Tuesday 19 January Streaky Bay town and a shower revolution

Because we had to grapple with insurance people, we drove into Streaky Bay to send emails and make telephone calls.

Streaky Bay has a main street with shops going down to the bay, which has a long jetty, at the end of which, two yachts were moored. On the sea front there is a hotel with a drinking area looking out over the bay, and rooms with verandas along the first floor with great views. The bay is very sheltered with a small beach, so there was little wind. The town and its hotel seemed a really beautiful and serene place to stay for the night. Ah Well.
For us camping folk we were most excited to see that it had two IGA supermarkets (usually one is a bonus), and even better, a Mitre 10 hardware store.
There I found a camping shower pump which runs off the battery of a car. I had been wanting to buy one. Now we could fill a bucket with the solar heated water, and then it could be pumped out so that we were no longer crouching under the smallest shower nozzle, but could stand, with proper pumped water splashing down on us. Believe me, pretty exciting stuff! After much deliberation and wandering around Mitre 10 for inspiration, we decided to buy a piece of plastic piping and put a stopper on one end to make into the water container. This would mean the least amount of water would be wasted when it got towards the bottom of the container, as the pump must be fully immersed at all times so a narrow container would be much better than a wide bucket.

We rushed back to heat water in our solar shower (see previous blog about showers…) then transferred the hot water into the upstanding plastic pipe. It was a showering revolution! Hot water splashed out, rather than the dribble we had had before. The temptation was to stay in too long, but with Darren generously saying taking as long as you like, I kept a firm eye on the level of water in the pipe, so I didn’t hog it all – though boy, did I want to.

Monday night 18 Jan - in which the boat and engine get separated and are SUNK

Good grief, as we hadn’t had enough excitement the day before.

We had a lovely day on Monday, we went for a walk on the beach, Darren swam and snorkelled, we collected shells, Darren went for a potter in the boat, and I finished my book that I had been reading since before Christmas – A Tale of Two Cities. All was so much better with the world, though I disappointingly did not have a black eye from my run in with the annex pole the evening before.

Darren decided to leave his boat on the beach overnight. The beach had a shallow incline which went steeper just at the high tide mark. I asked him a couple of times if he was sure about this, but he wanted to get started early in the morning with a good fishing expedition so he was happy to do that.
At about 2 o’clock a.m. he awakened me and was listening to the usually quiet waves crashing onto the beach. He leapt up in a moment, grabbed the torch and some clothes and ran from the caravan saying he was off to check on the boat. My eyes stayed wide open in the dark, listening to the waves. They did not seem any louder or more aggressive than the night before, but it transpired that Darren had slept through that night, and had not heard the high tide that time. After a while I realised he had been gone really quite a long time. I thought he had left the boat just near the camp. I decided to wait another 10 minutes. It was now 2.30 a.m. Now I was worried, visions of him being caught under the boat with waves washing over him, came to mind, which was not very reassuring.
I had no torch. I knew however that there was a magnetic light stuck to the inside roof of the car. Darren had also shown me a laser light he had been given, which was in the glove box. It can shine very very far, so I thought I could get that and shine it towards where the boat was, so he could at least flash his light in reply. I stumbled around and found the keys to the car, opened the car and tried to turn on the light. It didn’t work. I went back in the caravan and found a head light that barely worked, with that I found the laser light in the car. I was just closing the car door, now in quite a lather as he had not appeared, when I saw a light coming for the direction of the beach, and Darren came up to the car. His first words to me were “ the boat sank and the motor came of it, and I had to pull them out” I immediately felt his jacket, which was not wet, and I burst into tears with relief.
My relief of course gave way to anger pretty quickly, telling him my adventures and worries that night, and hauling him into the caravan to get warm.
Apparently he had not left the boat where I had thought, but completely a different direction, quite some way down the beach, where he hoped to launch it in the morning. Unfortunately the tide had come in rather further than he expected, and the boat had launched its self rather earlier than anticipated. When he had got to where the boat had been there was nothing to be seen, until he saw in the gloom the hull of the boat, upside down in the (actually fairly gentle, but dumpy) surf. When he managed to grab it and turn it over, there was no motor. He eventually saw it, also in the waves, and had to pull it out of the water and try to empty it of water and sand. He had left it by the boat, now much higher than the tide line, and come home.
What a drama! Good grief, never a dull moment. Darren was quite shocked from his adventures, and also cold, so was not able to sleep immediately. We both talked for sometime, me very happy that we had insurance, and he happy he had at least rescued the boat. The engine, he knew, had had it.

Sun 17th January, – a ‘butter-side-down’ day….Kyancutta to Tractor Beach, Streaky Bay (309 Kms)

Today we saw a sign by the road proclaiming, “The Eyre Peninsula, where the Journey is part of the Experience”. Part of the Experience? Today, it was all the experience we could handle…

After a night waking Darren with anxious ‘what was that?’s, and the trucks passing the caravan, sounding as though they were going to drive through the caravan, we blearily got up to continue on. I happily wandered to the toilet block, only to discover it had become a refuge for hundreds of mossies during the night, so somewhat disgruntled, I walked back, got the can of ‘mossie murder’, and did my worst.

