Mount Doreen Ruins, WA (Tanami Track)

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If yesterday was all about driving then today was…..also all about driving. But it was a more eventual drive than usual.

Back to last night. The wind was fair howling after we went to bed. So much so that I got up a few times to add some pegs and remove some somewhat un-required canvas to reduce the damn flapping. Add to that, it was the first night that we separated the two puppies (now five weeks old) for sleeping so when I returned to the tent in the middle of the night, the young fella was keen for a play. I was knackered so he chewed on my ears and beard for a while until we both started dozing.

It was still blowing hard in the morning so we did a record quick pack-up and buggered off down South. It wasn’t long before we came across a couple of vehicles, one with the hood up. We stopped and enquired as to the peeps health only to find that the automatic transmission coolant hose was coming off this car every few kilometres. The fellas were footy players from Balgo returning from a comp further South where they had done quite well. We (Tony and Phil) managed to do some sort sort of bush mechanic fix with tyre wire and pliers. They (two blokes, one girl and her 1 ½ year old baby), along with a couple of other players who turned up, had an unexpected night on the desert due to this knackered car. We gave them some food and said our goodbyes after a bit of a chat.

The second event of the day was young Jack (Border Collie) falling out of Phil’s vehicle around a corner! Jack ended up being fine but it was a bit of a drama. Funnily enough when Tony and Di pulled up we noticed that they had a puncture, so we had to deal with that while keeping an eye on Jack to make sure he was alright.

After this event we had the final of this leg finding Benji (see yesterday’s post) with his tyre off of his bike. He had a flat - the first of his entire 7,000km odd trip and being only 600km from home. Now this repair took a while. The tyre was knackered, as was the inner tube. He had a spare inner tube so to make a long story short we had to break the bead off the tyre/wheel, silicone some cut inner tube over the hole in the tyre on the inside, put the new inner tube in place and then cable-tie some more rubber over the outside of the hole in the tyre. Quite the ordeal. I got sunburned during it. I hate getting sunburned. But in the end Benji seemed ready to go (we got the wheel back on the bike and started it before we left) and we headed down the track.

Corrugations were the focus for the remainder of the day. Worse than the Gibb River Road they were. Thankfully only 100km odd from camp to the bitumen. Staying at Mount Doreen Ruins tonight. Cooking dinner now which is some sort of chicken with random vegies and gravy. I’m sure it will be great.

No photos from today, as there wasn't much to shoot.

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Comments

[Dad]

Legends
You are all legends the way you look after people. Must h e come from your mum!??