Man-child, look at the state you’re in.

One of the most surprising things about arriving at Adam’s was the speed at which I regressed into a child like state, a child who could drink. The first half an hour we simply chatted about the last four months, and Adam gave me a bottle of whiskey for my birthday. He’d drawn cock and balls all over the package, something I’m not afraid to say I found very funny. A drawing of cock and balls is as funny as a smelly fart; they are just funny and will never stop being so. In my excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the whiskey.

After our catch up it was time to be useful and prepare for the BBQ later. As the gas to the BBQ was empty and needed to be changed, I started to take off the regulator from the bottle. Despite having spent 4 months regularly packing and unpacking our gas stove, I had forgotten that the screw on gas bottles is opposite to the normal “righty tighty, lefty loosey” rule and broke the regulator. Oh how quickly the wild Bushman Tom was lost to be replaced by a child, a rather slow child. Adam and I headed for Bunnings to get a replacement, and we also bought materials to build a target for his new compound bow… brilliant!

Back at Adam’s we started building the target. I was wearing my Mike Tyson “Thuns out, Guns out” vest, and looking cool as fuck. We’d both purchased the top online some time ago, and now seemed like the best time for us both to wear it, so Adam quickly changed to his… Not weird behaviour for two middle-aged men at all.

"...and then I did a really smelly fart"

After some faffing, we finally had the target built and ready for action. I’d never fired a compound bow before and didn’t realise how much force is required to pull back the string… the answer is a lot. We started 1m from the target, while I got the hang of it. I hit it every time! We then moved to 2m, and again I hit the target every time. By the time we’d moved to 5m, my arm was getting tired, and it was really hot, and I’d been drinking… so I missed and I hit his shed… twice. Things may have got even worse, but luckily my arm gave up and I could no longer draw the bow. Adam had one more go from 10m… and hit his shed. Being a man-child is GREAT!

Responsible adults

We spent the rest of the day drinking, had BBQ meat for dinner, and finished the day playing sonic racer on the PlayStation until Adam nodded off during a race. It was an awesome day, and I’m guessing Becky and Adam’s girlfriend, Sarah had just as much fun watching us, but I can’t be sure and there is no photo evidence to say either way.

The next morning I woke up feeling very rough. After Adam and Sarah returned from a family breakfast, to celebrate Adam’s birthday on the Monday, Sarah kindly gave us a lift into town to meet Ric and Lorelle for lunch, and Adam went off to watch some UFC fight.

We had a lovely lunch at the Brisbane casino with Ric and Lorelle. I hope they enjoyed it too, but I think we may have spent most of the time bellyaching about how hard our road trip had been. You’d think the amazing trip we’d been on was a punishment for some serious crime the way we were talking about it. However, they were very kind and tried to help us put a positive spin on it, and I think they did have a good influence, as afterwards Becky and I both started to feel that perhaps carrying on with our trip would be a better option than calling it a day.

After parting company with R&L, we met Adam for a beer in town, and then headed back to his playhouse to get pissed. The rest of the afternoon consisted of drinking, drinking while playing basketball, and drinking while throwing an Aerobic Pro. Aerobes are very different to Frisbees. I make this distinction, for even though I was experiencing a drunken child like feeling of joy, I don’t want to be grouped with the fuck-knuckle students in the great court at UQ, who’s no-consideration for others Frisbee throwing had been a constant source of frustration to me at work. Particularly when I had to navigate through their stupid games just to get some lunch. I always felt that a poorly thrown Frisbee by some cocky student would be the cause of my going postal some day… it still might be!

After all that exercise… yes I’m calling it exercise, we cooled down in some dog baths, as Becky and Sarah looked on perplexed.

Stafford Heights plunge pool

Cooled and tired after an exhaustive afternoon we settled down to play some FIFA and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. After several hours, including a nail-biting female international game of Sweden v Australia, we realised it was dark and the girls were no longer sitting with us... The day was finished off with some homemade lasagne and more beer.

The next day Adam and Sarah had to go to work, and we had important things to do too. We had arranged to have a mechanic fix the engine light issue and have a minor service. Our normal mechanics were booked out, so we tried a new one on Vulture Street, without thinking that as we were staying in Stafford Heights, this would mean a Monday morning drive through rush hour traffic to get the car to him. After a fun reminder of what commuting feels like, we went over what we’d already told him on the phone, that the engine light issue seemed to be linked the knock sensor, and we're not too concerned about all the oil dripping underneath, as the amount of oil was a result of the large number of km we’d done, and we’d had it degreased twice before and they were unable to find the leak. And with that we headed by foot to UQ.

