Days 103 - 115

Days 103 – 115

BEWARE: a lot of mechanical terms are used in this blog which, of course, I understand completely!

We left Kununurra after collecting 80 litres of WVO and headed for an area called Diggers Rest. We arrived at Diggers Rest around 5pm WA time (that is 7pm Sydney time, 6.30pm Adelaide time and who knows what time Hong Kong time!!). We found that instead of it being a bush camp area, it was a working cattle station. Gerard got out of the car and spoke with the owner who told us we could camp in our “own paddock”. We drove around the corner and were greeted by 450 goats, numerous horses, chickens, bulls, heifers, emus and dogs in our “paddock”. It was a little surreal to say the least! For the first time in a while, I can honestly say it was not the birds that woke me up in the morning, but the call of some hungry kid goats “bleating” away quite merrily. We bade farewell to “Old McDonnell’s Farm” after taking a wander around the station and seeing the cars they use to muster and brand the bulls (the “Bull Catchers” as they call them), which had obviously seen a lot of action over their time.

We headed for the first gorges of what we hoped would be many, the beautiful Emma Gorge and El Questro, before we took the track leading up to Mitchell Plateau. Mitchell Plateau is a huge area with its main attractions being the largest waterfall in Australia and its untamed coastline with white beaches and turquoise sea. We stayed at a gorgeous bush camp called King Edward River, which had a series of waterholes and waterfalls that we could swim in that were deemed as “safe” – (“safe” up here means no salties, only fresh water crocs!).

The next day, we left early with our packed lunch and water to go and see the Falls. We had only got 10 kms up the road before the car stalled. Despite numerous efforts of trying to restart the car, the car would not start. Even though it was only 7am, the sun was already up and hot (the highs of the previous few days had been 42 degrees) and so I remembered the advice from Ray Mears survival programmes (!) and unpacked our picnic rug under the very little shade that there was, got hats out for everyone and set up camp to wait for the next car. Three hours past before the first car came up the track. I am not quite sure what we would have looked like to those people as Sarah was reading a book, Gerard was eating and I was plucking my eyebrows! Three aboriginals got out of the car and asked what was wrong. Before they examined under the bonnet, Pauley wanted to know which tribe I was from (apparently, I am the same colour as a local tribe near to them!). Niceties over with, they examined the car, tightening this and that, watching Gerard change the filter, pumping the air out of the fuel injector etc (I told you there were a lot of mechanic terms being used in this blog!). About 30 minutes past before the next car arrived, Les and Carol from Perth, closely followed by Julie and Alan from Townsville. They all asked what was wrong and pulled up in front of us to help out. Every car that past (6 in total) all got out and helped and we were very grateful to all for sparing their time to stop with us. At one stage, there were 10 people looking at the car (well, 4 blokes by the car, 6 women standing in the shade!) and Julie decided to get out her polished tea pot together with tea cosy to make everyone a cuppa on the side of the road! Despite everyone’s efforts, the Battered Fish would not get started and we unrolled our beautiful purple tow rope for the first time for Julie and Alan to tow the Fish back to our camp. Whilst Gerard sweated away in the Fish being towed, Sarah and I sat in Les and Carol’s air conned car – bliss after the heat of the day! Les and Carol were also staying at the same camp and in the afternoon, Les came over and he and Gerard spent the afternoon getting every spanner out of their respective tool boxes trying to fix the car. Eventually, the car started and we were once again extremely grateful to Les for spending so much of his time helping us out.

The next morning, it was a bit like ground hog day as we packed up lunch for the day, filled up water bottles and left early to go to the Falls. Thankfully, the car started first time and sounded healthy. We past “the hill of death” where we had stalled yesterday and got to the Falls no problem at all. First stop was to the scenic helicopter flight pad where we surprised Sarah with an early 30th birthday present of a hour helicopter flight over the coastline and to the Falls (the emissions from this will, of course, be offset!). All I can say is “Wow”! Neither of us had been in a helicopter before and after we got used to the noise and the fact that we had no doors, we sat back in silent amazement of the views. The pilot took us over the coast line where we not only saw white sands and turquoise seas, but also sharks, salties, turtles and stinger rays in the sea. On such sightings, he would take the helicopter down as near to the sea as possible so we got a good view of everything. I was not in a hurry to jump into the sea for a swim after the flight! The Falls were also great to see, although I am sure that in the Wet they are far more impressive with the amount of water that would flow through them.

After four days at King Edward River, we left to rejoin the Gibb River Road. The car had been running perfectly since it had stalled and we had travelled over 300 kms without a problem. We were within 2 kms of our next gorge when we switched the car over from oil to diesel. Suddenly, it stalled and once again, we had a waiting game on the side of the track as we could not get it started. (My eye brows didn’t need plucking this time so I wondered what to do!). Before long, Dave and Bernice from Derby came by and offered to help. Once again, we were overwhelmed by their generosity with their time as not only did they tow us to the nearest camp spot 37 kms away at Manning Gorge but stayed with us that night so that Dave could help Gerard with the car in the morning. This time, they drained out the diesel from the car as we were only having problems with the car when we ran first off on diesel or last thing at night. They (and others who had surrounded the car as the bonnet was up!) came to the conclusion that our so called “diesel” was actually kerosene. They held proper diesel in a clear jug up against our diesel in the car and the colour difference was noticeable even to me. With this new information in hand, we started the car up with some aerostart and drove 7 kms to the nearest roadhouse to use the public phone to phone a mechanic. We got 4 kms before the car stalled and guess what…..it wouldn’t start again, not even with aerostart. For the third time in as many days, we unravelled our beautiful purple tow rope and got a tow from the caretaker at the roadhouse back to our camp!

With the car not starting, we enquired how much a tow would be to Broome, as that is the first major town on this section of the road. To go 450 kms, it would cost us $4500 to be towed!! I told Gerard that I don’t care how he got the car started; we just had to get it going as there was no way we could afford $4500!!! Gerard studied his new bible (the Landcruiser manual) and the next day, he found where the fuel was leaking from and did a patch job on the car to get it started. To celebrate, we eventually took a walk to Manning Gorge, where we had been staying for the last three days. The gorge itself was stunning, with a waterfall cascading down into a deep, clear pool. We spent the day relaxing at the Gorge and doing rock jumps from the fall. Even though the jumps did not look high from across the pool, once you were up there, it felt really high!

With the help of some tape and aerostart, we have arrived safely in Derby, where we are getting all the electronics on the car looked at, before we drive the final 150kms to Broome. We are also restocking on oil and food for our next journey which will hopefully be “breakdown free”!

I have included some photos of our breakdown journey across the Gibb River Road (we are thinking of renaming the blog “Around Oz on a Tow”), the waterfall at Manning Gorge, Emma Gorge, the Bull Catchers, rock jumping at Manning Gorge, a picture of the boab tree that we are encountering now that we are in Western Australia, pictures from our flight of the coastline, crossing Pentecost River and Mitchell Falls.

We hope you are all well and thanks all for your emails and comments,

Rach and Ged x