearing clouds and was promptly reminded that not only did he not have a job at the minute, but his skills in Meteorology were less than perfect. Well, the rain started falling on Tuesday morning at 2:30am which had Amanda up to put the chairs away (Bruce was having an ‘I told you so’ moment). Nearly every other camp site awake and busy with activity as no one camping there was really expecting rain and had set up their camps accordingly. By morning the rain was just spitting, but lots of cloud and after our gorge walk it became obvious that the rain and cold were locked in for the duration. Luckily, the ground is very sandy so there is no surface water to cause flooding, which is great. We were only staying one more night (Tuesday), so decided to help the other campers put up their adhoc shelters (most had caravans in a major town somewhere and had brought the bare essentials with them) as well as putting up a tarp ourselves for a bit of shelter rather than the big awning, hoping the rain would not last long. No one expected the 70mm that fell in the first 30 hours from when we got back from the walk.

Thinking if it rained much harder the road out would be quite boggy and possibly closed, Bruce and I went up to the road house to get a few supplies. The road was very wet with flooding, with lots of surface water but reasonably driveable, although one point was so boggy we almost slipped off the road. The road house told us (reluctantly) that the rain was expected to last until at least the weekend, and if it did not stop tonight, we could be here for a while. So after a few hours back at camp we decided to put up the main awning, which meant dragging Bruce out from under his nice warm sleeping bag where he had settled for the day with a book. Putting up the awning is a huge feet when it is pouring with rain, and the awning is 6m long by 2.4m wide, but we had ample help from the people we had helped earlier. Over the next few days there were many adjustments made to get the run off of water right, in fact it became a bit of sport for Bruce to stop the pooling of water on the awning.

We are lucky that Amanda over packed and we had Umbrellas and ponchos, along with lots of warm clothes. Much better than others around us, who only had one set of warm clothes, and they were wet already. All of the caravaners had heavy wet weather gear, in their caravans - mostly at located 300kms away at either end of the track.
By Wednesday it was still raining. There were about 20 camp sites of people down the Gorge, and I reckon most of them had morning tea under our awning since we had the most dry space- see photo. Made a great community gathering point and what was to become a very strong community group.

In the camp ground there were 2 tour buses camping. One of them had a Satellite phone and got told they could get out today, so both buses combined together and made a run up the 7km road to the Road House. He also called the West Australian Roads group about the conditions of the Gibb River Road and they said ‘what rain?’. About half way up, one of the buses got bogged in the heavy slush and given the wet muddy slippery conditions, they could not get pulled out without the other vehicle getting bogged, so they broke out their tents and stayed there for 3 days, on the side of the track in several inches of mud. At various times our camp checked in with them and they always seamed to have great spirit because they had collected firewood, were bathing in a nearby creek, and even set up an entrance to the ‘Kimberly Hilton’ - an air mattress for anyone walking past. The first bus did not get very far though, the front gate out of the Gorge was locked by the station managers - the Gibb River Road was now officially closed - although we thought there might have been a bit of a lessen for someone in using the private road when they weren’t meant to. Regardless, he was locked in, just like the rest of us on ‘Survivor’, and there he stayed for 3 days as well, but at least he was at the roadhouse, near all that junk food that is depressingly common at Roadhouses.

By Thursday a few of us decided to go to the shop to get supplies, and find out what is going on, because once the station managers locked the gate, there was no attempt by them to check in on us or give us any solid information. You can imagine Bruce’s mood being kept in the dark this long. To avoid an international incident, Amanda headed off with some of the other campers and drove half way (to the bogged bus - which blocked the track) and walked the rest. Slippery conditions, but at least it did not rain on us. The story goes that the Gibb River Road was closed on Wednesday afternoon to all traffic until further notice. So we were stuck here until at Least Sunday or Monday, depending on how much rain there was, and how long it took for everything to dry out. While we were doing okay, the 20 or so people stuck in the Roadhouse carpark were doing much worse. They were all stuck in an area no bigger than a few hundred square metres, in 4 to 6 inch deep mud. Hell of a mess, check the photos.

