Thursday 21st August 2014

Thursday 21^st of August.

Got up at the hint of daylight and hastily put on a jumper and my quality $8 ugg boots from Rivers. Headed off down to the spring with my camera. There were a few folk already there taking an early morning dip. Thankfully with swimmers on.

 

Dawn at Dalhousie Springs

The direction of the spring faced the wrong way for sunrise photos so I had heard from the Melbourne people that there is a track going all the way around the spring so decided that since the spring isn’t that big – big as a kidney shaped football oval I guess that it wouldn’t take long to go around and see if there was a better vantage point. So I started plodding along in my ill fitting very sloppy boots and my very a bit warm for running jumper. It wasn’t long before the sun started rising properly and I wasn’t in the right position to take the photos so I started to jog.

the colours of the morning

 I managed to jog/walk taking the occasional photo of the light playing on the surrounding mountains which was fun but the nice walk around the spring took longer than I thought and I ended up in the car park -  where I then jogged back to where I started, boiling hot with inappropriate shoes, no running gear. Greg was there with a guy from the landcare ( they weren’t land care but called themselves something else but did a similar job) group having a chat. I was surprised to see Greg and I must have looked a sight as he had shorts and thongs and I looked fit for an arctic adventure but hot as!

 

sunrise over Dalhousie springs

At the right time though the sun streamed through the trees in a great yellow ball and the steam off the spring started to rise in the sun and it all looked great so I took a photo – and that was all as my memory card was full and I had no spare. Bugger!

 

so serene

Returning to the van I passed up the golden opportunity for a cold shower since we had bobbed around in fresh water for hours the night before and we were on the road early having to cover about 200km back to Oodnadatta up a dirt road in goodness knows what condition. We started out at 10km/hr. Prior to that I threw the makings of a ripper curried snags into the shuttle chef for lunch.

Progress was slow and it took us a while but we were rewarded with a fantastic view of the Dalhousie ruins. Complete with original cattle yards and palm trees. What a treat for photographers. We stopped Gibson, I got another memory card for my SLR with lots of exposures on it and proceeded to go nuts at these ruins. We took lots of photos and could have taken stacks more. The ruins were lovingly preserved by a local mob who have come over to recap and stop the crumbling of the buildings. There were old fireplaces, the smithy’s shop and several outbuildings. Also there were information panels that showed a glimpse of the isolation and harshness of living in far north South Australia, in the desert with no internet. Men went mad and wept like kids apparently.  However we were in 7^th heaven with all the things to take photos of and felt sorry for the early settler’s sacrifices but very appreciative.

Off again up the  corrugated, washed out and potholed road at a roaring 20km/hr at best. Eventually we joined the main Ooodnadatta track again which was much wider and felt like a badly maintained highway.

About 2pm we stopped for lunch on a flat area safe to pull over – which don’t come often. Ours was kind of a clay pan but luckily firm so we pulled over and got out to the tune of a million flies – so hastily retreated into the van with the shuttle chef – which travels in the car on the back seat floor so it does not tip over. It has its own insulated bag with strap so when you get it out of the van it looks like luggage. Its actually our lunch cooking inside!

In the van we pull out the table and get the bowls and spoons out, unpack the shuttle chef and dish out the meal.  Cold drinks are in the fridge behind. So in spite of the buggery of pulling this great big heavy beast everywhere, its one consolation to the inconvenience. Likewise when its raining or windy. You can be totally out of the weather - like you come inside for lunch!

 

The water hole

if you can read the legend -the reason behind the water hole

Back to business - on out to Oodnadatta to finish travelling the track

Anyway lunch over with we pack up the shuttle chef, put the bowls in the sink packed away so they don’t rattle and break and off we go.

On the road again and it was my turn to drive. I had to pass a truck who didn’t have his radio on.  I could not tell him I was there and to slow down so I could pass – so when I did, I didn’t wave to him.

