Half-lap Day 106: Kimba

LiAM woke early, feeling cold and unwell. He and I got up as neither of us were likely to go back to sleep, and discovered a thick layer of ice over everything outside. We’d left one waterbottle on the table and the water in that was not frozen solid, but was mainly ice. We sat in the car as it was the warmest spot and played on the iPad until the others got up a couple of hours later. By now the sun was up and the ice was starting to melt, it wasn’t too bad to stand in the sunshine.

We took our time over breakfast and decided not to try to see or do anything today. Kimba is the mid-point between Sydney and Perth, and has a few interesting things around town to check out, and it’s not far from here to the National Park with lots of interesting rock formations – we decided a rest day was way more important than seeing more things for the sake of it (there was nothing here we had been looking forward to or even knew anything about before we arrived).

Caitlin checked out the coin-operated showers and came back happy and clean. We read some Harry Potter and played on the iPad, then Tony and Caitlin rode their bikes into town to get food for dinner and a pump attachment to blow up the balls we’d bought with us. Millie, LiAM and I played cards until they got back.

With the balls pumped up (including a new football that they’d also bought) we went over to the tennis/netball/basketball courts. We were trying to figure out how to play netball with 5 people (Caitlin really wanted to play netball) when Millie fell and hurt her knee and elbow and didn’t want to play anymore. She was happy to lie in the sun and watch us, so we played a very tricky and exhausting version of 2-a-side netball. Lots of fun though. Once everyone was too knackered to play anymore we had a bit of a play in the playground, then Tony and the kids went out on to the football oval to kick the football around, and I found a powerpoint in the tennis pavilion to charge my computer and catch up on days worth of blogging, email, banking etc. It was warm in the sun and still a bit cool in the shade, a lovely day though to just enjoy and take our time over things.

We had a late lunch and hung around the tent and playground and tennis courts, a very relaxing afternoon. LiAM and I had showers (the water here is full of chlorine, it felt like I was showering in a hot swimming pool) and we played more iPad and read more Harry Potter then had hotdogs for dinner. I talked to a friend on the phone for a while and the kids played in the playground, then we got ready for bed. It was a cold evening but not as cold as the previous few nights. We still did hot water bottles and rugged up, and as LiAM had been feeling unwell all day he slept in my bed with Millie and I, Caitlin slept on Millie’s bed and Tony slept in LiAM’s. It took us a while to rearrange all the blankets again but eventually we were all ready and in bed for a bit more of Inheritance. Tony did the dishes then came in and read more of the Harry Potter book – we’re all trying to read it as fast as possible so we can talk about it, and I’m trying to read it aloud so that everyone can keep up – so we’re all up to different stages and some bits have been read by everyone and we’re getting to know the story really well.

Half-lap Day 103: The Nullarbor

I got up just after sunrise and it was cold and beautiful outside the tent, the early morning sun shining on the few trees and over the low bushes surrounding the campsite. I went for a bit of a walk to find more firewood, there were a couple of dead trees not far from us and I was able to find plenty of branches around them that would get the fire going again for the morning.

I sat near the fire for a while and then as people woke up, got breakfast ready and we started to pack up. Everyone was cold and wanted to sit near the fire, which helped us feel warmer and may have slowed down our packing a bit. We were ready to go around 10.30, the last (by a few minutes) people to leave the campground.

We continued eastward along the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. There was a slight slope to parts of it, so we could only see 5 or 10km ahead, and when it was flat, the road shimmered out of sight in the distance, so we didn’t ever feel like we got a strong visual sense of how long it was – but it did take a long time to drive, without a bend. It wasn’t boring though, the scenery was fascinating, sometimes low, sparsely scattered trees, sometimes plains of low bushes, all very dry and inhospitable looking, but always quite pretty. It was exciting to get to the end and have the road bend a little. There weren’t a lot of bends over the course of the day – mainly the road was straight with the occasional meander to one side or the other. Therre wasn’t a lot of traffic either,  some road trains and caravans coming the other way, and occasionally another truck or van going our way, often we were the only vehicle we could see.

Part of the longest straight stretch of road

Not long after we started driving we saw a dead camel by the side of the road – our first wild camel sighting and we all felt it was a sad way to start. About 2 hours later we saw live camels, four of them to the right of the road,  in an area with no trees. We pulled over and watched them for a while, very excited to tick another desired animal off our list. Later on I saw a pair of emus – the kids didn’t see them though so we hoped that we would see more as we kept driving.

Camels

Around 2pm we were approaching Madura, and saw a sign to a lookout. I think this is the place someone told me about, way back in Hahndorf, so I suggested we pull over. It was a fairly bumpy road in to the lookout, and then the view was incredible. The road sloped down quite steeply just after the turn off to the lookout, and below us was the Nullarbor Plain – flat land for as far as we could see, with low, silvery green bushes and grass, and the occasional tree scattered all the way across. From where we stood the trees looked like emus – rounded green tops with thin trunks. To the north of the plain, looking straight ahead in the direction of the road, was a large escarpment – I had no idea that it even existed. From the lookout we could hear, and then see as they came past, the road trains and the caravans laboring up the hill as they headed west.

