Katherine 16th June
We used Katerine as a refuelling station . I was banished from the supermarket as Kate reckoned this was a woman only shop and required her fullest attention to get right and enjoy !
I had to make do with a read of the papers , with a rather nice latte in a cafe eating a bag of smuggled jelly beans under the big NO BYO sign , sometimes my life can be a hard and edgy world.
We decided to try and get the red dust out and off the car and caravan . Someone needs to have a look at the chemical make up of red dust picked up by cars and vans . I believe that it falls off shooting stars and meteorites as it has properties not of this world . It can form shift from individual hydrophobic dust particles ,to slimy mud and then to quick setting concrete quicker than the policeman in Terminator 2. It can stain ,plastic ,wood,rubber ,vinyl, glad wrap and of course stainless steel. It is the anti Houdini being able to get into any sealed container. The boys and girls at NASA should take a quick look. We took all afternoon to complete the de-dusting and nearly took all the campsite space up in doing so with everything taken apart. We had to do a quick reshuffle as new campers started to trundle in .
We made space for some new neighbours who turned out to be Dave and Anita . One of the questions that travellers often asked new acquaintances is how long their planned journey will take them . It has taken 110 days for our year long trip to be knocked out the park ! These guys are on a three year journey in and around the country. They are farmers from WA who have leased their farm for three years and taken the plunge to explore. We found them to have a similar outlook as us and that was confirmed when they told us that they were neither grey nomads (think caravan nursing home) or junior nomads (think young kids in tow ) but Silver Warriors !
Over beers we picked their brains on what to see heading west and we were able to provide some insight into Cape York. Unfortunately the notes we took were entered into Kates phone which is in the big iPhone graveyard in the clouds ( and i don’t ask you to pardon the pun) so we lost them all ……. Back to the blank drawing board then !
Anita introduced us to her sport of endurance horse riding . Horses and rider compete in distances up to 800km which is mind boggling. There are vet checks on the horse pre event and every 25k to ensure that the horses health is paramount.
Having seen the accessories on this car I am thinking of some suggestions to ARB for a 4×4 version.
We vetted three venues to watch the Scotland v Australia followed by Lions V Maori All blacks rugby union games and the RSL won hands down. By the end of the match we were giving lessons on rugby union to the locals . Scotland have officially moved from being Australia’s bogey team to being better than them . Scotland are now ranked 4th in the world following the landslide victory.
Two wins and a long day in the pub resulted in Dusty Gary making an appearance the following day .
Unfortunately it was also the day that our battery decided to fail and of course was on a Sunday too . However the only place open in Katherine was able to test the battery and sell me a new one . I had to put it in myself but the engine fumes confused and cured my hangover and all was good !
After reading this gripping article in the Territorian I kept a close eye on Kate having a temper tantrum at the toilet dump point ! I have the emergency brown bomber whistleblower number on speed dial .