We had decided to drive to Elliston which is just North West of Kyuncutta on the coast. We would then make our way up the coast, which was meant to be very pretty, and try and find somewhere to stay near Streaky Bay for a few days before we tackled the Nullabor. So far we had stayed in a brown grassed dust bowl (Germein Gorge), and a road side stop. I needed sleep and was beginning to feel decidedly crabby and unimpressed. Coming from a warm, centrally heated house in England, with log fires every night and hot baths available, the road to the Nullabor looked like a bit of a slog. I know, this will horrify you who are tramping to work every day, or who are stressed out and the idea of the wide open road just has you salivating, but just occasionally all is not well on the road to paradise.
Anyway, that aside, we jumped into the car, after the usual pack up, and followed our first stretch, this side of Christmas, of unpaved road down to Elliston. There we indulged in pies and walked to look at the really beautiful, sheltered Waterloo Bay. It had a couple of islands just in front of it, which kept the beach pretty wind free. However we needed to press on, and there was a bay just North of here called Anxious Bay that I had decided had to be the place for me, so the plan was to head there, get a photo and carry on.
On the way we saw a sign for Sculptures by the Sea, apparently on Elliston cliff drive, which we eventually found, after missing the turning. They included a giant pair of thongs on the cliff, and smaller versions of the Easter Island heads looking out to sea. These were definitely my favourite. After seeing the film ‘Night at the Museum’ I could not resist having my photo taken with a relative of ‘Dum Dum, me want Gum Gum’. The sculptures were cleverly called ‘Headland’ by Thomas Tesselaar.
The drive was rather longer than we thought, it felt like 20Kms and took us back further down the road from where we had come, so we needed to follow our own tracks again. It was still the road to Anxious Bay, so we confidently followed it. It went on for about 5kms and then the bitumen just ended at scrub land, with a long beach beside it. Darren had to stop rather suddenly as the end of the road was NOT what we had expected! We were rather bemused, as we had expected the road to take us all the way North, or at least join the main highway. We had a look at the bay (described by Lonely Planet as “anxiety-relieving ocean scenery”)– no sign to photograph with me in the foreground looking suitably anxious – and a drive back the way we came (again!), both in a rather puzzled frame of mind, and certainly not anxiety relieved….
Eventually we were on the proper road again, with the next delights planned from the map being Talia Caves and then Venus Bay with its sheltered beaches.
Talia Caves went without incident, though we actually only got to see one of the caves, which was really a very eroded scoop out of the side of the cliff, making a fantastic place for bats to live, and consequently rather smelly to boot. The enormous smooth flat boulders in front, though, were very impressive with very narrow, deep channels between them where the sea came rushing through to reach the cave at high tide.
We were getting a bit peckish by now, so were looking for a good place for our next stop. The coast all seemed rather barren, and when we got to Venus Bay we realised it was a detour off the main rain, which due to our many detours earlier in the day, we decided to eschew. Next town / hamlet – Port Kenny, just up the road. The map showed it was on the beach so looked promising. Unfortunately the beach was not as promising as we expected, it was actually a long, shallow, wind swept bay.
“Yes”, I thought, “someone really has killed Kenny”.
We found some shacks down by the deserted jetty, and by this time didn’t really care where we ate, so we huddled behind these to get out of the wind, while giant gulls greedily eyed us from the roof above, waiting for titbits. These soon came, as I managed to drop onto the ground, a buttery piece of bread wrong side down while I made lunch. You know how some days just don’t feel right? Well today was a butter-side-down day.
We ate lunch looking at the back of the shack, just beneath the rusty electricity boxes and other rusting metal dumped behind it. If we peeked around the corner we could see the sea and a jetty going out to it, but also got a blast of wind with enough sand in to exfoliate the face to a shine.
After lunch Darren entertained himself filming the gulls eating the bread. He put down his camera while videoing, then put the bread in front of it. This is one of his ways of luring unsuspecting wildlife into his many homemade nature movies – look out, they will be coming to a home near you when we get back, believe me David Attenborough has an ardent follower.
We thought that Port Kenny could have really have no redeeming features, however, needing petrol, we stopped on the road where the lonesome independent petrol station stood, overlooking the windswept bay. It was quite the nicest petrol station we had been to. Homey wooden tables were at the entrance of the shop, proper curtains at the windows, and good cooking smells came from further within. Information about the area, and pictures of fishing triumphs lined the walls, and the front entrance lead to a wide hallway before another door into the café, so diners did not get blown away when customers came in. They also had very clean toilets; it was an oasis! When I met Darren back at the car, he was delighted to tell me they had also shown him jars of scorpions they had caught, so large that the jars were lying down flat to accommodate them. Apparently one had been found under their back door mat. This he told me as we drove out – information I was pretty happy I didn’t know, when I had ventured into their toilets…

