Our Trip

Day Ten 

WARNING:

Extra long post follows

(so grab a cup of tea and put your reading

glasses on, maybe grab a bikky too) 

Day Ten and there's still quite a few

days to go, but this is where our

Canning Stock Route trip took a little 

different, unplanned turn. 

The weather this morning was cold

once again, it looked liked we'd be

wearing our beanies and warm

jackets for a while longer. 

Not that we were complaining much,

as at least we weren't sweating it out during

the day, which was just as well, as showers weren't 

a regular thing. 

A fella and his wife pulled in late at night

and he came across in the morning to borrow 

our fire for his billy. Him and his wife do 

outback trips taking supplies to very isolated places.

(that is his billy in the photo)

I made sure I took a few more photos

of the windmill (I love windmills),

and the galahs were happy to pose for me. 

I had hoped, the night before to take a silhouetted star

long exposure photo over the windmill, but alas, 

with the extra vehicles turning up, that put 

an end to that idea with them shining their torches all around

and going back and forth to the tank to get water. 

Sigh. Another day, another windmill, another shot. 

While we were packing up, a truck rolled in 

from down the road at a work camp, 

to fill up his tanker with water. 

That's all fine and good, but we were just about

to fill up our water tanks and needed a fair bit. 

Dave had a chat to them and they said they'd make sure

they left the level above the pump. But, they took too much,

so then they kindly pumped some back in so we could fill up. 

This was a time consuming job, but we managed to 

be on our way to the community close by at 9am. 

We were all very excited to be going to 

a shop and seeing if they had cold coke! 

It was a little strange travelling on a wide,

pretty decent road after so long on 2 wheel tracks. 

We rolled into Kunawarritji and found that

they had a really nice new set of buildings with laundromat,

showers and toilets. That's ok, we had managed well

with our camp shower and hand washing all the clothes. 

It was a very small community and there 

wasn't many locals around. There was a very

cute little boy called Justin that I got to talk to

with his mum. 

Kunawarritji is the only place you can buy

fuel on the CSR and don't they know it! 

It's also the only shop, so the prices are exorbitant!

We paid a fortune for some mayonnaise 

(that was out of date in June 2017),

some more bottled water, bread, frozen sausages and yes a coke!

Because we were about to take a 600km detour

that we hadn't planned on, so we wanted to 

add to our stocks just a little in case. 

It was a pretty well stocked shop tho. We were like

kids in a lolly shop, looking at everything

and having our jaws dropping at the prices. 

They had some giant tins of jalepenos

and other odd things that we wondered who

in the world out there would buy them??

When we went to pay, their eftpos machine

was down and there was a Telstra man driving around

so we waited quite a while for him to fix it, as our friends

didn't have enough cash on them and we decided

that we would put 80 litres of fuel in the cruiser

just in case. 

Regarding the fuel price, well, 

hang on to your hats.

We paid...……….

$3.40 a litre!!

Yes you read that right. 

It cost us $272 for 80 litres of diesel. 

(interestingly enough, I sent this information

into our local paper in reply to an article

about fuel prices and they forwarded it to a newspaper

in Mt Isa, which saw me talking to a journalist 

who wrote a little story on it) 

Anyway, we also saw in the shop, that they had a coffee machine

of sorts, a pod machine. So we splurged on 

semi real coffee at $5 a pop. 

It took the lady sooo long to make it. 

She had to clean the machine and fiddle around

and get her trusty UHT milk.

Anyway, we realized that pod machine coffee

made with UHT milk is not very nice.

(but that didn't stop us doing it further down the road)

Desperate times call for desperate measures! We had been

surviving on coffee bags, which at least are better than instant! 

Well, after spending 2 hours in the community

we headed out. The seismic people were doing 

what they do and the road was like a highway to us.

Smooth and wide and stretched on forever. 

Which is why, an hour later, Dave and I had our first 

flat tyre? I mean, who gets flat tyres on rocky terrain,

sand dunes and corrugates? Nope, we get them on nice

smooth roads. Ha ha. 

It was so crazy. There was an extension cord

running down the side of the road with little connector

boxes all along. It was the weirdest thing to see.

