Sunday 6th May 2007

   It was a bit cooler this morning at 15deg C. Actually, a bit chilly. I only have shorts, light shirts and my plastic top which is good against the wind. I elected to stay in the tent (and in the sleeping bag) while I tried to contact Macca on the ABC Sunday radio program Australia All Over. I still find the sat phone "dodgy" to use for phone calls although ok for short emails (the keyboard is getting more familiar but still "kludgy").

   Normally I have a high level of self confidence, but I feel quite anxious getting ready to 
talk live on the radio. I phoned the 02 number and only had to wait a few seconds before Lee Kelly, the program producer, answered:

   "Australia All Over. Good morning."

   "Good morning," I mumbled. "Jeff Johnson. Walking up through the centre from Port Augusta to Karumba."

   Fortunately, Lee remembered my story from my last two abortive attempts to get on their program.

   "Hello Jeff."  Lee said. "Yes, I remember your walk. How's it going? Where are you now?"

   "Going good." I replied. "I'm about 50km south of Arkaroola".

   "Good for you. Hang on a sec, I'll see if I can get you on now."

   I relaxed a bit and listened to the program as it was going to air coming into the earpiece on the sat phone. Lee's voice sounded ok, but the music now playing was very broken and sounded like the connection was about to drop out. I later found out that this was due to the digitisation and "compression" of the phone call, to go via satellite, being acceptable for voice conversation but left a lot to be desired with music.

   Lee came back on within a minute. "You're on next. When Ian says 'G'day. This is Macca.' that'll be for you. Ok?"

   "Yep. Ok." But I wasn't. Not that I was shaking physically, but I felt that I was. And I was worrying about the sat phone, making sure I was holding it with the antenna poking straight up to keep a good connection. I have heard a fair bit of talk back radio and the presenters get frustrated when they have to deal with lousy mobile phone connections and drop outs.

   As the music came to a close Macca came on air.

   "Pick up the phone. Give us a call. 8tripple3tentwenty ohtwosthecode. We want to hear from you."

   "G'day.ThisisMacca.Hullo."

   That's my cue. Gees, it was sudden.

  "Uh. Hello Macca. This is Jeff Johnson. I'm backpackin' up through the centre of Australia raising awareness for the DeafBlind Association."

   "G'day Jeff. That's some walk. When did you start? And where are you now?"

   "I left Port Augusta on the 5th April, 4 weeks ago, and I am now about 50km South of Arkaroola. 110km North of Blinman."

   "How's the weather there today?" Macca asked. It sounded like he wasn't too interested.

   "Coolish the last few nights, 15 degrees this morning. Been fine over the last week, but I got caught in the rain walking into Blinman 10 days ago."

   "How far will you be walking altogether and when do you think you will finish?"

   "I'm going up through Innamincka and Birdsville and the total distance will be about 2,500kms. I should get to Karumba late July or into August. I need to finish before the wet season starts up there."

   "Right. Well, that's good Jeff, keep in touch. We'd like to follow your progress."

   That's sounds like my cue to finish up. "Yeah. Ok. Thanks Ian"

   Then Macca's voice talking to the general audience:

   "That was Jeff, who's walking across Australia raising money for his charity....."

   Then he went on to talk to someone else. No one came on the phone to tell me anything, so after 15 seconds of listening to Macca on the sat phone, at $3 per minute, I hung up and relaxed.
I turned on my transistor radio and listened in to the program for another 15 minutes and decided to get up.

   I mulled over the talkback session as I packed up. I was far from satisfied with my performance. I didn't seem to get much of a message across about raising awareness or money for DBA and I didn't mention any way for people to contact DBA for making donations (if my uninspiring "promotion" actually stirred anyone to think about donating). Next time, I'll try again in a couple of weeks, I'll write down some points and have a practice. I think I'll need to try to "control" the conversation somewhat. Maybe if I start talking about DBA and contact info etc, he won't ask about the weather. Maybe he only asks about the weather 'coz he doesn't know what else to say to keep the conversation going.

   The DeafBlind Association of NSW has got a web site so I could have mentioned that. It has info about donations but as yet, does not mention my walk and the fact that I am walking Gulf to Gulf carrying their flag. Janne is trying to get the volunteer fellow who looks after their web site to update it but no luck so far.