The next task was to get up to the Streaky Bay area and nab ourselves a cheap camp spot. The day felt like it had gone on quite long enough. There were quite a few sites listed in our Camps 5 book about 30 kms or so away from Streaky Bay, but all were off the beaten track, so we needed to take a few detours to choose one. There looked like a good spot at Sceale Bay, so I put in the coordinates on the GPS (this after we had already missed the turning once and had to turn back), and we started bumping along the unsealed road.
We came to a T junction, the GPS said turn left, and my map said turn right…we turned left. I was quiet for a while then was compelled to speak up, by my estimation we were heading down a peninsula where there was a sea lion colony (fantastic), but the opposite direction to the camp spot (not so fantastic). We stopped. I checked I had entered the coordinates correctly, which I thankfully had, so with a cry of “the coordinates never lie!” from Darren , we continued. The further we went, as we strated to have sea either side of us on the peninsula, the more I KNEW we were wrong. Fortunately our GPS allows us to move the road forward on its display to see where the final destination is. I moved it further and further ahead of Darren’s driving. Eventually the GPS directed us off the road, across scrubland, and into the sea, where it stopped, showing the usual chequered flag for our destination.
Hmm, the coordinates weren’t lying, they were just incorrect. We turned back.
The car was pretty quiet.

We went past the T junction and headed the other way. After driving past it twice we found the Sceale Bay camp site. We drove around it once, it had the tick of approval in our book, which meant that the authors of the book had been there and found it particularly good, so we were quite optimistic. We drove around it again. As we drove around the music from ‘Deliverance’ came to mind – diddle eee dee, dee dee, bing-bang-bongggggg. There were a group of travellers under a corrugated plastic lean-to, enjoying the shade, by their open car, who gave a wave - but we kept on drivin’.
Through the town, where a few of the locals were having a drink on a verandah and gave us a cheery wave, then watched as we went to look at the very pretty beach ( maybe we should stay here? Maybe we should? Maybe we shouldn’t?...
We were loosing our capacity for decision making, but eventually we turned from Sceale bay and were watched from various verandas and balconies as we left.

So now where?

Back to the map with the coordinates that never lie, and I saw a loop road a bit further on that had a couple of potential camp sites on it. I diligently enter the coordinates of the second place, that looks the most promising. We completely miss the turning of the 1st place, missing the turn off for the loop, however therefore reach the 2nd place before we know it, though we had to hunt to find the small track to it.
The place is fabulous! Hooray! I couldn’t quite believe that we had found such a great spot. Just behind the sand dunes of a long pale beach, the tide went out over shallow rocks quite far, making Darren hope for abalone and crayfish plunder. It was quite frankly, a relief.

Surely our fortunes had turned, and we put up our caravan, then Darren started to put up the new annex we had arranged to be made while we were in Melbourne, out of wind break material. I started to help him, though by this time I was even more tired, and pretty wiped out. My job was to hold 2 of the metal bars while Darren pegged another into the ground. Somewhere along the line somehow something was let go of somewhere, and one of the poles came crashing down on the side of my head narrowly missing my eye. That was IT! I was DONE! It really hurt and when Darren was eventually allowed to take a look – “No, you CAN’T look, it hurts TOO MUCH”, he saw, and I felt, a very large bump just millimetres above my left eye.
That really topped off our day and made me feel that the bread, butter and jam had landed the wrong way on the ground. I wiped a bleary tear awy from my tender eye and, as the song says, ‘the only way is up’ – so it was just a …. of letting the day wash past and look forward to a couple days peaceful rest here and hope I got a black eye.
Which I didn’t.

Sat 16th January, Germein Gorge to Kyancutta 307 Kms travelled

It was now a case of just getting as close to the Nullabor as possible as quickly as possible, and then having a rest just before we crossed. Germein Gorge is 250 Kms North of Adelaide, but for the first day of driving it had felt a lot further.
Today we needed to buy supplies from Port Augusta, previously visited on our way TO the South coast of SA, so at least we knew where we were going. Then we would travel East from Port Augie across the Eyre Penninsula as far as we could go. I wasn’t sleeping that well, and felt exhausted from my holiday abroad (poor pet), so Darren had to do all the driving so I didn’t endanger us by doing a spot of median strip driving by mistake. As we were driving up to Port Augie (as I like to call it), Darren told me we could have got a ferry across to the Eyre Penninsula, 150 kms North of Adelaide – now he tells me, it would have saved us a few 100 kms, though cost us $100+, I blame myself for not reading around the subject. The highlight of this trip was a discussion as we passed through Kimba, (with it’s giant galah outside the general store), 90 Km to our destination, of whether Kimba was the name of ‘The Lion King’ or not. I have not seen the whole film, but as one of Darren’s favourites he assured me it was. These are the heights of conversation we managed to reach after not seeing each other for 3 weeks. Who says the art of conversation is dead?