By Friday people were driving all the way to the roadhouse for supplies. The bogged bus finally got themselves out as the ground started to dry with the warming weather (stopped raining on Thursday morning). A whole group of people from the Gorge camp went up to help pull the bus out, but it was already out, but we had to pull out their trailer.
As was our new hunting and gathering routine, on Saturday morning we were about to head up to the roadhouse for more supplies, when the roadhouse truck came down to a cynical applause. The story was, Gibb River Road still closed, but more rain was coming the next day. If it rained as predicted, we would be stuck for another week minimum, so go now if you want although we were warned of the lack of insurance for driving on a closed gazetted road. That is all the decision making information anyone needed, within 1 hour, all the campers were packed and heading for the roadhouse to fuel up ourselves and the vehicles. Those going to Derby were in a convoy of 9 cars (with us running tail-end-Charlie), those to Kununurra were in 3 car convoy. Everyone was in contact over UHF and the with the road in comparatively good condition and our low speed, we all got out safely.

From the 2nd day in Manning Gorge we met some great people who were all open and friendly as usual. It is the nature of these trips that you meet people for a few days and wave goodbye hoping that you might see them again, never really expecting to. When the rain started to come in heavily, something changed in the people automatically and without real need for coordination, we banded together without any niggles or grips. We were all sharing food, fires (with some amazing stories), tent poles - ropes, cooking stuff, you name it, as well as 12v pumps so we could have hot showers, and chain saws for collecting wood from the dead trees. In fact the guys on the other side of the camp who had the utes and the chainsaws collected wood for everyone else (many they had never met before) and made sure the large camps as well as those who wanted to remain on their own, had ample wood to keep warm. Thanks to Barney, Mick and Tony. As it turns out, you aren’t meant to collect wood at the Gorge, but as no one could come down to check on us, we thought what they do not know will not hurt them, well us. The conditions certainly warranted it. We also managed to find their secret stash of toilet paper and cleaning products so we had our own cleaning team, along with the water pump to get more water from the gorge. Pity we could not fix the hot water.
Bruce’s perspective on this was interesting as it was the first time since moving to Australia that he had seen everyone acting in natural disaster mode - just switch gears and mucking in together to get on with what needed to be done without anyone calling the shots or leading it. Call it the ‘quiet Aussie spirit’, but we have both seen these types of situations in our professional lives in IT disasters and what not - and it always seems to happen, although it usually takes one person to ask for help first. Pity it usually has to be an emergency to make it happen so openly and enthusiastically, and hereth end the sermon.

As Saturday night was meant to be our last night - hopefully - we had planned a Survivor night party. Everyone was to bring a plate, with food on it, a bottle - hopefully alcohol but we were all running very low, and dress up. We were going to cook damper, which Amanda does well, and bring a cask of white wine that the bus driver gave us for getting him out (I know cask wine, but you drink what you can when supplies are low). The outfits, well picture this. Bruce in Thermal long leggings, with red underpants on the outside, Amanda’s red soronge as a cape, covering up a tank top with K in electrical tape on the front, and to top it all off, hiking boots. He was going to be known as Kimberly Man, complete with his mountain man beard. Amanda was being a little less subtle, standard survivor clothing, dirty clothes, no shoes, a hand made survivor banner, thanks to the kids colouring in pencils, and a tribal council torch, topped off with flames. Lets say it is lucky for some of the other campers that we ended up driving out. So instead of the final party in the Gorge, we had our own re-union show at the Boab Inn hotel in Derby. There were 20 people for dinner, and another 4 just for drinks, we made lots of noise and had a great night.

This episode has a profound impact on us both, and it hard to image anything topping this. But stay tuned kids - there are still 6 weeks to go.

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Photos

Water on the road
This is coming back from the roadhouse on Wednesday, after just 1 day of rain.

Morning Tea Anyone
We had 12 people under our awning for morning tea on Wednesday, this is just some of them.

Cordial?
Bruce collecting the water run-off to make Cordial. Took only 30 seconds to collect 1 litre.

Camp Fire
The group around the camp fire at one of the points where it was not raining.

Bogged Bus
This is the bogged bus.

Barnett Station Camping
Much better down the Gorge despite the walk to the shop, just look at the mud.

Coffee Anyone?
All the billies on top of the fire heating the water for the hot showers.

Shoes by the camp fire
We all needed dry footwear

Washing Day
Even when stranded the domestic duties still need to be done.

The Survivor Group
Just leaving Barnett Station for the 300km trip to Derby.

The re-union show
At the Boab Inn Hotel in Derby.

Comments

[Liz Simpson]

Well that was an adventure, and made great reading.