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The next morning we had another visit form the “commando” quails. This time I surprised them under the Landcruiser. One already had the keys. They crowded behind the back wheel until they judged it was safe and then bolted for cover. Sadly we had to leave Purnululu, but excitingly we head for Emma Gorge which is part of the El Questro resort.
It took about an hour and a half to negotiate the road out and we stopped in at the Warbun Road House. Warbun is an aboriginal community and it looks great from the road with nice cottages and a pretty schmick school. I’m thinking cask wine will definitely be out of the question.
We did come across one caravan on the way to the Victoria Highway. He had a road train rammed up his backside but he was obviously enjoying the thrill of it because he refused to move over. You’d think when a road train with 3 trailers overtakes you on a dual carriage way you’d get the idea.
Past the rest stop, but no sign of my mates. I wanted to call them to see if we could
meet up but Becs wouldn’t be in it. We had made good time so we decided to make a detour to Wyndham at the mouth of the mighty Pentecost River. If you are wondering why there are potholes on Sydney roads, it’s because we’ve deployed every excavator, workman and Irish stop/go girl to a major Federal road project upgrading the road into Wyndham. Our expectations were high.
We stopped at the Wyndham Tourist Office which also doubles as Roy’s Automotives and asked Roy about the local attractions and what a thorough job he did. Becs was hungry and broke one of the cardinal rules (servo pie). In 2006 Wyndham was lucky enough to beat all comers and be awarded the tidiest street in Australia. In honour of the achievement they renamed the street Tidy Street 2006. At the port, which only seems to handle diesel coming in but apparently when the iron ore price picks up again it will be exporting iron ore. I haven’t checked lately but I thought the iron ore price had picked up, we checked out the community wharf. The community wharf is a bit like Circular Quay but bigger and with less boats. In fact there are no boats. I’m not even sure what the wharf is for. Wyndham is potentially the most over capitalised town in Australia.
We did find the Rusty Tin Café where I got a homemade sausage roll and a slice of pecan pie which I’m thinking was better than the servo pie.
We decided that as we were running ahead of schedule we should take Roy’s advice and head out towards the dam to have a look at some aboriginal rock art. The road was in pretty good nick and the early stages had a flood plain fanning out from both sides before snaking along the edge of the Victoria/Pentecost River. We couldn’t find the rock art but we found the dam. The dam was slightly larger than Warragamba Dam and provides water for the entire population of Wyndham (314).
As we left the dam I felt a bit of sluggishness in the steering. Fuck. Yep the tyre was as flat as my singing. Now as we know I’m pretty good at the tyre changing gig, although I still like to swear a lot to add authenticity to the occasion. The real issue was that we were now about to use the tyre that I’d repaired. Some of you may remember Cyril. Cyril is still with us and is still in pristine condition having never been used. I was tempted, but he’s like a son to us.
It is starting to get dark as we arrive at Emma Gorge, but there is no set up required.
Instead we set up in our tented cabinny thing and walk down for dinner at the restaurant.
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