Its an outback thing, waving. Actually it’s a thing with caravaners. When you are on the road – wherever you are and you are towing a van you wave to oncoming van towing drivers. Actually campervans, camper trailers and motor homes too. Most wave back with the exception of hire motor homes and some camper trailers. Usually motor homes are rented by foreigners who are unaware about the waving thing and some camper trailer people we have found are too hard core to wave. But when you are in the outback, you wave at everyone. Well not the great big arm flying wave, it could be the index finger off the steering wheel, or half a hand. Acknowledgement anyway. Its really friendly even when some people wave as they go past at 100km/hr and shower you with stones from the road. Narrowly not breaking your windscreen. Slow down dickheads!

Well since we were on the road again to Oodnadatta, we counted down the miles until we were in town again. Not that you could call Oodnadatta a massive town. As we approached our camel friends were on the road again, heading for the free camp with just about every kid in Oodnadatta running after the wagon. Would have made a great photo is we weren’t flat out dodging children on the road, plus it was out Greg’s side and I was in the passenger seat.

We booked back into the caravan park expecting to be on our own again. This time with a powered site.  Our computer batteries were all but flat which isn’t handy when you are trying to keep a travel diary. I needed also to do some washing as it had been 8 days since my last wash. Sounds like a confessional – forgive me lord I have not washed clothes for 8 days. How many hail nappysans shall I do? Actually its $1 coins.

Well stuff me there was a 4WD bus with about 22 people in it all camping – which took up considerable space and the one we wanted this time.

Inconvenience

Then there were other people too- all over the place and with our big van (that isn’t the biggest compared to others) there was about one place we would fit that we could hook in to power.

We took this site and stayed hitched. Some men with the camping trip which were right beside us and busy setting up tents and camping beds commented about me and my 2 way radio guiding Greg to steer Gibson into position. They were trying to be very funny but meant well.

We leveled up and plugged in and started plugging in all our computers, camera batteries etc and I nicked off up the shop again to get a fist full of $1 coins for the washing machine. If I only got smalls and T shirts done, it would be a victory.

In the washing machine I found a dead moth. I started the machine knowing that everything that comes out of a caravan park top loading machine has lint on it. Yuk I hate lint. I don’t even like chocolates called Lindt. Why would you name chocolate after a nuisance? I was prepared – but these were just smalls and Tshirts. The correct amount of washing liquid and a hefty dose of nappysan and even the lint that isn’t ours will be at least  - ‘sanitized someone else’s lint’.

Then I busied myself with cleaning the van as best I could knowing that the same dirt and dust would be on the floor tomorrow – but at least its not in built up layers! The water you could not drink but you could wash floors and furniture and car windscreens with.

Because we could use the microwave(!) as we had power, I defrosted some mince meat so I could make a spag bol. Sauce and freeze some for lazy nights or just exhausted nights more to the point later. I was going to do this over the fire but we had a change of plan.

Greg as you know goes around the car kicking the wheels each in turn. Not because he is looking for an anger management course but so he can see if the bearings have become loose. The amount of corrugations and lumps we drive over would break anything.

As luck would have it one wheel on the van – again- but different wheel was loose. Greg had to fix it up or we would risk a bad thing happening on the road. We have the jack – but since we use it as a jockey wheel, we had to take it off the front of our beautifully leveled van and use it as it was intended.  (we were still hitched). The trouble began when Greg had to take the split pin out of the bearing. This proved very difficult as whoever rammed it in at the manufacturer’s must have been his last thing on a Friday afternoon. (done badly). Greg had a devil of a time getting it out to tighten up the bearings. For this just about every male in the camp came over to offer help of give terribly useful advice. However in spit of their helpfulness for which Greg was gracious and thankful – he managed to get the split pin out, straighten it up again, tighten the bearings, put the whole lot back together and wheel back on and come inside. Very stuffed. This was supposed to be his rest time or download photos time. However it was avert disaster time so I poured him a good gin and tonic. It was too late for sleeps.

I decided to do the dinner on the stove but Greg still made a nice camp fire for which we had lots of lovely drop in visitors, staying briefly for a chat before bed. We ate our dinner outside and enjoyed our relaxing fire. I must say that my pasta sauce was really nice and we got 2 new freezer meals out of it. Washed up because here there is hot water, the clothes in the washing machine I had hung out for a while, then finished off in the drier were done, folded and put away. My van was clean. We survived the crappy roads for the day. All good. Time for bed.

