Wednesday 2 June 2021 – The Long and Winding Road
We broke our departure record today and were hitched up and ready to roll out of Mount Hart by 7.45am. The road out was just as long and windy and muddy as on the way in except with more traffic including one maniac driver who though it was a good idea to mount the crest of a hill in the middle of the road at 60km/hour whilst towing a camper trailer. He had to brake pretty hard to miss crashing into us and I had serious misgivings they were about to jack-knife right in front of us but apart from a couple of dips, he was able to career on past us and out of harm’s way.
It was a relief to get back the GRR and it’s lovely coating of relatively newly laid road base and we were soon at Imintji to refuel. Larry had forewarned Jenny that this could take a while as Imintji only has one bowser and there is plenty of traffic on the road. We were surprised, therefore, to find only one other car and caravan there and they were just finishing up so in the end we had no wait time at all.
We quietly snickered at a busload of intrepid Kimberley adventurers having their morning tea in the garden area next to the shop all dressed to the nines in their Katmandu outfits, then had another snicker with the lady in the roadhouse who had just very patiently explained to a lady with an American accent (loud, hence how we heard the whole conversation) that she could serve her a coffee but probably couldn’t serve her a double half de-caf with a slice of lemon (or something equally improbable). The smiles were wiped off our faces, however, when we realised that one of the muddy creek crossings out of Mt Hart had flooded/muddied the Anderson plug which provides power to the vans DC charger from the car and when Larry tried to clean/dry it out with contact cleaner the whole thing disintegrated in his hands. Whilst it was a sunny day and we were still drawing some power through the solar panels on the caravan roof, it would have been nice to arrive at our free camp at Mornington with 100% charged batteries. Oh well, nothing to do about it until we get to Mornington and Larry can get out his tool box and deal with it.
Back in the car and we hit about 20km of serious roadworks where we forced to do about 30km/hour behind a large truck carrying an equally large truck. There was a good metre of roadbase in the centre of the road and we could hear on the radio the big, three trailer haulage trucks coming in off side roads with even more piles of crushed rocks to spread on the road. There is certainly a lot of work being done on the GRR this year.
We hit the Mornington Wilderness Camp driveway at about 11am and Larry did the necessary check in at the radio hut which, this time around, also included us having to do a Co-vid free declaration. The lady checked us in and then said “See you in two hours” and we remembered just how long a driveway it is into Mornington and obviously longer still this year with plenty of rocky and/or muddy creek crossings to traverse.
Finally got to Mornington, checked in and booked into dinner because tonight’s menu looked damn good, then drove slowly through the campsite trying to find a place that was reasonably level, a reasonable distance from other campers and with a reasonable exposure to sun to shine on our solar panels. We found a likely spot close to Annie’s Creek and figured that whilst the caravan was in the shade in the afternoon, it would likely get sun in the morning enough to charge the batteries based on our best guess as to the sun’s movement across the sky (yes, yes I know it’s us that’s moving – don’t be pedantic).
We had purchased sandwiches at Imintji so after setting up I made Larry sit down and eat his sandwich and have a drink because I knew he wanted to crack on and getting fixing the plugs and would probably get cranky doing it if he didn’t eat first. So he bolted his food down and got to work. Meanwhile J sorted out the inside of the van which meant dealing with any minor calamities that had occurred on our dusty, muddy drive today. We had obviously gone fairly deep through some crossing as water had sloshed in through the bottom of the caravan door and wet the bottom step and also a fair amount of dust had got in and coated around the door area so a little bit of cleaning required. But luckily it is only the door area.
When all the work was done (plugs fixed, caravan cleaned and sorted) we sat down in our chairs with cold drinks and just chilled, listening to various birds and trying to spot them in the trees whilst a gentle rain of gum leaves fell around us. Bliss.
Before we knew it, it was time to tidy ourselves ready for our evening out. We decided to use the caravan shower as we know we can top up the tanks here before we leave so we made ourselves decent and then drove up the main office/restaurant area (some people were walking it but we figured they had closer campsites than ours!) We ordered drinks from the bar and then sat relaxing and enjoying the light slowly dying and the sea of stars popping out above our heads and also watched in quiet satisfaction as one of the camp hosts piled wood onto the campfire. Bliss for Jenny, a cold drink, good company, a balmy evening and a campfire to stare at.
Soon delicious aromas of roasting meats began to assail our nostrils and the camp hosts obligingly ferried around plates of warm crusty bread to assuage our hunger until the real food arrived. By the time it did, it was fully dark and the two little electric candles failed to shed enough light on the plates so it was a bit of mystery eating for a while. Whilst we knew it was brisket we had no clue what it came with until Jenny had the bright idea of taking a photo on her phone with the flash on so all was revealed – roast potato, tomatoes, asparagus and a ginormous mound of brisket. We polished off our plates like good little children but left an ‘empty corner’ for dessert which caramelised bananas with a blueberry sauce and a sprinkling of nuts across the top. A lovely dinner and nice not to have to prepare a meal for a change.
We had watched a Jayco pop top with no lights followed by a car with a big van arrive at the office at about 6.30pm and had discussed how we wouldn’t want to have driven in on the road in the pitch dark and also wouldn’t want to have to negotiate the campground in the campground trying to find somewhere to park up only to find when we got back to the van that they had found space roughly 20 metres from our camping spot. We were a bit grumpy as it meant we had to close up the blinds on one side of the van and hence block out any breeze that might have helped cool the van but at least they were quiet and we shortly after headed to bed hoping that digesting that big meal wouldn’t be too much of an effort.
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