This song was one of the twenty we had in the van.
With this group we first travelled through Coral Bay and Onslow. In the few short days it took to do this, we’d had problems with only two vans. Little did I know the mechanical workout I was going to get before this trip was over. In actual fact there was a lot of time spent on the phone to my old man or one of his friends and a lot of crash courses on different parts of the engine. Poor guys. We also got some soccer in, I got some rock climbing in, there was the compulsory snorkling (which I didn’t do) and a fair bit of camping. I was impressed with their campfire cooking. I didn’t know that zucchinis could be so delicious. And I found out that you can’t use garlic and onion together. Crazy Italians. I Also learnt that “it’s never too early for goon”. And Me and Romain spend or first night sleeping in the 4WD so that the new couple could get some space together. I also saw bioluminescence in the water for my first time that I remember although I have no idea how that could be the case since I’ve seen it everywhere since.
On the way to Nanutara road house it was our turn for the van to break down. We fixed it by temporarily replacing the fuse with a bolt before limping to the road house (and later to Tom Price). When we got there, we randomly meeting some friends of mine who were a bit shocked to see me wandering around in the middle of nowhere without shoes or a shirt.
Tom Price was one place I’d really been looking forward to. When we got there I spent a while running around my old hood. I checked out my old house and climbed the tree I used to climb each night as a kid after my jog around the oval. I also talked to an old mate on the phone but we couldn’t arrange a meeting in the end. Then when we camped at Kings Lake, I went for a walk up the hill between there and my house looking for thunder eggs and the old caves that I used to explore. It was a lot harder to find them in the dark but I found a few. I also hoped to find some honey like we used to but no dice.
Before going to Karajini the Italian couple dropped off their van to get repaired. We could still camp together as a group. The first day was Fortescue falls and I learnt how to play Dixit. A game I suck at. The next day I even got to climb Mt. Bruce for sunrise thanks to Cedric. It meant a lot. It probably seems cheesy but my old man took me to the top of Mt. Bruce on the dawn of my 13th birthday and as the sun rose told me that now I’m a man and something poetic to do with being high up. He’s always been far more poetic than I (can you tell with that eloquent description?). But it meant a lot to be able to do this again before I left. And when we left, the Italian borrowed the girls van and went to pick up theirs. We got to the meeting place and waited. And waited. And eventually found out that they had gone to fuel up at Tom Price’s only fuel station only to have the car next to them catch on fire and they had to wait until the service station opened for business again.
When they caught up, me and Romain parted ways to go to Port Hedland for the night to stay with some family of mine. My uncle has backyard bar there. I wish I had some pics of it. It has a lot of character. The bar itself is a nice timber log places on top of a snake aquarium with a sea snake skin on the back wall and great quotes scattered around the bar in various marker pens. I got killed in pool by their children, as expected. We also watched some Aboriginal girls fishing. It was interesting watching them sitting with the VB throwing the lines in, pulling them up with a fish, taking a swig, leaving the fish to flop about and then throwing the line back in. They’re far better fisherman then I.
Between Port Hedland and Broome we stopped for a night to celebrate the Italians anniversary. I have a note here “I should never have explained double pluggers to them”.
We finished out time together as a group in Broome at Max and Fleur’s house for a few nights. They’re family friends from way back and have been having couch surfers stay with them for ages. They had some great storys and the best feature wall of any house I’ve seen. A
huge world map. They were really warm and staying with them and their children was great. Even if the boys relished in showing me up on the trampoline. We had a good last night with as all enjoying ourselves over a few drinks. First at the beach and then at the house. Sadly, I was just really getting to know a few of the group and me and Romain would be splintering off early the next morning. He had three days to catch a flight in Darwin to see his mother so off we went. Or so we thought.
The next morning saw me driving. God know’s why. That was rare so I’m guessing Romain must of been pretty hungover. We made it as far as… nope we didn’t even make it past the Derby turn of. The car just stopped. It was kind of hard to give more of a description than that because we were talking and listing to music but the car just seemed to loose all power and stop. Romain had no mechanical knowledge and all I wanted to do was sleep. It sucked. Slowly we had people stop and look over the car. And I harassed poor Max and my old man. They must have been getting sick of me by now. Everyone came to the same conclusion. There was no spark at the distributer. It was probably dodgy wiring or the coil. We had no tools or circuit diagram and I didn’t really have the patience for someones idea of using a 12V light and some wire to test different parts of the wiring. So, we hailed cars until someone was happy to tow us to Derby. It was quite the experience since neither of us had been towed before (and Romain had recently been in a car accident with someone else at the wheel), and I didn’t expect to be travelling at 110 km/hr with a tow rope this short. But, we were pretty happy as we pulled up and fate being the way it is a girl walked past and gave us her husbands number since he was a mobile mechanic. That night we splurged and had a pub counter meal before Romain decided he wanted to go fishing. I wanted to sleep so I convinced him we should push the van there. The Jetty really isn’t close but we made it a fair way.
The next morning, fate being the way it is, the mobile mechanic messaged us just before lunch to tell us that he didn’t have the time. A morning wasted. We learned a few things after we got to Derby:
- Derby isn’t the best place to get repairs done. Funnily my old man did call to tell us that. It was as we were undoing the tow rope.
- Small towns cook horrible seafood.
- French people are horribly snobby when it comes to food. Wait… only to food?
- You shouldn’t tow an automatic a long way or quickly without taking out the tailshaft.
- It’s a long way to the wharf and probably too far to push a van that doesn’t work. We made it half way though.
We eventually found someone who could fit us in but Romain wasn’t sure he could get to Darwin in time so we decided that it might be best if he arranged a bus ticket and I drove the van to Darwin. I was also meant to renew the vehicle registration but there were a few complications with this and it looked like it was going to be simpler for me to “buy” the van off him and then “sell” it back to him. In the end we didn’t and it soon became unregistered with amusing consequences. The goodbye that night was interesting because we were both in a less than perfect situations, tired and we’d known each other only ten days. The following morning the car (surprisingly) got fixed and I started driving it to Darwin, alone, but something seemed strange with the gearbox. Again, this has consequences down the line.