Wednesday 20th August 2014

The bunting of stubby holders from all over the place - $10 per stubby all money goes to the Royal Flying Doctors.
 A Rutherglen Hash House Harriers one is up there now - I hope. Mount Dare Pub 2014

Steve the wheel fixing legend with Greg who managed to teach him something too.

Mel and Dave with their Mount Dare sign

Lola and Tubby, Dave's parents here for a holiday from Melbourne

Wednesday 20^th of August

Woke up to another brilliant day and a cold start. Decided to take the camera and photograph the broken windmill and other things around the pub as the sun rose. Don’t think any of those photos are going to set the world on fire.

 

The display outside the amenities block

We had to have a shower before we left as we hadn’t had one yesterday so again it was the trek to the amenities block with all the washing kit. The block was a tin shed with a cement floor. Clean and basic but with lots of hooks and a bench to put things so they didn’t get wet. Greg had a hot shower and I had an almost hot shower so hurried up.

Every day Greg checks the oil and water in the car and all the wheels on car and van. One on the van was wobbly so we decided to investigate. Little did we know that our bearing was loose and to continue on our journey we would have locked up and lost the wheel. After putting the wheel off and on – which is a feat when it’s a 16 inch wheel, I kept suggesting that we go to the pub which has a workshop and see if they could make sure it was ok. This fell on deaf ears until we went for fuel and in passing I mentioned that we had a wobbly wheel to Steve, who was one of the working people there so after fuelling up he suggested we take it around to the workshop to have another look.

 

Diesel tanks and generator shed

2 generators- what makes it all tick. If they break down you're stuffed

Relief for me. I went inside to pay and got chatting to the people inside. Mel and Dave had long departed to Alice Springs and Lola was schooling the children. They do school of the air but since they only recently moved up here and were in a normal school they kind of think they are on an extended holiday. Mel was discussing last night the possibility of a governess to come out as she just didn’t have time to run things and school the kids.

 

Tranquil waterhole early in the morning

Greg looking the seasoned 4WD traveller outside Mount Dare Pub.

Bloody wheel  bearings!

Caz outside the Mount Dare pub. Yay its hot.
I can wear a Tshirt - finally!!

Anyway, the people sitting around the table explained that they were 2 couples, one from Canberra and the other from Tasmania. They are travelling around getting work on stations and remote pubs and there seems to be a bit of work around. One lady, Monica, Steve’s wife said that she had had no experience at kitchen hand or anything and she just picked it up as she went along. A lot of it was cleaning and she said that it wasn’t hard work but the hours were long when they were busy and it was 7 days per week with hardly a day off. She also said that the pay wasn’t the best but it includes meals and because there isn’t anything to spend it on and you don’t go anywhere, you save up a bit ready for the next trip and if you line up a job to go to then you can claim the travel between the 2 jobs as a tax deduction. They are doing a stint in the Kimberleys after this.

The couple from Canberra had a different story, they had a trial run over to the west and were offered several jobs on the way. They came back and she took a package from the public service. He was a coach driver and was sick of it – so with both of them fed up with their current lifestyles they embarked on a short term contract in the outback and were going now back to Canberra to collect their motor home (a converted bus) and they were going to be on the road from now on.

They both said that it was a wonderful way of life but short contract of a maximum of 3 months were the best as 6 months becomes a bit long.

Unbeknown to me, Greg and wheel fixing Steve were having a similar conversation. They took the wheel and bearing off to reveal that it was indeed dangerously loose – so they fixed it up. Greg showed Steve our Trailer Mate jack which he was thrilled about as he didn’t know that the jack could double as a jockey wheel and it was the only thing high enough to jack Gibson up without getting out heavy duty truck stuff. Also Greg showed Steve an easy way of getting the wheel back on the caravan, instead of using a screwdriver to lever it on, we used our shovel which gave easier leverage. So Steve showed Greg what to do if the bearings come loose again and Greg showed Steve a handy trick or two.