  This is bleak country. Not even low scrub. I don't see how anything can live out here. I am not surprised that I see no wildlife at all. I can see 10km in all directions and there is nothing to see. I could see the dry bed of Lake Frome, way off to my right, which is salt when it has water in it and I could clearly see the whiteness of the surface. After an hour or so, I come to the dingo fence (or dog fence) built originally in the 1880s and it went 5,200kms from Dalby in South East Queensland to the Eyre Peninsular on the Great Australian Bight. It took 5 years to build and was (and still is) only partly successful. Parts of it are still maintained with a two person crew looking after each 300km.

   Dave pulled up in his ute, heading South, looking the part of the confident, cityfied outback traveller. Not much luggage, clean (but dusty) inside the cab, casually dressed. He had stopped for a chat as he was going North and wanted to say hello again seeing me having covered a respectable distance since he saw me last. He had been at the Arkaroola Resort and told me to look up Malcolm behind the bar when I got there. I got the impression that Dave had driven from Adelaide to Arkaroola for a 3 or 4 day break and mainly propped up the bar and kept Malcolm company. I can't say too much, it is the sort of thing I would have done in my drinking days.

            

   5km ahead I could see some low hills rising out of the flatness. When I took a break and checked on my map, this part of the North Flinders Ranges is called the Gammon Ranges National Park and the hills I can see are the Balcanoona Ranges and the lower hills just visible in front are called "The Bluff".  The road seemed to be heading straight at The Bluff and the map cleared that up for me. There is a major road coming from my left from Copley (Leigh Creek) 100km pretty well due West, and the road I am on joins it at a "T" junction. But then the map shows that after I turn right, my road forks at the Balcanoona Ranger Station just 1km ahead of the "T" junction.

   There is a road going due North to Arkaroola from there but the main road North forks to head NE to join The Strzelecki Track (pronounced Strezlecki) at Mount Hopeless 150km further on. This presents a bit of a challenge for me which I hope to resolve with local knowledge at Arkaroola. I want to go to Arkaroola for stores (and to sightsee) but the road does not go on from there. I would have to come back to Balcanoona 35km before heading NE again. Arkaroola is the last stop for food stores till Innamincka which is over 400kms away.

   When I got to the Arkaroola turnoff to the left I went 1km straight ahead to the ranger station.
Immediately the road dipped sharply down into Balcanoona Creek. Dry of course. This is the biggest dip into a creak bed I have crossed so far. It must be a raging river in flood time. It was at least 15 feet from the creek bed to the top of the banks. Even walking up the other side required me to lean significantly forward and take careful, positive steps. It brought back memories of Thompson's Gap. Its a good thing it was only for 50 metres or so.

   Up on the far bank, there were side roads going in all directions. While I was stopped, looking around (and taking a breather), a motor bike (more like a trail bike) came from the right and I lifted my right hand in recognition. I got a nod back from the helmeted rider, who was in ranger uniform and I could see that he was aboriginal. I like to see that. When I was living in Broome, in a previous life, I enjoyed seeing a good percentage of the police force were from local aboriginal families and there were even a couple among the staff of the Broome prison officers.

   I wondered if the motorbike rider was the Arthur I was told to look up. Of all the roads, the only ones with signs showed the way to the ranger station which was the well restored Balcanoona sheep station. There were quite a few buildings including a shearing shed, still more or less constructed from the original materials. The foundations and walls were from rough hewn stone and the major supports inside were round poles looking like the local trees. Only the corrugated roofing iron looked reasonably new and that is understandable as it has a limited lifetime. But even the roof looked like it was of the original design. The floor was planked from what looked like hand cut floor boards and they showed the wear of thousands of feet walking back and forth over the decades. There were metre square placards telling the history of the station, the surrounding district and aboriginal presence there. The shearing machinery was still in place and looked like it was ready for a ten shearer party to turn up with classer, cook and rouseabouts as soon as it was time for the big muster.

   I wandered around inside here for half an hour taking photos, reading the historical info and talking to 4 carloads of tourists that came and went while I was doing my tourist thing. I also had a chat with a 30 something chap who was gathering samples of plants from the area for a SA Government (or quasi-government) department.

             

   The public toilets (very clean) looked like a modern addition but the rest of the buildings were original. Shearer's quarters, with a large central kitchen, dining room and a large lounge/sitting room, had 10 two-bed rooms around the outside of this large centre section. Completely surrounding the shearer's quarters was a wide verandah enclosed in outer walls to waste height and then fly screen to the ceiling. Behind the shearer's quarters was an ablution block including laundry, toilets, showers and storage shed. A hill's hoist at the back was the only indication that I was no longer in the late 1800s. This shearer's quarters was a very imposing building and one I was to enjoy the hospitality of in a most unexpected way. It stood to one side of a large, centre quadrangle.