That evening we arrived at our free camp spot in Kyancutta. The town seemed to consist of a road, a shop and Polkdinney Park next to the shop, where we camped. The town/hamlet had a few historic artefacts in the park, a scrub roller, water pump, wagon, road grader and Mouldboard plough, also names of the pioneers of the area were engraved on the park posts to commemorate them. There was also a sign depicting the history of the area. So many small towns in Australia have their pride of ‘place’, and historical literature can be found almost everywhere, making even the smallest hamlet interesting to visit. The further off the beaten track, the mors information there seems to be.
Not only did this place have interesting things to look at, it had a clean, four walled, roofed toilet block, which had me more excited than the historical artefacts.

Jan 15 2010 - On the road again, and the duties of setting up camp

The first three days were spent covering 900 odd kms, from Adelaide to Streaky Bay, which is on the West of the Eyre Peninsula; from there we would get ready for the long drive to WA.
The first day, Friday 15th, was spent driving northwards, covering quite a bit of road we covered on our way South to Victoria from the centre. It was strange being in the car again – checking out all the little improvements Darren had given the car while I was away (including a shelf on which to put all my travel guides, camera, diary and all the other bits of rubbish that used to sit next to me on the seat).
Darren was very excited to be off starting again, but I felt a bit cautious. I had had so many questions from people asking if I was REALLY enjoying myself, and how did I COPE with the flies, mossies, lack of bathing facilities, toilets etc., I was starting to question myself about it. Can I really face another 6 months of this?
Our first night was spent at Germein Gorge. It was a beautiful evening and we arrived at our deserted free camp site as the sun was going down.
Here we go again …

Uncouple the caravan, check it is horizontal, I wind down the stabilisers, Darren winds up the roof. Darren pulls out the bed ends from outside, takes out the clothes box and cooking pot, unfolds the sink and cooker. We push out the canopies over the beds and secure them inside. Darren secures the canopies for the beds outside to prevent small creatures visiting in the night. I put the outdoor table, folded in its box, outside and then put up the kitchen table and make the beds. Darren puts the door in place and puts the clothes box on the fridge. I stop up all the holes with black bin liners and items of Darren’s underwear to prevent a mossie invasion. Then, a sweep out of all the sand and goodness-knows-what we have brought with us from the last place - and we are done!
I am exhausted. Zzzzzzzzz
Next morning, pack up. Darren takes out the clothes box out of the caravan, I dismantle the table and stow its leg under the seat. I unmake the beds and fold the bedding onto the now low table and place the folded outdoor table on top, also unstop any holes with the bags or underwear. Anything needing to go in the car (my bag, the computer etc) is placed by the door, where Darren collects it and puts it in the car. I close the gas hob cover and zip up all windows. Then pull down the canopies over the beds and stow the metal bars holding them up. Darren stows the bars that are holding up the beds from the outside, under the mattresses. Darren then unlatches the door and attaches it to the roof of the caravan. With luck, I remember to do up the skylight, as this can be problematical later. Darren folds down the sink and hob and puts the cooking pot in its place. I undo the canopies over the beds from the outside and place the box of clothes back in the caravan on the door mats and close the small door. Darren pushes in the beds to the centre of the caravan then starts to wind down the roof while we both check the sides are folding in on themselves properly. When he has nearly finished this, I start winding up the stabilisers (clockwise = going forward = going forward with the journey therefore clockwise when we are leaving, anticlockwise when we are setting down). Darren clips the roof in place, he returns the crank for the roof and I return the crank for the stabilisers to the car. He reverses and I direct, then adjust the jockey wheel to the right height so we can couple up. We then each attach a safety chain to the car. One last circle of the caravan, both check the gas has been switched off, and we are ready to go!
This, every day? Good grief how could I not LOVE it???? (And all that rigmarole is without the awning up!) I wanted to go to sleep just writing this, I am surprised you are still reading…
This is why, where we can, we spend 2 nights in a place, unfortunately that is not planned for a couple of days.

To Adelaide January 14th 2010 - we are reunited after a Christmas break (from each other)

So, now I have returned from the Motherland, Darren and I find ourselves together again.

After Christmas Darren broke up the trip from Melbourne to Adelaide by staying with his brother and family for about 10 days, and fishing his socks off. I am happy to report it is some of the best fishing he had done, with masses of kingfish etc, and also bizzarely many videos of seals by the boat too, so I am surprised they caught anything. Still, a fishing Darren is a happy Darren so he had a great time
…. I was in Hong Kong with my sister and family by this time, with the plan for Darren to meet me at Adelaide airport and we would carry on. I left HK for Melbourne on Weds 13 Jan and stayed with Darren’s parents that night.
When I spoke to Darren that night he was already near Adelaide airport at a camp site. I had thought he would arrive in Adelaide on the Thursday, when I did, but he was there early. I asked him what he was going to do after he had been thrown out of the camp site at 10 m., until I arrived at 1. “I will be circling the airport until you arrive, you look out of the window and you will see me below”. Funny, it didn’t sound too far fetched, I was certain there couldn’t be too many cars with a silver boat on its roof towing a match box around Adelaide airport.
Needless to say I wasn’t able to spot him due to my aisle - near - any exit seat. We met up and he surprised me by booking a hotel near the beach for the night. Awwwwww,to enjoy the last luxuries before drop toilets and camp showers.
That evening we saw our first sunset over the sea. Being an East-coaster it is unusual to get the sunset, and we walked around Glenelg, I enjoying the balmy weather at last, surveying the Adelaiders (?) enjoying the evening.