At UQ, we first met up with Steve, who said he hadn’t read the blog for ages, so we went over the big things, like a fire in the engine, that sort of stuff. We had coffee and a nice catch up, before I told Becky to take a walk while Steve and I finished a manuscript we’d been working on when I left. It felt good to get the brain working again, but that hour of work tired me right out and only reiterated how little my desire to return to work actually was. After that, we caught up with Katrina, who hasn’t been keeping up with the blog, Nick A, who has, and Adam R, who may have, but all we could gather was that when he does read it, he really just wants to leave offensive comments but is too scared to because of my mum. One thing they all had in common, they had little time for our, we’ve-had-it-tough rhetoric, Nick even gave us the “no shit” look when we said living in a tent was hard work.

After seeing those that were there and available, we had lunch and sat by the lakeside discussing why people aren’t giving us more sympathy. I guess it’s hard to get sympathy from those who have spent the last 4 months working. But then they also don’t know what they are talking about, having never been a full-time holidayier, and it is harder than it looks… I suddenly know how Judith Chalmers must have felt… but they are right, it is better than working for a living. We spent some time contemplating this while watching the wildlife at UQ.

UQ wildlife

After waiting until 2pm for the dickwad mechanic to call, we rang him only to be told that he had confirmed what we’d already told him and the knock sensor was faulty, but he was having trouble sourcing one. We wandered back to his workshop, where the dickhead just wanted to tell us how bad our oil leak was. Becky tried to explain to him that we’d been told this several times, but he just kept saying this was our biggest issue, and not to worry about the engine light and the part he couldn’t source… yep, because selling a car with an engine light on is fucking easy, every fucker wants one. Realising he wasn’t going to be much use and we’d have been better off going to Kmart, we paid him for the service and left. I have developed a real hatred of mechanics on this journey.

Back at Adam’s, we sat about and waited for them to get back from his birthday dinner with his folks. They returned quite late, and we got to watch Adam open a mountain of presents from his parents, had some cake then went to bed. As well as all the surprise gifts we watched him open, Sarah had got him a boxing training gadget that reads punch speed/power etc and large aqua punch bag… For my birthday, my wife got me some pringles, sweets and a six-pack of beer that she drank half of.

The next day, we got up long after Adam and Sarah had left for work and started trying to prep the car for the next leg of the journey. We cleaned the fridge, sorted through all the crap and generally tried to figure out what we could give to charity, although we aren’t going to talk about that. We also started trying to make a plan, where we would go and what we would do. It had become clear that in order to avoid paying extortionate prices for the flight to Europe, we’d have to leave, either before mid-Dec or after mid-Jan. So if we were going back on the road we’d have to commit to at least 7 weeks in a fucking tent!

When Adam and Sarah got home I finally got to do a bit of boxing and try out some of Adam’s new boxing gear, including his new body protector, which made us look like a pair of fucking pros!

A classic combo

I had to call the blog photographer down and she wasn’t that interested, and even turned the live effect off on my go, so I only got motionless pictures. I’m not sure whether that was a good or bad thing.

A+ for the look of concentration

We then tried out his punch monitor thing. All I can say is I want one, as it combined punching and stats, two things that are high on my list of fun things to do. After punching the bag as hard as we could, we called it a night. Adam threw the hardest punch of the night, but I wasn’t far behind. Overall, I didn’t think I’d last more than a few minutes, but I did OK and only had a bit of sick come up in my mouth once…

By lunchtime the next day I could barely lift my arms over my head, and anything requiring quick movement hurt. We continued our preparation for the start of the second leg of the trip; ever questioning whether this was really the smartest thing to do. After Adam got home from work, I went with him to PCYC, only as an observer as any movement was painful by this point. It was nice to see a few of the old faces at training, and we all went for a few drinks after they’d finished working out. Chatting to people, I realised that my account of our holiday was starting to sound more positive. I chatted with Ric and mentioned that we’d decided to carry on, and he seemed relived that we’d finally ended our pity-party. Back at Adam’s, they again cooked dinner for us and Becky again moaned that it was a little late in the evening for dinner. They must love having us as guests!

The next morning I got out of bed to say good-bye, from both Becky and I, as Becky was still sleeping, before Adam and Sarah left for work. As with our first departure, we didn’t leave the house until close to mid-day, and of course we stopped at Ikea for meatballs and mashed potatoes. Let's hope this is where the similarities end.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed

Haggard and worn

Queensland, it’s a part of me. The sunshine is a part of me. Queensland, Queensland

Although we were excited to get back to the comforting warmth of QLD, we had a long drive ahead of us to get there. We started off on the right foot by not leaving the hotel until the 11am check out time. We cleared through SA quite quickly, passing into Victoria by late afternoon.

Obligatory border pic 1

Obligatory border shot 2

By dusk we felt we’d driven enough and set up the tent in a small town called Piangil. There was a free campsite on what felt like the town common next to the Anzac memorial. It was actually quite a nice spot, and had showers and toilets we could use.

