Thursday 3rd May 2007

   I was awake just after 6 and packed up my sleeping bag which I had used on the bed to save the effort and water putting sheets etc. through the wash. I spent an extra, extravagant minute in the warm shower as it could be my last till Arkaroola 130km up the road, which will be 5 or 6 days from now. I have plenty of food (well, not really but I won't die of starvation) and I have filled up all my water bottles. I made a decision before I left that I would not top up my food stocks at stations as I am well aware that they keep sufficient for their own use but are not a general store.

   Breakfast was at 7 so I had plenty of time to fully pack up and take my gear to the patio where I had dropped it just over a day and a half ago. I took a couple of shots of the sun creeping onto the edge of this very friendly verandah. When I reflect on all that I have done here and the people that I have met, it seems more like a week and a half.

                               

   Once again, Barbara had prepared a layout for all tastes but I declined the offer of "all I could eat" out of some sort of uncharacteristic, false modesty and settled for a juice, toast and a black coffee. Barbara talked about her previous life in the medical industry in Adelaide and I promised to send her a copy of a book "Birthing a Private Hospital" by Nan Rogers. In a previous life of mine, I gave computer lessons to Nan, one of my "mature age" customers who were learning to cope with the new technology. Nan was not new to writing, having published 6 or 7 previous books but struggled when the publisher wanted the manuscript "sent in" on a floppy disk.

   While I put my pack on, Warren dug out his digital camera and got a few shots of me "all geared up" and then it was time for the inevitable goodbyes. It is a great experience meeting all these wonderful people as I go along but every one requires this "leaving" process and I am not particularly good at it. Still, from my observations, not many people are.

   The road to the gate that I walked through just a short time ago, now seemed to be twice as long. Dip down over the creek bed that I have now driven or walked across 20 times, past the now empty accommodation and wool shed, passed the holding pen with a handful of sheep and up to the gate. I couldn't resist stopping and turning, and looking around. It almost looked abandoned but I knew that it was alive. Vibrantly alive. And had a heart of gold.

   I seem to walk in a dream state after I leave a place like Wirrealpa. I can't recall what the surrounding country was like and when I stopped at 10 o'clock and took the pack off, and looked back I could see no sign of human habitation. The land around here is more or less dead flat and although my map shows Finke Creek here somewhere I can't even see a line of trees or a dry creek bed.

   I took out my UHF hand held radio and called back to Wirrealpa station on channel 3. I knew by now that they had their own repeater and kept a continual listening watch.

  "Wirrealpa. This is Jeff Johnson. Do you copy?"

   "Hello Jeff." Barbara called back 10 seconds later. "How's it going? Where are you"

   "I'm about 12km up the track. There are no landmarks out here, its pretty flat and featureless. According to my map I am somewhere near South Bob Mooney Bore. Thanks for everything. I really enjoyed your homestead with the huge back yard full of sheep and fences and windmills and with your family visitors and your bus load of guests. I suppose Warren is out and around. Please thank him for me as well."

   "Righto Jeff. Take care."

  I packed the radio away and loaded up and headed off again. The Flinders Ranges were still visible way off to my left in the West and I could see some hills 20 or 30 kilometers ahead. And not too far away were the Chamber's Hills starting to rise on my right. I just had a good look at the map and I will probably be camping tonight at the turnoff to Mt Chambers. There are a couple of creeks coming together there and should provide a good camp site.

   At midday I stopped at Wirra creek in the shade of a magnificent Red River Gum and sent off my noon report via the sat phone to Bill. The trees here are the first I have seen all day and the country is now changing rapidly with another line of trees just five kilometers further up the road.

   It is amazing how fast the landscape can change. Now at the next line of trees, where Mt Chamber's Creek crosses the road at an angle, it is nearly 50 metres wide. There is a two tyre track road going off to the right, to Mt Chamber's mine,  pretty well in the middle of the wide creek bed and a major road (well, just another dirt road, but more than the usual station track) heading off to the left just after the creek crossing. This one goes, or used to go, to Jubilee Mine which is, like all the others around here, abandoned. And yet another track heading off to the left at an angle to Kangaroo dam and bore. And right beside the road is Bob Mooney Well, probably sunk by hand through rock hard ground to supply travelers at this major crossroads. The country must have been alive with miners and wagons loaded with supplies or bails of wool. Now there is no-one for 100s of square kilometers. That is, except for Barbara and Warren living the life of the landed gentry (and cooking up loads of spaghetti bol for the masses during the long, lean times of drought).

   Just as I come up to where I am to camp tonight, the road does a big sweep to the right for about a kilometer and comes back again. It had been more or less dead straight up till now and I couldn't see a reason for the deviation. It came clear (sorta)  when I got to the furthest part of the deviation. There was a right angle junction of two substantial fences and a stockyard part colonial and run down, part colonial but kept in use and part relatively modern. Looks like the fence and yards may have been here before the road!

   Although there were better trees ahead of me along a creek and more not too far back, I decided to stop here by the yards as the ground was relatively flat and there was lots of dead wood for a decent fire. One 3m high tree and the corner post of the yard would do for the antenna supports. This was at a turnoff to Chambers Hill to the right and another abandoned mine 8km away up in the low hills.

   I dropped the pack and took off my boots, and although I knew I had covered a good distance today, I still felt remarkably fresh. My feet felt good (but still glad for the change to thongs), the pack was not killing me like it has been at the end of most long days, and, except for the luxury of a lounge chair to flop into, I felt that I had it all. I had a fire going in minutes with the billy on the boil, the tent was looking good and the radio antenna up 20 minutes early.

   But there was a bit of bad news. When I pulled the radio out of the backpack, delicately enveloped in my camping towel, I felt dampness as I unwrapped it. I put off further investigation as the billy was simmering with the noodles and soup already in and it was time for the radio sched. Roger was crystal clear, as he has been for days, and although I could hear Bill and he could tell I was talking, it was painful in the static so we had to relay through Roger who could work us both well. I wanted Bill to add Wirrealpa to our "friends and rellies" email list. They had a satellite dish for their broadband Internet connection and used email as much as their city cousins.

   I ate the tucker from the billy with my desert spoon in between times when I was talking on the radio. It was exceptionally clear so when we had finished and signed off, I twiddled the dial for a listen around to see if there were others on. As I spun the tuning dial through 7100KHz I heard a very strong snippet of a conversation. I came back slowly and at 7103KHz  I locked on to a group of amateurs having a regular, scheduled chat. They called themselves "The Travelers Net", net being the name for a network or group of radio operators. This group had the common interest of being "on the road" with their caravans or 4WDs with amateur radio equipment and calling in each time with information about where they are now and what they have been up to. This was one group that I felt I could easily fit into. I listened in for about 30 minutes but decided not to call in. They were busy calling each one in turn and I just listened to hear how it all worked. I will call into them next time I come across them on line.

   As I put the radio gear away I remembered the wetness of the towel. I dug out the 2ltr cordial bottles from the bottom of the pack and found that one of them had a slit about 2 inches long where it had been regularly flexing as I bobbed along. And the water had been dripping out and being absorbed by the towel around the radio. I transfered some of the water to my "day" bottles and, as the split was near the top, I figured that the water would no longer leak out as long as I could keep the bottle upright. I would replace the container next time I was in civilisation where there is an endless supply of discarded empty plastic containers.

   I stood around the fire till pretty late (for me), crawling into my sleeping bag around 9.30. By torchlight, I set my current camping position on my GPS and from the maps calculated that I had traveled 30km today. I fell asleep very pleased with myself.


  
   Tomorrow, through Wearing Gorge and see more emus