FLASHBACK: In which a few Mossies DIE - Dalhousie Springs 10 Oct, Day 29 (Or: Of Bitten Bums for Brief Relief)

“They will die, they will die, they will die” – Withnail and I

Does the use of National Parks for our camping mean that we are complete eco tourists following the lead of those who know what is best for the environment? Or are we just after a cheap camp site?
I would like to think I was leaning towards the former. After all, I am notorious for my very careful recycling system at home, much to the raised eyebrows of Shileen, and the occasional groans of Darren. I also don’t like to kill anything, including insects. Should staying at a National Park camp site require you to keep your tread light, and let the natural order of things subsist? Well, I thought so… however, when it came to the mosquitoes that were at the shower and toilet blocks at Dalhousie springs, I realised all that had to be put to one side. Even going to the loo would put you in the line of fire of the mossies, and there were many war stories around the campfires there, of bitten bums for brief relief.

Darren had warned me that the showers were as bad. However, I was not going to in there without a fight. I was determined to have a shower. I needed one I was sure, and I was not going to be beaten back by a 5cm flying syringe.
A shower I needed, and a shower I would have. I was goin’ in…

Darren looked pretty impressed by all this talk, until, as I was saying it, I pulled out of the cupboard the yet unused can of mosquito spray. Yup, I was goin’ in.
I felt a bit sheepish going towards the shower block (middle of the day – less mosquitos) carrying this enormous can of spray. I hid it under my towel, thinking that the release of all these toxic chemicals was hardly a way to behave in a National Park, and perhaps I should not be seen with such a weapon of what I hoped would be, mass destruction. Fortunately there was no one around, or I don’t think I would have had the courage to unleash the can on them.
I peered into the shower space. They are lovely and clean, don’t get me wrong, however I could see that Darren had not been exaggerating that there were a large number of bloodsuckers that planned to shower with me. I was not going to beaten, I was going to have that shower, and nothing would stop me.
I stuck me head out of the cubicle for one last check for any eco campers around, and took a deep breath.
PSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT
PPPSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
And another for good measure …
PPPPSSSSSSSSTSTSTSTTSTSTSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
PSSST PSSSSST PST

I ducked back out of the cubicle, and let the mist settle, and tried to look very ho-hum and nonchalant as someone went into one of the loos.
After about 30 seconds I looked in the cubicle. No movement. I moved forward and locked the door behind me, still holding the can of spray, ready for anything. I got undressed using one arm – no mean feat.
PSSSSTTT, PSSSST
Got the final 2 mosquitoes I could see –

Victory would be mine! Cleanliness would prevail!

I got the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and facial cleanser all ready in the shower and slowly put down the can ready for …
cold water… No hot tap? No…hot….tap?
Now, I am as happy as the next person to have a cold shower, when I am expecting a cold shower. But this? This was such a let down. All that effort! All that murder of mossies, for nothing?
PSSST – just got another in time.
I turned on the water anyway, but it felt uber cold to the war weary; I just didn’t have the heart to go through with it. Beaten back at the last line of barbed wire, I had to retreat to the safety of the caravan, hoping that there would eventually be cleaner times ahead for me.

FLASHBACK: Disaster at Dalhousie - October 10

Because I was a bit under the weather, Darren went for a drink with the group we had just met, and I elected to lie in the caravan and watch another episode of Pride and Prejudice – THANK YOU Clem, for lending it to me. Clearly there is something about living rather rough that takes me closer to the classics. Perhaps it is feeling like the great unwashed 90% of the time that makes me think of the 18th Century? See also my demented rant in another blog, entitled Vanity Fair.
But DISASTER STRUCK
As Darren was passing me the computer, the hard drive on which I had put the series, along with a whole load of other films, DROPPED ON THE FLOOR. I sent Darren away while making encouraging noises rather than growls, as he was expected at another camp fire, and I tried to put the film on.
…Then I tried to safely remove hard drive from computer
…Then I wondered what the ‘generic volume’ was, that was preventing me take the hard drive safely off the computer.
…Then I tried to shut down the computer using Control, Alt, Delete
…Then I switched off the computer at the switch
…Then when I switched it back on it wouldn’t go to the password page
…DO YOU SEE WHERE I AM GOING WITH THIS?