We all parted friends and wished each other luck in the future. It was already late and the day had warmed up a bit.

We drove out of Mount Dare and back into the sand and rough roads. We had been advised there were 2 ways of going to our next destination – which was Dalhousie springs. One road was so bad nobody even the locals went on it, the other was bad but doable.

 

our selfie

First we went past the Blood’s Creek Ruins. This little place sprung up to service the telegraph line workers and had a house and a pub. It got its name from a Mr Blood rather than something gruesome. There were graves there but not marked and the ruin was reduced to some metal relics – broken fragments of glass and iron, a slab of broken cement, the odd sprung mattress lying around rusting away and not much. It was in such a remote place. When the railway came through and went nowhere near there, the place went out of business and went to ruin.

sand and more sand made for tricky driving

We took a few photos and hopped back in the car. The road had been a little bad but nothing compared to what was coming up.

 

Rock and roll Mister Gibson - and this is with stability bars on!

rocky and flat for a minute

fancy a bit of riverbed driving?

The road was windy, rocky and then sand. At one part where there was a huge sand washout. It looked so deep that I got out to investigate first. Greg had suggested that he would go to the right – but when I walked over there it was 2 feet of sand and Gibson would have got rightly stuck. Ever conscious that we were on our own towing a big heavy van I started to find a better route by kicking the sand away to reveal a solid rock base underneath. Talking Greg through on the 2 way, he engaged low range 2^nd gear and started steadily going through. It was real heart in mouth stuff. Lady cruiser chewed her way through the sand, wheels spinning slightly but not enough to get stuck, it felt like forever until Greg steered our rig, up out of the washout and on to firm road  - where I hopped back in the car – I had taken my 35mm camera with me so I could photograph it all. Photos will never show how deep the sand was though.

Congratulating my husband enthusiastically and praising the fact we had done a 4WD course earlier in the year, we trundled off down the road – but that wasn’t the first and last sand washout. The road was abound with challenging sand areas – we were on the edge of the Simpson Desert which is why. Luckily we didn’t get bogged in the sand once here but there were several other moments when we held our breath and hoped that the cruiser would low range crawl out of thick sand. The caravan didn’t help matters as he slips all over the place (like a kid wearing socks on a polished floor doing slides) making your steering jurkey and pulley.

It took us 5 hours to get to Dalhousie Springs. It was only 70 kilometers away! We had both taken our one hour off and one hour on driving. The road had parts so bad we were down to 5 and 10 km per hour. The bumps so bad I was glad to be wearing an underwire sports bra or things would never be the same again!

We arrived finally at the spring which is run by National parks and found lots of room to park so we backed up Gibson and stayed hitched in a section where nobody else was. I wandered off to find the ranger’s office to pay for camping fees. We both felt in need of a stiff drink after a grueling day.

 

camp Dalhousie Springs. Greg could not resist putting the awning out on the van.

There were eco toilets here and cold showers. The spring is one of the artesian basin so the water was 37 or so degrees and clean and fresh and once we got in – after meeting some people that had been in that day and encouraged us to be quick as it was so good – it was lovely. Lots of people had been in the waterhole that day. There were a group of volunteers from Adelaide who come up and plant new trees to conserve the area, there were several people obviously in a 4WD adventure tour and bobbing around in the spring was a lovely couple from Melbourne about our age or a little older who recognized our van from Arkaringa. We ended up having a chat for ages and all eventually emerged from the spring - relaxed and prune like and a bit sad that we weren’t all travelling in the same direction tomorrow as we could have become great mates. They were on their way north, and us south.

We had a quick BBQ snags dinner – the only thing that defrosts quickly and I par boiled some spuds inside the van on the stove so Greg could do them on the Barbie too. The spuds were sensational. I had some peas, cauliflour and carrots as well.

There were some snags left over so I though I would do a sausage curry tomorrow in the Shuttle Chef.

