To Laverton via the Great Central Rd

Thursday 10^th July 2008

The new plan is to cover all the dirt bit of the trip today – no stopping til we hit the bitumen at Laverton. This adds 380 or so kilometres today’s travel but means that tomorrow will only be 360km instead of 760km. Paul had a chat with our next door neighbours who had arrived after dark last night and they’d come from Laverton but had taken all day. So it became a rush to get away which wasn’t helped by my fingers being so chilled that I had trouble doing anything – particularly making the sandwiches!

The girls received new books to keep them occupied but Holly got tired of hers and Katie read much quicker than she will admit to so we played some story tapes – Oliver and Just William (bequeathed to us by Sam) but that just seemed to make them grumpy. That left us with just playing music – same old stuff off the Ipod – but it seemed to suit everyone – luckily.

In the 220km before we stopped at Warburton for fuel we saw about 50 camels, only 5 cars and twenty four burnt out wrecks! Here the fuel pumps were in locked cages and they only sell diesel and a newly developed fuel called Opal that works in unleaded engines but is no good for the petrol-sniffers – apparently it is (or has been) a big problem around here. We’d heard bad things about Warburton but didn’t hang around long enough to be able to comment on that. The roadhouse was full of people buying hot chips, ice creams, lollies and, bizarrely, bananas – I think someone had just brought in a box of them and they were the only fresh fruit available. Apparently it is pay day today – not sure what they all do for a living, but maybe that is a euphemism for dole day?

We were served by a couple of northern UK lads who are travelling round Oz and are here for a few weeks because they can earn okay money, get free board and food and have no way of spending the money they are earning! Still, I can think of better places to spend a few weeks...

The landscapes were fantastic again and I spent a bit of time trying to capture some of them on camera. I also tried to snap some of the too-many-to-count vehicle shells that we came across but at the speed of 100km they tend to go past a bit quickly!

There was hardly any traffic on the road – it has to be the most deserted road we’ve been on this trip – but it is obviously well maintained and Paul was able to get an average speed of about 100km/h.

We saw a huge amount of Emu Bitter cartons and blue wine boxes strewn all the way along the road (amidst plenty of other rubbish, too) but very little wildlife apart from the camels and the occasional bird.

We stopped for a roadside wee and found the shock-absorber on the other side (of caravan) had worked its way off, the pipe to the tap on the A-frame at the front of the trailer had lost its cable tie and had potentially leaked out all our water, a d-shackle had come off one of chains between the camper and car, the whole front of caravan was now seriously pock-marked (yes, even more) by the gravel and one of the camper legs that sits on the corner had managed to lower itself and lose the rubber base – how it wasn’t completely ripped off itself I have no idea.

Needless to say, there were cheers as we came off the dirt – it was a big achievement – 780km of dirt road in 7.5hrs!

Laverton is not exactly a bustling metropolis but it does have a small caravan park with half decent showers.

The camper was full of red dirt – the worst kind! We had remembered to put on the tape but maybe because of the extreme cold (affecting both the tape and my ability to apply it) it had been completely useless and unstuck itself. The only consolation is that this should be the last time we’ll have to deal with it that quantity of dirt!

We found that all the water had indeed leaked out and despite refilling one tank the pump is no longer very effective – the leak in the pipe from the other tank was sufficient to lose the vacuum required. Oh, and when I took the last bottle of fizzy water from the cupboard we found it had a small hole where it had rubbed for so long on the floor (only been in the cupboard since Alice!).

Heated up leftovers from previous meals meant dinner was easy tonight.

It is nowhere near as cold here – possibly due to the fact that there are some clouds in the sky but hopefully no rain will come from them.