Anyone who has lived or worked within a hundred yards of me will know, I do not tolerate computers lightly.
Darren returned after about an hour and a half. He found me still up, and only just had managed to switch the **&$”^^ thing off, and remove the hard drive safely. But the hard drive had whirred and sneezed and coughed, and the computer had been clearing its contents as ‘unreadable’. No more videos for us – WAAAAAAAAH!

As you can imagine, I was quite eloquent on the stupidness of the hard drivewhen he returned, the contents of which I am unable to replicate here, due to good manners.

FLASHBACK: Dalhousie Springs 9 Oct – NOT listed in Lonely Planet Australia 13E , travesty! Victoria gets a little over heated...

At last we arrived at Dalhousie Springs. It had taken a whole day to drive there, and only 180 kms / 112 miles travelled.
We were now on the western edge of the Simpson Desert. Those travellers who left Birdsville to go across the Simpson Desert usually pop out of it here, so there were people here who looked more sand worn and frazzled than us – a miracle.
There were not too many travellers at the camp site – after a journey like ours, I am not surprised! There are really only 3 ways there, the way we had come from Oodnadatta; or across the Simpson Desert; or the way we were going to leave: to Mt. Dare hotel, then to the highway or north to Alice.

Famous for its Artesian spring that bubbles up at a heavenly 37C, it was not long before we were both in the water. Having seen some of the other springs, we were ill prepared for the size of it. It was like a small lake, and I imagine on the cold days in the winter months the hot water would be very welcome. Today was pretty hot, and we probably didn’t really need to get hotter, but again warm baths are few and far between in this game so we plunged in.
It was like swimming in an enormous deep bath, and pretty blissful. There are masses of minerals in the water and when we got out I could feel them on me, and we had to wipe ourselves down with packeted washcloths we had bought for when no water was available, just to feel clean of the minerals.
Darren went for a shower afterwards, but came back telling me there were swarms of mosquitoes in them. Hmm, be dirty, or bitten? No contest. Went to bed very ‘washcloth’d’ instead.
The next day we spent recovering from what had probably been one of the hardest roads we had been on – the bogging not withstanding. We had another afternoon dip after Darren had spent about an hour peering out of the caravan watching a group of people put up their tents. He had been amazed it took them so long! I told him not everyone was mister speedy-man, and hauled him off to the water.
While we swam around once more, the group who had been putting up the tents came for a dip, and we were soon all chatting away – one of the ladies was a teacher, from Brisbane – and knew Wiley! Odd to be talking about publishing while swimming in a hot bath on the edge of the Simpson – I took the trouble to give ‘em a quick plug – you never know where business will come from!

I started to get hotter and hotter in the water, there were rubber rings you could use, and keeping my feet out of the water certainly helped. I can’t understand why no one else over heated too? In the end, after the men had been chatting with each other, and us girls had been talking about life coaching (as you do on the edge of the Simpson, in a hot pool), I decided that my head was probably going to explode so I made the move to get out, and all followed. As we went back to the caravan I got redder and redder in the head, even Darren looked quite alarmed at me, admonishing me for not drinking enough water in the day ( blah blah blah, heard it all before) and told me to put a cold cloth on my head. We had to get the tea towel (which was of dubious cleanliness), wet it in cold water, and I wrapped it around my head like a turban.
When Darren saw me, he asked what on EARTH I was doing, he had meant me to put the towel over my face, (how was I to know, am I psychic?), and he stood me in the shade and fanned me with something (I couldn’t see I was under the towel), until my face seemed to resume its more usual hue. I had to retire for a lie down – all because of a hot bath, how pathetic am I?

Flashback - Dalhousie Homestead Ruins – STILL Friday Oct 9!

After traversing a hellish number of fields of rocks and after passing the Pedirka railway siding, (a four walled ruin with one wall division on a stony plain; the siding was appropriately described on our map to ‘have been one of the loneliest places on the railway line’), then driving over what looked like a moonscape, we eventually arrived at the Dalhousie ruins first leased in 1872. We were pretty ruined ourselves. Still, after miles of nothing ruins are pretty exciting stuff, so we dutifully fell out of the car, happy not to be jolting around for a while. We had only travelled 60 Km since we turned off from the Hamilton Station, and we had been travelling about 4 hours, including a break to get bogged, and one for lunch. This travelling lark can be exhausting.

It had really seemed as though we had been driving for ages on the moon; though here we were, looking at ruins of a settlement from a previous century, surrounded by enormous palm trees. Bizarre. There are 2 theories how the palms got here, one is that the Afghan camel drivers used the area as a campsite while they were taking supplies to settlers, and planted them; the other, that the contractor for the South section of the Overland Telegraph line, Ned Baggott, had them planted when he bought the lease.

What Darren wanted to find was the natural springs that had fed the telegraph station. He headed for a group of palms that also had loads of rushes growing around them, making them almost impenetrable. I, predictably, started to read a sign about the ruins, then looked up and Darren had, predictably, disappeared. We call this ‘the cattle dog effect’. Just like a dog off his leash Darren will, at any moment, disappear – into a crowd, at a market, the airport, a shop, a pub – and it seems, the middle of nowhere.
Silence. Just me, palms, some ruins and a LOT of sky.