The longest extension cord in the whole world I'm sure! 

Their big trucks did this strange stamping thing

and left imprints in the dust. Some geological thing. 

Regarding the detour:

the Canning Stock Route had had so much

rain in a certain section, that it was flooded and 

totally impassable so we had to skip quite a few wells,

and like I said, do a 600km loop around it. 

So, of course, now Dave and I have to go back 

and do that piece, it just doesn't look right on the map. 

If we hadn't done the detour tho,

we wouldn't have gotten to experience 

some of the excitement that you'll read about soon. 

After travelling a couple of hours,

we came to a little community called Punmu.

Now this community is a little bigger than the last

one, but on this particular day, they were having a massive

football game and there were 5 other communities that

had descended on the place, so it was pumping with action. 

We checked their store out too, as it 

was better supplied (even with roo tails)

We were able to buy a cold and very welcome 

ginger beer, as the road had been super dusty

(we don't have air con, so it's all windows down

and all dust in)

Anyway, now for the fun part. 

We were topping up again with some fuel,

after finding the man with the key for the bowser,

(only $3 a litre this time),

and what should come along, but a little 

tractor, pulling a whole set of 'carriages' 

made from metal drums, fitted with

a plank of wood for a  seat.

This was the local school bus! What?

How come they never had that when I went to 

school?? The 'bus driver' goes around each morning,

ringing his bell and rounds up the kids for school.

Then, in they hop and off they go to school. 

Well, when he saw us, he sung out to 

see if we wanted a "10 minute ride" to the footy 

oval, do a couple of laps, then he'd bring us back! 

You know, I hightailed it for my seat in the train!

I dragged Chloe with me and our friend and one

of her daughters jumped in too. 

(Maddy and Emilee were too mortified to even

consider it. Well, they missed out didn't they?)

We had the time of our lives!

We bumped along, picking up kids along the way,

all the way to the oval. Which when we got there, 

we realized that every single person, from 

each one of those 5 communities must have 

been sitting around that oval. It was packed!! 

So, here we are. White skins. Wearing cowboy hats,

sticking out like sore thumbs, waving to people as we

passed by, taking photos and thoroughly enjoying ourselves!

(okay, so Chloe was totally embarrassed, but I was 

having a ball). The 'couple of laps' around the oval

turned into numerous laps, with lots of bell ringing,

kids hopping on, waving to passers by, 

getting our photo taken by some government groups

and I even had an adorable little girl come and hop on my lap,

so I held her for the duration of the ride.

I had to stop taking photos, as she was very intrigued 

by my camera and wanted to touch all the buttons. 

That and it was so dusty my camera was suffering. 

At one point, the driver hopped off and 

came and grabbed my camera off me

and took a photo of us all. 

(After I had to explain to him how to work

my customized settings)

In the photo above, you'll see that I'm sitting

in the back of a gator, or side by side

 or something. When we had gone around 

and around and around, the fella must have 

realized he should take us back to our families,

so he off loaded us into this, and we set off

to find our husbands who by now were wandering 

where in the world we had gotten to. 

(some unknown, strange man comes along,

the wives jump into a train with him, and ride off

calmly, not knowing where they're going or

how long they're gonna be? What's  the problem there? )

Well, it was all very exciting, but we 

were covered in dust and the fellas were well and truly

ready for us to leave and look for somewhere to camp 

for the night. It was an experience of a lifetime that 

was totally unexpected and never would have 

happened except for the detour we were forced to take. 

And for those interested, I just came across this video on 

You Tube on the making of the train and some details and footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=325&v=n-0mDmF-9lw

But it was over all too soon, and we were on 

our way. We headed out of town and down

the road, with Dave and I scouting out a place to camp.

We couldn't find any really good spots but

as the daylight was fading, we settled down 

near a dam (which Dave found out, after tasting it, 

that it was very very salty, which is what I said 

I thought would be the case. But, he had to try it for himself) 

I enjoyed myself immensely, taking photo

after photo of the beautiful pink sunset 

reflected in the salty, clear water of the dam. 

Another day was ended,

and a new one, just around the corner. 

To be continued...……………..