View from Madura lookout

We had lunch while we were stopped, then drove down the hill ourselves, onto the plain. The road followed the escarpment for the rest of the day. The terrain was similar all the way, with the occasional stand of taller gum trees (not tall, but not the tiny trees that were over most of the plain. Many of the rest stops had these taller trees. 

Once again the sun was setting fast as we drove away from it. We had hoped to get to the border, or at least close to it, today – however there was a strong vote for stopping at a rest stop with a toilet, and the last toilet was at Jilah Rockhole, about 70km before the border. We arrived there about 4pm and found a nice clearing between trees and set up the tent – the sun was close to setting by the time the tent was up so it was good timing. We wandered through the trees to find wood for a fire, finding a pile left by someone at one of the spots near the back (again, it was a very large camping area, with lots of relatively private spots because of the trees) and Tony found some wood he could cut with his axe. Caitlin had a bit of a scare as we loaded wood onto her bike – 2 wolf spiders were nestled together in a hollow in one piece of wood, and it took a while before we found them on the ground (after we flung the wood away) to make sure that neither of them were still on her bike.

We got the fire going and I made a cup of tea, while Tony cooked dinner. I hung some washing so it could start to dry in the morning, and Caitlin went for a ride to see if she could find anyone heading west so that she could give them our leftover onions – we can’t take fruit and veg into South Australia and we’d used all the onions we could manage. We also had carrots and apples left and felt confident we could eat them in the morning.

Caitlin had finished reading the 8^th Harry Potter book in the morning, and I got it out to start reading. While I did the washing LiAM started to read it and made his way through most of the first scene – that’s all 3 kids who have started to read by reading a Harry Potter book.

Caitlin hadn’t come back when our sausage and egg burgers were ready, so LiAM and I went to find her. She was talking to couple from the Central Coast, who were travelling west and had taken our onions gratefully, and as usual we shared tips on places we’d been and things to do. We walked back over and had our dinner and enjoyed sitting around the fire.

The toilet was interesting – a drop toilet, not surprisingly, but with a very narrow hole leading from the bowl down into the pit underneath. Normally with the narrow hole, the toilet has a water pump that lets a small amount of water be run down the bowl after use, or a bucket of water with disinfectant in it and a toilet brush that can be used to clean the bowl. This one had neither – just a stick (an old broom handle) that could be used to poke down anything that hadn’t made it through the narrow hole. It was pretty gross, and seemed to get worse every time we went in there. I’ve recommended to my friends who are following us across the Nullarbor in the next week or so that they don’t bother stopping here just because it has a toilet…

We heated up our hot water bottles on the fire and snuggled into bed, with beanies and socks and neck warmers, to read Inheritance, which is getting extremely exciting.

Half-lap Day 54: Keep River National Park

It was a pleasant temperature overnight – we kept the windows open although did need a blanket. We were all up early as we wanted to do the walk again at sunrise. Yesterday another family had arrived in a motorhome and came around to everyone saying that they’d be cooking pancakes in the morning and we could order some if we wanted to.  We’d thought about buying some pancakes for the kids, but the timing didn’t work out with a sunrise walk (they were cooking from 7 til 8, and sunrise is at about 7.30) so we gave the pancakes a miss (we can cook some ourselves when we get to a town and can buy some eggs).

The sky was a very promising red colour as we set off on the walk, but there were a lot of clouds low to the horizon so we only got sporadic splashes of sunlight on the rocks as we walked. It was still beautiful, and so cool to see the rocks become clearer as the light increased. I walked ahead with the older 2 this time and Millie and Tony followed. I took so many photos though that I was often pretty slow. When we reached the highest part of the walk we could see across to the escarpment and it took our breath away – a long cliff of the beehive type rocks, quite incredible. We hadn’t see it last night because the sun was behind the escarpment and the cliffs were in shadow. We sat up there for a while and soaked up the view.

Yesterday on the walk Tony’s phone had changed to Western Australian time, so we figured he must have got a little bit of signal on the high ground. He really wanted to put his footy tips in before the weekend, so he climbed up a bit higher to see if he could get signal this morning. He occasionally got 1 bar of signal but not enough to do anything useful. And when he came back down his phone was back on Northern Territory time…

Back to camp to have breakfast, and Tony set up a tarp on our awning poles so that we had some shade. Our tent hadn’t got as much morning shade as we’d hoped, and the awning wouldn’t help given the angle of the sun, so having a free standing shade shelter worked better, we could move the chairs and tables as the shade shifted. We decided to stay here for a 2^nd night, it was such a beautiful and peaceful place (and only $7.70 a night) and everyone was happy to just hang out for the day.