Exploring Victoria

The next day was the same as the day before, just a fuck load of driving. We crossed the NSW border quite early in the journey, but we missed the sign for the obligatory border shot. In the end, we cheated and took a shot of the NSW border sign from the QLD border... Becky didn't like her photo, so vetoed its inclusion.

Still counts

We continued on for hours, driving until it was dark, and stayed at an Ibis budget in Dubbo. It wasn’t a nice place, but the rooms were clean.

Having done nothing but drive for two days, we decided to take a break and visit the Warrumbungles to do a few walks. On the way there we stopped at one of the many planets that make up the Worlds largest virtual solar system. Can you guess which planet I wanted to stop at?

HAHAHA, it sounds like "your anus"

Having collected some information about the Warrumbungles, we realised that the best walks in the park were all +10km, and neither of us had any intention of walking that sort of distance. Although the whole point of this excursion was to take a break from the shitty car, we decided that we’d just drive through the park, braving a short ~2km lookout walk instead. It was a nice park, and perhaps we’ll be back some day to enjoy the place in a little more depth.

Appreciating the the beauty in record time

We ended our brief tour of the park with a visit to the Siding Spring Observatory, which also had a nice view of the park.

Warrumbungles visited? check!

Feeling like we’d checked that off the list, we headed for the Pilliga nature reserve, and a lovely campsite called Pilliga Pottery, which also had a pottery studio, funnily enough. It was an idyllic spot, with abundant birdlife and backpackers supplying menial labour.

It's a hard knock life for us.

The next day we made a few stops through the Pilliga region, the first was the sandstone caves. Becky kept up with the shitty yoga poses for photographs, and I bet even her staunchest fans are starting to waiver.

Encouragement has led to her trying harder poses

We really enjoyed the walk and it was nice to have a few days remembering why we started this whole journey in the first place.

Nice morning walk

We were so impressed with the sandstone caves that we thought we’d take a gander at the salt caves too. These were less impressive, but there was a nice fire tower lookout that didn’t require climbing a tree.

With no tree to climb, Becky could also enjoy the view

After a delicious lunch consisting of digestives and cheese, we hit the road again, heading for the sunshine state.

We arrived at the border several hours later, and just like the VIC/NSW border, the state line was on a bridge with no clear place to stop for a photo. We made do with a drive by of a sign on a roundabout. It felt like an odd way to enter our home state, but after driving for so long very few fucks were given.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

We spent the night in a small town called Yelerbon, which had a council campsite in what appeared to be an old sports oval. We finished off the last of the pasta stir-in and enjoyed the sunset over the near by lake

Picturesque end to the day.

Well, Becky enjoyed the sunset, I wrote a blog post.

But Tommy don't get to enjoy it

The next morning as we were packing up, an old skinny fella with bad teeth was chatting with us, and told us of a nice scenic route into Brisbane that avoided all the traffic and lorries of the main roads. We opted for his route, only to find that it added an extra 2hrs to the 3hr journey... Under normal circumstances I might have enjoyed the journey, but since we left Perth, 9000km ago, we’ve only spent a total of five days where we haven’t driven for at least 2hrs, and two of those days had involved seeing mechanics. I wanted out of that car so bad I was frothing at the mouth. I was also looking forward to drinking beers with Adam, who we were staying with in Brisbane. He has a Playstation.

As we pulled up at Adam’s he let off the air horn we had left with him to signal the end of our loop. Things may not have gone exactly the way we had envisaged, but we had driven around Australia and arrived back in Brisbane.

Here we go loopty loo

We had driven just under 24000km, and used just over 4000L of fuel. We’d completed the loop faster than we’d expected (we did miss out most of SA/VIC/NSW and all of TAS), and were now left with the question, what next? Should we drive north to try to see a cassowary, or just end it all now and return to real life? These questions would have to wait, as I had some drinking to do.

Déjà fucking vu

It’s not ideal to start your day with a puncture. In fact it sucks. I broke the news to Becky by doing that thing when you shout “good news”, and for a second she thought I actually had good news. But I didn’t have good news. That was the joke… the unfunny joke.

As we weren’t blocking any roads this time, I decided to change the tyre myself. We still had the same shitty jack, but I thought I could make it work. The whole time Becky wanted to ask the other campers if we could borrow their stuff. But I said, “NO, I got this”. And I did, and it wasn’t that hard… I got the necessary experience to do this shit now. Some old fella did ask if we needed help, but I declined. It all went very smoothly. However, I did lose my temper packing up the tent, that stupid, fucking piece of shit tent.