After a moment I heard scrabbling sounds and Darren calling to me that he had found a spring. No sign of him, just a bunch of talking bulrushes. They were taller than me and densely growing, however when I approached them I saw there was the narrowest gap, and feeling a little like Indiana Jones, I pushed my way through. I came out into a small clearing at the base of some palm trunks. There was Darren grinning from ear to ear by a muddy bit of water – the spring. Feeling less than overwhelmed at the discovery and more concerned with mosquito population count, I hovered for a short time admiring the muddy pool. He then remembered there were meant to be 2 or 3 springs and crashed off through the bulrushes again. I headed for the sunshine.

He had soon found the second spring, and this was more interesting. Here a small stone trough had been fashioned by the spring for the homestead occupants. It was in a larger clearing than the previous spring, but still surrounded by palms, making it a rather magical and secret oasis. It did feel that the ghosts of previous generations were walking her collecting water. The spell was broken by the high whining of hungry mosquitoes and Darren eyeing the larvae in the water. We retreated to the sunlight and back to the car, for the remaining 12Kms to Dalhousie Springs camp site.

FLASHBACK -– A Stony Lunch - Still 9 October

After all the excitement of being bogged, we still had not had lunch. Darren and I left our deep sandy tracks by the side of the road with grumbling stomachs. We continued to look for somewhere to stop. It was still a sandy track but had little shade, the trees were too sparse, and even after what we had been through, lunch with shade is always the ideal. After about 15 minutes of further driving, we decided that we would stop after the next corner – REGARDLESS of shade. We were determined.
As luck would have it, the next dip and corner drove us out onto a wide stony plain. We would have had to be under a millimetre in height, to catch some shade. Still, the up side was that a stony plain meant that driving off the track was OK. We were travelling on the Pedirka Track, the aboriginal meaning of pedirka is ‘hailstones’ – which gives you an idea of the landscape, though very few stones were loose; they were all embedded into the ground.

I made sandwiches while Darren got out the compressor to blow up the tyres again. The plain was like a vast driveway with smooth red pebbles concreted into it. As I ate my 28th lunch of the trip, I thought that this is one odd country, with its diverse landscapes just around the corner from each other. After being bogged in the sand a quarter of an hour ago, now I was on a Mosman drive.

FLASHBACK: We get bogged (Oodnadatta to Dalhousie Springs – 180kms /112miles ) Friday 9 Oct

So if you can cast your mind back to my last blog that was not a rant on literature,or an apology, you may remember we were at OOOOOOOOOOdnadatta. This was on Friday at the end of our 4th week….

Awoke just outside Oooooodnadatta, convinced it was Saturday. It was to be an early start so we had even checked the night before, when the shops in town opened on a Saturday so we could buy provisions. Went to town and bought provisions. Friday is our ‘pay day’, so is eagerly awaited each week. O does have TWO food shops, which was a really big thing, so we had scoped out where the locals seemed to buying and went there. We only had a few things to buy, but with tomatoes at $1.50 each (75p), it was just as well we had got provisions in Marree. That has been one of the challenges, trying to work out where the cheapest food might be in the coming 7 days. Prices out here are huge! William Creek, a town of 2 (true), further down the Track was selling a loaf for $6 – that was the record. Anyway, we eventually got all we needed, I wrote a post card to parents, and we were off, at last, to the eagerly anticipated Dalhousie Springs.

The Dalhousie Springs are part of the series of Mound Springs which bubble up from the artesian basin across this area of Australia. (see previous blog on Darren’s baths…). At Dalhousie the water bubbles up a perfect 37 degrees creating an enormous warm bath where one can swim. They are just West of the Simpson desert and only 183Kms (114 miles) from Oooooodie.

At first it was pretty easy driving on the Oodnadatta track, then we left it and took a smaller Northwards track. Still not too bad. First we went through ‘Fogarty’s Clay Pan’, an wide gray land with the track going straight across, either side there were marks where cars had thought they knew better and had clearly got bogged in the clayey ground. But we were cleverer than that. Next came the ‘Hamilton sand dunes’ which were red sand dunes running perpendicular to the road, so we were going up and down over them for miles, while masses of green foliage was (surprisingly) growing out of the dunes either side of the road. Quite beautiful. We met some people working on the road, which we thought was pretty tough on a Saturday - until After Hamilton Station (no, cattle, not train), we took another right turn off onto a smaller road.

It was approaching about 1 o’clock, and I wondered if Darren was getting hungry, so we started to look for a shady spot. We were on a sandy track with lots of trees either side, so we easily found a spot, and stopped under a tree. We were not quite in the shade so Darren tried to move forward a bit. No go. The car went n-o-w-h-e-r-e.

Darren got out. I got out. The back wheels of the car were rather deep in the sand. He looked. I looked.