We had a very relaxed morning and played cards until we were hungry for lunch. I read several chapters of Brisingr while the kids listened and played on the iPad. The kids spent a lot of the afternoon playing with the kids from the pancake-cooking family. They were 7 and 5 and really loved playing with Caitlin and LiAM in particular. They climbed the rocks, painted boab nuts and leaves, crushed the boab nut powder and tried to roast the seeds, played role playing games, played with LiAM’s water pistol, and all had a really lovely time. Tony went for another walk, with my phone this time, to see if he could get phone signal, again with no luck. Caitlin rode her bike around the campsite road. LiAM and Millie looked at the ants and birds and plants and explored our immediate area in detail. I spent a lot of time reading and doing puzzles. Tony and I spent some time starting to figure out where we are going from here and what places we want to see. It was another very hot day and it was nice not to have to be anywhere or do anything much.

As the sun got lower in the sky Tony lit the fire again. Caitlin and Millie and I went to the end of the campground to watch the bright red sunset on the cliffs. We had rissoles and pasta for tea, very nice sitting around the campfire. It wasn’t cold enough to need a fire for warmth, but had cooled down enough so that it wasn’t uncomfortable in front of the fire. After tea the kids roasted some marshmallows, then we headed for bed (Caitlin in the tent again) and read more Brisingr.

Half-lap Day 38: Katherine -> Batchelor

Tony and I were up early again, setting things up for another potential day without the car. I drove into town to test it out, and get milk and a couple of other supplies. At first it didn’t overheat, but when I cranked the AC up the temperature started going up. I dropped off the milk and fridge and other necessities and took it around to the mechanic, this time with the temp still hot so that he could see it. He jumped in to the drivers seat and we took it for a drive, he could get it to cool down but then it did heat up again when driving around town.

He decided to change the thermostat – the one he’d ordered hadn’t come so he’d put in an after-market one, he thought maybe putting in the genuine part might fix it. He dropped me back at the caravan park and said he’d call me when it was done.

We spent the morning hanging around again, playing with the puppies and kittens, doing puzzles, I read Brisingr for a while. Tony went for a bike ride on Caitlin’s bike, to get a new puncture kit for his tyre which was flat again. He had discovered a big thorn through his tyre which may have been repuncturing the tube. Being near the RAAF base, we’d heard fighter planes several times during our stay but hadn’t seen them, today they came right overhead which was a bit exciting.

I talked to the mechanic after lunch and changing the thermostat hadn’t helped. They’d tried a few other little things with no luck, and the next step was to take out the water pump and check it. I asked if it would be fine to drive to Darwin, and he talked about how to manage things if the temperature started to rise, so we decided to pack up and head north and try to get the car fixed when we got to Darwin.

Tony rode over to get the car around 2pm, and we had everything packed up and ready to go by just after 4, one of our quickest pack ups (from scratch) yet. We rang a caravan park in Batchelor and booked in for the night so we weren’t worried about having to try to find somewhere when we arrived. The old billy goat came over while were packing and it took Tony quite a while to get rid of him – he just wanted to stick around and wouldn’t be pushed or dragged or scared away – he even went up on his hind legs a couple of times like he wanted to fight - which was scary to watch but didn’t bother Tony. We said goodbye to the owners and to the puppies (kids were a bit sad at that) and finally left.

Heading out of town and for the first half an hour or so we were a bit worried about how the car would manage, especially with the load of the trailer on. Whenever it heated up Tony popped it into neutral and revved the engine and it cooled back down, and after a while the temperature stopped going up. Tony found that driving a bit faster than usual helped keep it cooler too.(we normally sit around 80 or 90km/hr with the trailer on, 100km/hr seemed to work better today). After an hour or so we tried putting the air conditioner on and the temperature stayed stable – so it was a much more comfortable drive than we had anticipated, and we made it to Batchelor by 6.50pm. Reception at the caravan park closed at 7, and the guy was happy to see us as he thought perhaps our car hadn’t made it. He said it would have stayed open a little longer for us seeing as we’d rung – he was so friendly and helpful and it was a great welcome after a hot and frustrating day.

It was practically dark by the time we started setting up, in a great bush site at the back of the caravan park. There were a lot of mosquitoes but we sprayed ourselves and things settled down a bit. We are fairly well practiced at setting up now so the dark didn’t slow us down too much – and it was so great to see the stars again! Our campsite in Katherine had a light on a big pole right next to our tent, so we were under artificial light the whole evening and night, and it was so refreshing to just be outside and feel part of the night and the surrounds again. We hadn’t realised how much our campground was getting us down, as well as the worry about the car it was hot and dry and dusty and there was no view, it was too far to walk to anything in the heat so we had felt quite stuck – it’s different having a rest day because we choose to as opposed to having a rest day because we can’t get anywhere. The kids explored the park while Tony and I settled back into a happy holiday routine and both felt like we were enjoying our trip again and could look forward to the rest of it.