Because of the lack of fresh bread, I have been making casserole lunches in the morning and putting them in the shuttle chef to continue slow cooking until lunch time. Its good as there isn’t a lot to do to get lunch on the table and we can usually eat in the van which saves sharing your lunch with all the flies – although one or two usually sneak in. You can also have lunch whenever you like and there is minimum washing up only two spoons, bowls and the shuttle chef. Its usually a vegetable based casserole with some sort of carbs mixed in like one day soup mix, the next Quinoa and tomorrow would be rice. Depending on whats about to go off in the fridge next it makes for variety. However after 7 days of these hot lunches, even though they are nutritionally based I would love a fresh bread salad sandwich!!

Anyway menu aside – I hoped to photograph the sun rise over the spring in the morning. Tomorrow would be a big day risking a short cut road back to Oodnadatta. We would need to get a powered site as our computer and camera batteries needed a good charge.

Tuesday 19th August - Mount Dare

Station dog outside the caravan - more than 5 miles from Gundagai!!

Tuesday 19^th of August

I woke up early as Greg insists on sleeping with the blinds down so he can wake up in the morning, which he eventually does but its some time after dawn and I am waking up at dawn not able to get back to sleep so since this is the first time I have been on a station I decided to get up and put on warm clothes and take some photos of the dawn on this very flat, desolate but amazing country side.

Greg had woken up by the time I had come back so we got travel ready and went on our way.

Back along the corrugated roads saying goodbye with our last view of the painted desert. Back to Oodnadatta.

The Homestead

It was a great sunny day and we were quite hungry so went halves in the legendary Oodnadatta Pink Roadhouse burger – they are quite large so we figured half would do us for lunch since we were only going to be sitting in the car a few hours to Mount Dare.

But oh what we didn’t know!

So yummy hamburger and great chips away, I had a really nice coffee and managed to make Greg one too from his machine – I found a power point – and off we went in the general direction of Mount Dare which is right on the Simpson desert and an hour or so from the Northern Territory border. Because of its location, it’s a mecca for four wheel driver enthusiasts. There is a pub at Mount Dare with a camping facility and accommodation.

 

Massive burger in half was still
enough for a meal!

Pink roadhouse inside

We were about 30km out of Oodnadatta when I spotted on the side of the road a Sturt’s Desert Pea out in flower. This amazing little plant’s flower is bright red with a black middle. We were going too fast to photograph the first one but then I spotted some in the distance so got Greg to stop.

Now I forgot to mention that today was the first day in a long time that Greg has swapped from his normal glasses to contact lenses and so for the whole journey from the Station to Oodnadatta I drove so that he could get used to them. Now it was his turn to drive.

 

Sturt's Desert Peas.

So back to the Sturt’s desert Pea – He said he would stop just after the horses. I was very worried  - before us about 30 meters or so ahead was a wagon being pulled by 2 camels. Like the sight of that was so unexpected. But yep there was a chick talking to these camels and pulling 2 lead ropes that joined their halters. They were plodding along towing what looked like a gypsy caravan, with another camel being lead from behind and a baby camel too. Hastily I took a photo of the flower and then concentrated on the most unusual sight before us. They were waiting for us but then they started coming toward us.

of course you see camels on the way to Mount Dare!

We stopped for a chat. They were raising money for drought victims and were going to all the outback towns gradually making their way to Adelaide. The camels came to a stop right near Gibson and one did the most enormous wee. Thankfully missing our caravan. Evan who was driving is an ex station hand and loves camels, Haylee the young lady leading the camels had a career in special events makeup. Now they have spent many a month on the road and even found the baby camel as an orphan and took him along too. They hope to live in near Adelaide and farm camels for milk or something. We chatted for a while until it was obvious that we all had to get on our way and parted company, not before I gave them a generous donation to their cause. Have to look out for them on the news as channel 7 spent 4 days filming them for a report or something so I hope it gets national not just SA coverage.

the adopted baby who was found wandering all alone

Sexy camels?

The cause - feel free to donate 

We drove down some of the most bone shattering roads, the corrugations were terrible, there were gibber planes full of little stones, red dirt corrugation, white sand, beige sandstone corrugation and now and again a little bit of smooth which was oh so nice, but brief, and it was back to corrugation. Some parts we were only going 10km/hr. This trip was taking much longer than planned. The sun started to dip and we wondered how long it was going to take us to reach the pub.

