It was getting really close to our rendezvous with the kids,
and I was getting excited. We took our time packing up, the other campers left,
so we took the opportunity for a camp shower. There were great facilities, with
a gas cooker and bbq, so we took advantage and got a lamb stew prepared and
into the eco pot. We now have a 12volt plug for the eco pot, which effectively
turns it into a traditional slow cooker, makes fabulous stews.
When we were driving the night before, we had passed a lot
of wild flowers, especially the Sturt Desert Pea. I have been looking for one
on every trip we have been on and have never seen one. We hadn’t been able to
take pics as it was getting dark and we were pushed for time. We started out
and I was determined to get a photo this time – we drove and drove and nothing!
I was starting to get quite despondent, when suddenly there they were, all
along the roadside. We pulled over and spent a while taking photos of all the
wildflowers in the area.
The next major town was Carnarvon, this was the last stop
before we met up with the kids, so we knew we would have to stock up. It was
quite a long way, and we had decided to get close but not go into town until
the morning, so bush camping it would be. The road was a typical remote road,
gravel, but not too bad. We noticed as we were going along that both sides of
the road were fenced, not only fenced but electric fences! We noticed markers
following the road, and figured out it was Telstra’s fibre optic cable –
electrified fences ws probably part of the deal for inconveniencing the
farmers.
We went through a rather large mining town called Panawonica,
the mine is owned by Rio Tinto, as is all the services in town. All the shops,
fuel etc were manned by staff wearing Rio Tinto uniforms, the first time I had
seen this. After Panawonica, it was back onto gravel roads – still with
electric fences on either side, it wasn’t looking good for bush camping. All
the gravel pits were gated and locked. Iain decided our best option would be to
go down one of the minor gravel roads and hope for the best. A great idea, all
the gravel roads have drainage wide drainage channels made by a grader, they
are usually short, but we noticed that these were quite long and went around
the corner. We thought wjhat the hell, and drove down one – it took us to a
fairly flat open clearing with trees all around – perfect.
We knew that we were on someones property, so we went into
stealth mode and only put the tent up after dark. It was a lovely spot, but
there was a sound like the singing of a bird – intermittent but the same. It
carried on after dark, so we assumed it must have been a windmill. We went to
bed early as it was quite cool and we didn’t want to turn on the camping
lights. We read for a bit and went to sleep. Suddenly I woke from a dead sleep
to the sound of men’s voices, I woke Iain up and with racing hearts we both lay
there listening. It was then that Iain realised he had left the UHF radio on
and that was what we were hearing. He turned it off and the rest of the night
was pretty uneventful.
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