We had a conglomeration of left overs for dinner and then tried to set up our new tent fans to cool the tent down a bit. This is definitely the most humid place we’ve been, we were still sweating profusely as we went to bed and there was little relief from the heat.

Half-lap Day 30: Elliott -> Daly Waters

It was warm all night so hard to get a good night’s sleep, but we all felt better in the morning anyway. Everyone was awake by around 7.30, and we had breakfast and started to pack up. The kids played with the kids from the caravan next door, Millie took her animal friends over there again, and LiAM and the little boy wandered around after the peacocks. We chatted to a retired nutritionist who is travelling around Australia for a few months by herself, and said goodbye to our friends next door. I saw the little frog again sitting on top of the soap shelf in the shower.

When I took the key back to have my deposit returned, Caitlin came with me to buy herself a slushie, and Millie saw a very cute unicorn that she wanted to buy. I tried to convince her to wait until we could find it somewhere cheaper, and she reluctantly agreed. The shopkeeper overheard our conversation and asked if she had to pay for it out of her own money, (yes), then said he’d put in $3 if she could pay the other $10, so she very happily bought it (after spending a bit of time deliberating over whether she really wanted that one or an equally cute seal). Caitlin saw a lady that she’s met a few times on our travels and we chatted to her briefly.

We were on our way just after 9.30, and with the windows down it wasn’t too hot in the car for a while. Before we left Tony and Caitlin had seen 3 kestrals swooping around together near our tent, and as we drove we saw many many more, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. At one point we saw 2 birds up ahead eating some roadkill, right in the middle of our lane. The looked like crows from a distance. As we approached they didn’t move, even with Tony beeping the horn – and they didn’t seem to get any smaller. We realised they were wedge-tailed eagles – one of them flew off as we pulled into the other lane to go around them, the other one stood it’s ground. It’s so amazing to see them up close, they are SO big. We also saw a flock of red-tailed black cockatoos fly up from a tree as we passed. Today we saw our first 4-trailer road train too - they are long!!!

We only drove about 160km, and it was heating up as it got later in the day. We stopped at the Daly Waters HiWay Inn for petrol (and saw a 4WD with a spare tyre that had been torn to shreds) then drove in to the Daly Waters Pub. We were given a shady unpowered site and set up while the kids explored the caravan park. I went with LiAM to see if we could find the pool, none of us could see it. We chatted to the guy next to us, who had a Labrador and said the kids were welcome to pat him anytime.

Once we were all set up we all went to check out the pub – it’s full of items that have been donated by visitors – shirts, thongs, ID cards, hats, bras. There are funny outback signs everywhere and it has a great atmosphere. We found the pool out past the bar, and came back to get our swimmers. It was so great in the pool, the water was cool but not too cold, and there were shade cloths so it was possible to get out of the sun. There were several older couples hanging out in the pool, so we mainly stayed down the shallow end. Millie’s water confidence has grown so much in the last month. She jumped in and turned and swam back to the edge, then swam increasing distances to me or Caitlin or Tony or the edge. After a while she realised she could swim from the steps to the other side if I was there to catch her, and she swam back and forwards for ages.

Memorabilia at Daly Waters Pub

I got out after a while and read my book, then LiAM and I came back to the tent and played cards. The others returned after a while and we hung out here, playing cards and chatting. Our neighbours from Alice Springs arrived and we caught up on our journeys of the last few days. A bit after 5 we went back to the pub for happy hour, and met up with our neighbours from Devils Marbles. Their dog was there too, he’s an assistance dog so is allowed in the bar. We chatted to them, Tony and I had a beer (my first full beer in a very long time and it was great place to have it) and the kids had slushies. Once they’d finished they went back to the pool, where they met up with their friends from Kings Canyon. The kids all swam together for a while then Millie’s friend got out. I had a quick swim and Millie did more laps across the pool to me and back to the steps. Tony stayed chatting to our friends with the dog – they were sitting at the closest seat to the pool so it was easy for us to be in different places. I read my book once I’d had enough, and we bought some hot chips to share for tea – we got a double serving but it still wasn’t very much. They were delicious with the gravy though. The atmosphere in the pub was great, there was live music and lots of people there for the beef and barra bbq, and the water in the pool was a perfect temperature. We were the only ones in there for ages.

Eventually LiAM and I came back to the tent again, played cards and got ready for bed. The stars were incredible, a deep black sky with bright stars peeking through the gaps in the trees. Tony and the girls came later, everyone was exhausted and happy, so we got into bed as quick as we could and read for a short while.