I kept quiet. Very quiet. I didn’t suppose that suggestions or directions would be welcome at this point. Instead, I asked if we needed to uncouple the trailer. Darren hoped not and hoped that reducing the pressure in the tyres further would help.

After he had reduced the pressure in all the tyres, and used the shovel to dig away the sand from the back tyres of the car, he got back in the car and I stayed out.

Engine on, into gear… it looked hopeful for a moment until the back wheels started spinning. I was sure I had read somewhere that it was bad to let them spin as it made them go even deeper, so I shouted/screamed for Darren to stop.
The sound of the revs died away. He got out. We both looked.
We uncoupled the caravan, and used a dead bush nearby (think grocery box size tumbleweed), to put under the car wheels to give them grip when they moved forward.
Back in the car, engine on, into gear….very slowly the car moved off with the branches crunching and disappearing into the sand. The car was out!
We were both pretty pleased and allowed ourselves a little “ Yay!”, and then turned to look back at the stranded caravan.
Darren then said that he thought he might be able to reverse back at a different angle and recouple the caravan and pull it out. He started to reverse but it was clear that he was going into soft sand again and would get bogged so we cancelled that idea.

I then came up with the grand plan of trying to turn the caravan around, as the ground behind it was much firmer (eg: more terra firma), and the car probably wouldn’t get bogged. Darren amazingly thought this wasn’t a bad idea.
Move the caravan. Sounds good in theory eh?
Darren got one side of the trailer part of the caravan that links to the car. I got on the other side. The idea was to lift the jockey wheel and heave the caravan around. The jockey wheel is attached when the car is not attached to the caravan, to keep it standing straight.
So, according to the plan, we lifted and h-e-a-v-e-d.
And, LIFT and HE-EA-VV-E.
AND LIFT! and HEEeeAAaaVVve….
Two very puffed people and a small pile of moved sand.
Clearly my idea was not so brilliant after all.

Darren realised there was nothing for it but to bring out the big guns. (Why did he wait so long?).
One of the many ‘must have’ items, that had just sounded superfluous expensive parafanalia in the comfort of Fairlight, was dug out of the truck…
The ‘Snatch – Um – Strap’. Green, heavy duty, 10cm wide and 10 metres long. Describes itself as ‘Green and Mean’.
The box even has a picture of the Incredible Hulk on it (this amused me at the time, but I kept it to myself). Maybe that was Darren needed – to ‘get angry’.
“Don’t make me angry – you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…”
Darren, of course, was still pretty ‘tra-la-la’ about things, as was I. I had no doubt he was going to get us out. Such blind faith in a wife – how sweet.

In order not to drive in the deeper sand, we needed about 15metres of strap (16 ½ yrds). He therefore tied the massive snatch strap to a thin piece of rope (I tried not to look doubtful), and this to a thinner strap from the roof of the car. He then attached one end to the car and the other to the trailer of the caravan.
He got in the car. I stood far out of the way of any potential flying missiles.
The car started, there was a pause, then the strap/rope/strap took the strain… Joy! The caravan started to move! Then – PING’somethinng’ gave, and the strap-rope-strap went flying into the air.
Amazingly, on inspection, it was not the small thin rope that could didn’t hold, but the smaller strap. Clearly only the green Snatch-Um-Srap was the monster for the job.
We were beginning to feel the heat by this stage – you will remember that the reason we had wanted to move the second time was because we had parked not quite in the shade. It was now past 2 o’clock, and this was hot work. We were also being incredibly polite to each other, I was even keeping very quiet and doing what I was told – things must’ve been bad!
We decidied that Darren was going to have to reverse again into the softer sand and reattach only the 10 metre green monster to the caravan and car. Despite it’s rigid appearance, Darren explained that the green strap has some ‘give’ in it, which helps take the strain. I once more put sticks in front of the wheels of the car and the trailer. Once again I retreated to a safe distance. Darren got back in the car and the green giant took the strain. The caravan moved. Then moved some more. The car was not going down into the sand and all looked good as they moved off….

Have you ever watched a water skier learning to ski?, or a water skier too heavy for the engine of the boat, trying to pull them out of the water? As the boat moves away, if there is not enough power to get the skier up, and if he continues to hold on, the skier slowly gets pulled under the water, like a submarine diving….

This was what came to mind as I watched the jockey wheel at the front of the caravan (which does not spin around easily), get pulled deeper and deeper into the sand which eventually stopped the caravan and the car.
Now things did not look good, and it was hot.
We were however heartened that there had been movement, and the ‘fix-it man’ (can he fix it? Yes he can!) was here. He wound the jockey wheel up to tip the caravan back slightly, so moving its centre of gravity further back. Then, just as a skier needs to lean back to get pulled out of the water, he put the car once more in gear and slowly pulled the caravan out of the sand to the road.
Success! I silently vowed not to suggest lunch when we are passing large sandy areas. We still hadn’t had lunch, but we were pretty jolly pleased with ourselves as we took off once more, after we had put the Incredible Hulk back in its box, both agreeing that we both never doubted for a moment that we would get out.