Oh the choices - where to go!!

Ah!! Pub and Greg had a longing for a cold beer. Not that he can drink beer after his heart attack as he now hates the taste. We struck a deal, he order a beer and I would finish it for him.

Are we there or anywhere..yet?

That’s if we ever got there.

More bumps, we kept swapping drivers every hour as fatigue kicks in with the constant vigilance of the road. You can’t take your eyes off it for a minute as there will be a hole or a big rock to puncture your tyres, or sand that tries to rip the steering wheel out of your hands, then if hitting the sand wasn’t bad enough the caravan slides around so you really have to concentrate and hang on. Hence an hour of picking the best line in the road, sizing up how big corrugations are and trying not to trash car and van is exhausting, especially after 5 hours.

 

Wind donkey - in need of a foot trim
they were like pixie slippers poor thing could hardly walk

Horses doing their best to eat 

Eventually we found the roadhouse. Right before it was a sand pan that almost bogged us. The pub/roadhouse/most welcome sight of all was just there. At the entrance was indicated by an enormous broken windmill, a skinny gate and a levy bank.

 

Mount Dare's broken windmill - such a welcome sight!

We rolled in and it looked like the whole place was shut. Dismay. So I volunteered to hop out and see what the go was.

Turns out that they were not shut at all, just the outdoor lights weren’t on yet. It was 6.15pm. The friendly publican rose from a table of about 8 people all eating dinner. I apologized for interrupting his dinner and mentioned that we would be having dinner and if we could stay the night in the park. He looked with somewhat surprise that we were towing a big van. “You towed that big van here?” he said, to which I replied “Yes, its supposed to be an off roader so we are taking it off road, its supposed to handle these roads so we thought why not.” Then he gave me the instructions to get to the camp site and said he would start cooking our dinner when we came back but not to be too long as the kitchen staff wanted to shut the kitchen.

Fair enough.

After such a big day I could not have thought of anything worse than starting to cook. I had nothing out of the freezer. We had eaten our ‘all else fails pasta and sauce meal’ the night before. Besides we hadn’t talked to anyone much all trip. People were keeping to themselves and these people in the pub looked really friendly.

After a quick set up – the Caz run around the camp and see where we can put Gibson in and so we can get out, we went for dinner. I was dressed elegantly in hiking boots, dusty ¾ hiking pants, no makeup, but I did have a nice jumper. The only clean one left. Greg equally elegant in dusty work boots, really dirty blue jeans and an old t shirt that should have been in the rag bag about 6 months ago, also dusty. What a class act.

It didn’t matter, we were welcomed into the pub. No doubt these people have seen people covered in dust before. Greg bought his beer and I bought a T shirt and finished his beer. We selected a table and then Greg got talking to the barman and I got talking to a lady sitting at the table and then we ended up moving to their table, enjoying a Mount Dare bottle of Red wine, making great friends, sharing stories and having one of the nicest evenings outside the sunset Gin and tonic night yet.

They had a fundraiser going for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Everyone in the bush fundraises for RFDS. The ladies in Hay knit blankets to raffle, there are sausage sizzles on Saturdays, fetes, race days, you name it. Its such an essential service out in the bush. Anyway for $10 you could have a stubby holder strung on a piece of rope from the ceiling of the bar. There were hundreds of them there already from all over the place – kind of like a stubby holder bunting you might see at a fair if you will. Anyway, Greg hastened back to the van to get a Hash House Harrier Stubby holder with his name on it. We got them in Rutherglen this year when we did the winery crawl and they look really pretty but we have so many and thought it fitting to leave a little bit of hash culture here in the outback. So we paid our $10 and hope they put it up soon.

After our nice meal, decent wine and great company we all decided to call it a night. We had had a great time with Dave and Mel, who own the pub. His parents Tubby and Lola who were visiting from Melbourne to mind the kids while Dave and Mel went to Alice Springs the next day on a shopping trip for the pub.