Friday 14June
Another free camp wake up. Early stirrings from around us so
the 2 obligatory Nespresso’s were made and as we didn’t have far to go we
decided to have bacon and eggs which Larry slightly over cooked (the eggs) as
he was doing a few things at once. Oh well, it happens.
Reasonably early start and we toddled off down the road as
we only had 94kms of bitumen before the dirt. That was easy going as we were
conserving fuel due to the distance between fuel stops.
Stopped at the turn off to air down the car and van tyres
and Larry accidently dropped one of the Jeep tyres too low so out came the
compressor to pump it back up, grrrrrrrr.
Jenny retrieved the spanking new vent covers and placed them
around the van in various spots until the last one that covers the hot water
system and water in/refill compartment. The positive pressure dust prevention
system switch is located in there and when pressed the fan didn’t come on. Well
we must have blown a fuse so Larry pulls some things out from under the bed and
checks the fuse box and all ok. Larry then get a meter to check for voltage all
ok. By this time Larry is sweating profusely as now the van is a hot box with
no air flow and he has misplaced the torch. Well a @$%@$# was let off and Larry
felt better and he continued to fault find the problem. Turned out it was the
new expensive water proof switch had failed internally, no problem Larry pulled
the two connectors off the back of the switch and joined them with a fuse so
the fan comes on and all good. So instead of a fancy switch controlling the
dust suppression system we have a fuse that when we pull up we remove. Oh well
could have been worse at least the system turned on.
Well of we go now with tyres deflated , covers on and fan
blowing merrily away pressurising the inside of the van in the hope the dust
stays outside. We stopped a few kms down the road to check inside the van as
the road was quite corrugated and rough. Well the shower door had fallen off,
luckily into the shower and scratched the floor. The bottom drawer had slid out
but stayed on its runners and another drawer was on the floor. Yep good start
to the off road section of the holiday.
Put the shower screen on the bed covered by towels and put
the drawers back in and off we went again. Roughly 20kms more we stopped again
to check and this time the drawers had stayed in, well they were not closed but
at least they were not on the floor but worse was to follow. There was beer on
the floor of the van and it smelt like a brewery. The smell was good but, oh no!,
wasted beer. Pulled the lounge apart and found only one can had died so
catastrophe averted and we continued on. The road was good and bad and for
roughly 10kms we were on the very side where others had gone and the road was
about a foot higher on our right.
We then turned off the Tanami Desert road, through a gate
and then for a few kms the road was great. Then it got worse and we dropped our
speed accordingly for roughly 15 kms and then it turned into the most
corrugated road we had ever driven on. We were doing 5 kms an hour and getting
shaken to bits but we had come too far to turn around. Eventually we arrived at
the campground of Wolfe Creek Crater and set up. Dreading opening the door to
the van but happily only the 2 wayward drawers had opened and nothing else had
broken. No dust in the van so the positive pressure dust suppression system or
the now named PPDSS worked.
A couple of drinks and a late lunch of noodles were consumed
before Larry sat on the floor and repaired the wayward drawers and looked at
the shower screen throwing itself into the shower problem. Fixed 2 of the
drawers including one that didn’t need fixing, oh well at least it will hold if
it ever decides to join the others on the floor. Couldn’t repair one of the
drawer latches on a bottom drawer that really only has stuff in there that we
hardly go to so for now that has gaffer tape on it and it can stay like that
for the rest of the holiday. Larry can see the problem with the shower screen
door but can’t fix it in the middle of BFN so we will gaffer tape that in place
when we leave in the morning and fix it in Wyndham.
Then it had cooled down enough for us to walk to the crater
and have a look and we were joined by close on 3 or 4 thousand flies. Prior
planning had included putting two fly nets into the van so that made it
bearable. Hope the hole in the ground is worth all the effort today.
We made the climb up to the rim and yep it is a depression
in the ground. Tick, crater seen so down we and the flies went and headed back
to the van. As it was last light Larry quickly put the drone up and took some
photos and a video so hopefully they turn out as the sky was a pretty pink
colour on the horizon.
A lovely meal of spaghetti bol was had and now Larry is
writing the blog and Jenny is off to bed as we have an earlyish start as we
have to negotiate the rough roads and make it to Wyndham tomorrow.
Jenny just reminded me that a bad day on holiday is still
better than a good day at work so all good and tomorrow is another day.
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