   On the Western edge of the quadrangle, was the rangers' office building. This was small compared to the shearing shed and men's quarters comprising only two "office sized" rooms. It was locked up but I could see in through the door that there was one room for tourists to ask questions and gather literature from the display stands and the other room with two desks, phones, etc. Outside this office was a water tank, a Telstra telephone box (complete with a stool for caller comfort) and a table with bench seats under cover.

   The southern side had a large machinery shed large enough to hold 4 ten ton trucks. It was also locked up. I would get to see inside later. The centre of the quadrangle was bare ground but was scrupulously clean with log barriers to keep vehicles out and a flag pole taking up position outside the office building.

   The surrounding grounds were clean and contained a few picnic tables. The whole place was a tourist's dream and done to accommodate modern travellers into a well preserved, late 19th century, environment.

   I went back to the table under cover alongside the office where I had dumped my pack. As I was putting my solar panel, battery pack and electrical tools out, a friendly, 45(ish) guy came over from the back of the shearer's quarters and offered me a cool drink. I said I was right but he insisted and then added the offer of a piece of cake.

   "Its left over and will be thrown out."  he explained. This didn't make it any clearer at all, but I was not about to argue. Cake sounded good. He was back in a minute with a tall glass (real glass) of juice and two pieces of fruit cake. I thanked him and he wandered off, obviously plenty of time on his hands, but still no explanation. He didn't ask much about my situation and, although he had on a sort of uniform with faded blue long trousers, khaki shirt and work-day-shoes, possibly steel capped, there was no insignia suggesting that he was a ranger. The cake was very tasty and fresh. I didn't know why it would be thrown out.

   I inspected the battery pack and it was a mess of 10 springs melted into the body of the plastic pack that held the 10 AA rechargeable batteries. I pulled out the batteries which were none the worse for wear, and sat there thinking of a way to re-create my 10 batteries of 1.2 volts each into a pack of 10, wired together in series (pos to neg) , to make a 12 volt pack. Robert (he introduced himself this time) came back and was watching the proceedings and asked enough questions to understand what I was trying to do. He suggested that there may be a soldering iron in the shed that he could get for me if that would help.

   When I looked up with a "What? How" expression in my eyes, he then explained what was going on. He, along with his colleague Scottie, were prison officers and they were in charge of a working party of 4, low risk, prisoners from Port Augusta up here for a 2 week work detail. They were doing odd jobs around the place like creating new tourist facilities and maintaining established ones. That explained a lot. Why the place looked so good, why they had cake to throw out (they were heading back tomorrow), why he was so casual with his time (it was Sunday). But he had to explain further that he had the key to the shed for access to the tools there and he was pretty sure there was a soldering iron.

   We wandered over to the shed (I left my gear lying around knowing that the only thieves around were "trusted") and while Robert was digging around in fairly well kept large drawers filled with the usual array of "useful things in a shed", I scratched through some pigeon holes for some solder. I found some large diameter solder more suitable to fixing gutters and Robert emerged with an iron large enough to accompany the solder without feeling out of place.

   "Will this do?"  he asked.

   "Just right." I answered, knowing well that it would be a challenge for me to use it but also aware that it was the only soldering equipment for miles (probably hundreds of miles) and it presented the only option I could see to getting my batteries back into a pack.

   "Anything else while we are here?" his words breaking my concentration. I had just spied a small role of yellow electrical tape and was wondering if the one I carried (by coincidence, also yellow) had enough left for this major bit of "string and chewing gum" repair I had in mind.

   "I was wondering if we could come back if I didn't have enough electrical tape to tie it all together." I mused, wording it in such a way that he was sure to offer a roll to me from the several that were there.

   "Just take one. They seem to have plenty," he offered without thinking too much about it as he turned to head out of the big double doors we had to open to gain access for our small treasure.

   Back at the table, Robert watched as I made 2 rows of 5 batteries each. They were stacked together such that they were alternately positive up and then negative up. I then strapped them into a rectangular pack with my yellow electrical tape. The iron was hot by now (Robert had produced an extension lead to put in through the office window) and I made up nine little jumper leads 1/2" long to connect the batteries together, soldering as I went. Robert was fascinated with the brain surgery going on with the oversized tools.

   In between explaining what I was doing as I went along, I asked if he had anything that needed fixing while I had all my gear out. He jumped up and went into the quarters and brought out a UHF two way radio charging stand that plugged into 240V.

   "This is intermittent,"  he says "in fact, it only works occasionally," as he put it on the table. Its input cable impossibly tangled and twisted.

