Day 119 | Another night, another gravel pit: who cares when the weather is great and the campsite A1
57 km | zzOz total: 5,998 km
After last night’s storm the day dawned cloudless and calm.
I sprang up early and wandered a k or so down the old overgrown road, the sun making its own way up. The 100s of Wood swallows and finches have been up for a while, making their presence felt. The world seems at complete peace.
The vegetation, predominantly mulga, (tree/shrub), and spinifex, (very sharply spiked grass), and there’s still plenty of wildflowers about, is either in flower or seed, it’s been a great year, plenty of rain for once.
On my return I hear a blocked drain making deep gurgling sounds, which turns out to be 3 camels: dad, mum and little baby, rumbling through the shrubbery not so far off.
After that I hopped back into bed, wrote up a blog for yesterday and ate brekkie in the privacy of my own dining room. No great ambition today, except to avoid getting all the way to the roadhouse, I’ve enough water to stay out another night.
It’s the next 270 km stage from the Tjukayirla Roadhouse to Warburton where I will have to pull finger, I’ll carry sufficient water for 2 nights and have 3 bigger days, ie, the full 26 litre capacity.
In keeping with this new slow pace, after exactly 11 minutes I found a couple of 4WDs, not yet torched, on the side of the road, 2 tents up, the front bearing has collapsed on one 4WD, the wheel standing, barely, at a 75° angle.
“I can only tow one of you”, I say, but my services are unrequired, a flat deck tow truck is on its way from Kal, err, that’s Kalgoorlie, and Mark, realising the situation, has 4 hours to fill in and we have a chat.
They are Jehovah’s Witnesses, coming back from a meet in Alice and had hoped to nurse the known suspect wheel to Kal although why they attempted to drive this not so terrific section of road at night I’m unsure. I don’t make God jokes, the situation seems calling for humour but I’m not about to unleash that can of worms, or accept retribution if she does indeed exist.
The blokes are jovial enough, philosophical, the situation under control, but the two women are distinctly unhappy, one sitting glumly, mutely, on a camp chair, the other, acid faced, in complete motion, fussing busily, if pointlessly, in the background: nothing needs to be done, or not urgently. Just relax a little, I think.
I sense the situation has less to do with any god and more about people’s ability to cope with a non-perilous interruption to their well planned itinerary.
We might be at the end of the world, but it’s not the end of the world.
So much of our character is revealed with unexpected inconvenience. Mark is clearly coping well, the others less assured.
It’s an absolutely fabbo day, warmish, the sky blue, the wind calm, and I know there will be precious few of these backdrops to the day when I finally return to the South Island, NZ, where the rare perfection of this type is occasional and if it occurs generally measured in hours.
At least I know to appreciate what’s been dished up by life, God or no god.
(Today’s scorecard: smashed cars, 11; camels, 3.)