   "Should be able to do something with that" I told him, "it'll be a broken wire where it connects to the charger" I suggested as if I knew exactly where the problem was.

   I finished off my job with the battery pack and then re soldered the bullet connector that came adrift several days ago. When I took it out into the sun and hooked it all up, it was good to see it charging again at 300ma.

   Untangling and untwisting the wires took 5 minutes. Far longer that it took me to wiggle the wires where they went into the charger and show that when I wiggled them the green LED on the charger went on and off. I opened up the charger and cut a few inches off the wires where they were connected to a printed circuit board and stripped and rejoined them. I put it all back together, for a total time of less hen 15 minutes and Robert could tell by watching the operation and seeing the steady green LED that it was ok. He shook his head and thanked me.

   While I was packing up and cleaning up the debris, he invited me to join them for dinner.

   "Thommo," one of 'the crims' "is a good cook and its spaghetti bolognaise tonight" he assured me. Finish up there and come and meet the guys. "Bring your gear and we'll find you a room". The shearer's quarters are kept up to scratch and are used for this kind of accommodation but, I found out, are also offered to tourists on a group book basis.

   "Sounds pretty good to me. Thanks. I'll be there in a minute."

   When I went over, I was introduced to Scottie the other "screw" (prison officer), Thommo, Dodgy (Roger), Matty and Tim. They were all busying themselves getting into one of the vehicles with their towels over their shoulders. They were heading off on their free day to Arkaroola Resort, 35km away, to have a swim. No wonder the general feeling among the 'crims' was that they thought coming here was a "good thing".

   Robert then showed me how to run the washing machine while he found a room that his keys would fit. I did the usual and threw every bit of washable gear, dirty or not, into the machine and then followed Robert to where I gracefully accepted access to one of the rooms. I laid m sleeping bag out on the bed mattress and will fill the sleeping bag stuff sack with clothes after they are washed.

   I set up the radio antenna between two trees running across the quadrangle. I had a very good sched with Bill and Roger and we chatted for over half an hour. I raised the problem of no Internet web site possibly holding back the promotion of my walk and the ability to raise awareness for DBA. Roger, does web site design professionally (among his other many talents) and he agrees that we should have our own site. There was some talk about how we would go about it and we are to sleep on it and bring it up again later.

   The guys had arrived back from their swim and Matty and Tim came over to see what I was up to and took an interest in my radio work. Well, for a few minutes at least. I couldn't give them much of my attention as I was in continual listening or talking mode. They left after a few minutes but took up the questions again after dinner.

   Dinner was quite an event. Thommo had a huge pot of spaghetti on the go and we all sat around a long table when he came along and dumped a large portion onto each plate followed it with the savoury meat. It was delicious. Most of us backed up for seconds and only Dodgy, a tall skinny streak who must have had hollow legs, and myself, who hadn't eaten properly for days, stepped up for the third round. Dodgy worked straight through his, and I finished mine but I had to sit back a couple of times to consider whether my stomach could keep up with my ego. I didn't want to accept defeat.

   And the good news was that the others, who finished much earlier, had cleaned away most of the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and all Dodgy and I had to do was finish off our own dishes. The lounge room next door to the kitchen had a TV running and comfortable looking, full size lounges around the room. But several of the guys had taken their coffees outside to sit around an open fire and I decided that was more my style.

   There was a good 5 metres clearance around the fireplace, just a circle of rocks a couple of metres diameter, and they had the fire roaring already. The seating was stumps and logs but still more inviting than the creature comforts offered inside. The conversation was lively and I was able to join in immediately as Robert was carrying on about his yacht, either he used to own it, owns it or is dreaming about owning it. We went on to the usual attempt to solve pressing international problems and finally wandered off to our rooms after we had resurrected the fire many times.

   I had trouble getting to sleep, even though it was nearly midnight, after such an eventful day. Its a good thing this mob is packing up tomorrow and heading south again. I think I would find it hard not to stay for a few days and enjoy their company. Heck, I could even see myself volunteering to head off to a tourist picnic spot or something and helping them in their chores.

   Hmmm. Maybe I have been in my own company too long! Able to thoroughly enjoy the company of Government employees and a handful of petty criminals.

   Nah. They are just all just nice guys in the wrong occupations.

   I have come 135km from Blinman and have 35km to go to Arkaroola and these distances are starting to shrink for me. It will take two days to get to Arkaroola and I am looking forward to it. According to my maps it will be lots of up and down but I am ready for it, physically, and most definitely, mentally.


   Tomorrow, onwards and upwards and downwards through the hills.