With the tyre successfully changed, we started off on our journey south. We weren’t feeling particularly jovial, and the whole experience was beginning to wear us down. At this point you normally add how these things are character building, but I like to think I have enough character, and car troubles aren’t going to do shit to make me a better person. We’d originally planned to drive through the Flinders Ranges and stay a few nights there. As the exhaust was broken, again, and we had no spare tyre, again, we thought we’d head to Adelaide to get that shit fixed ASAP, and just do a quick drive through Finders without camping or hiking. For those who have kept up with our journey, this should be ringing bells. We were heading south into shitty, colder weather, to a state capitol, to fix a puncture and a broken exhaust just as the weekend was starting so everything was shut… At least this time we had the engine light on to show we were progressing.

The drive through Flinders was amazing. The scenery was beautiful and we saw loads of emu’s, kangaroos, wedge-tailed eagles, a snake, and loads of other reptiles. Did we appreciate the experience? Nope, we just whinged about how unlucky we are and how difficult our life driving around Australia on an extended holiday is.

Very much in need of a tea spoon of cement

Becky did a better job of covering her displeasure at our predicament for the pictures. But we both felt at the end of our tether, honest!

Just grin and bear it

After spending a couple of hours speeding through an area of natural beauty that you could easily spend a week in, we opted to spend the night in Snowtown. Nothing brings home the trivial nature of your problems than spending the night in a town infamous for being the place numerous murdered bodies were stored by a serial killer and his gang.

I think the sign makes it clear, there are no killers here

We arrived at the town quite late, and pulled into the camping spot run by the locals… It turned out to be nothing more than the car park of the local community centre. I was not impressed, and for the second time that day I lost my usual calm composure.

What camping is all about

As we sat in the car, the campground caretaker pulled up next to us and asked if we were staying. I didn’t have any more driving in me, so I reluctantly paid for a site. He mentioned that they were also serving food at the clubhouse that night, and we were welcome to eat there. We put the tent up, and as neither of us could face pasta stir-in or 3-mintue noodles, we wandered over to the clubhouse. What a fucking gem of a place! It was AWESOME, filled with locals eating the cheap, but surprisingly nice food. We had a lovely bit of grilled butterfish and chips for $10 each, washed down with cheap golds. Oh, how wrong I was about this place. We spent the rest of the evening watching the locals and feeling everything was right with the world.

Blending in

That night we slept well, except for the train that ran right passed the camp spot… I guess nothing’s perfect. As we packed up that morning, the birds were singing and we felt at peace. Once in the car, I started it up, the exhaust banged against the diff and the engine light came on… Fuck this holiday.

We drove into the town centre to have a look. While Becky took a look at the lovely town buildings, I messed about with the tie wire on the exhaust, as it was banging about a bit. While doing this I slammed my hand into the ground. Fuck this stupid fucking holiday.

A building from happier days

We’d booked a hotel room in central Adelaide, but as we couldn’t check in until 2pm, we drove to a beach just south of the city to have a picnic lunch. It was a lovely bit of coastline, and wasn’t too chilly either. Perhaps things were starting to look up again.

Happiness is being away from the car

The hotel we’d booked didn’t have free parking, but as it was a Sunday we had assumed there would be places to park nearby for free. WRONG! The hotel was on a street with very little parking, and all of it taken. We had to opt for the hotel’s paid parking area, but found out that this had a height restriction of 2m, and we were 2.4m with everything on the roof. Fucking stupid car and crappy holiday.

Not built for city living

It was Becky’s turn to melt down and my turn to be the level headed one. My plan was to empty as much of the inside of the car as possible in to the hotel room, and then unload the dirty stuff on the roof into the car. It worked and we edged through the underground parking gate, with only millimetres to spare. In busy towns, the cruiser feels like a tank… a shitty old tank.

Hurdle cleared and the car parked, we did what we always do in cities we’ve never been before; we sat in our room surfing the Internet. We also discussed if we still wanted to do this whole road-trip thing. It was all starting to feel like hard work, and we were boring ourselves with the amount of moaning we were doing. That evening it pissed down, but thankfully we were in a lovely room with solid walls and a roof. The room was great, with lovely views from the twelfth floor and the bed was very comfy. The only downside was we could hear the dumf dumf of young people music playing at a local club. As we were both so tired, it didn’t keep either of us awake for long. However, it did keep us awake between 5am-6am, when it was still going. I hate young people.

Up and almost refreshed, we set about our daily tasks. The first was to take the car to Bob Jane T-mart to fix the tyre under warranty. They told us a small nail had caused the puncture, but at least the work on the tyres cost us nothing, so that was good. We then took the car to an exhaust place, and left it with them for the day. It was a 3km walk back to the hotel, which gave us plenty of time to moan about our situation and how unlucky we’ve been. We walked through the centre of Adelaide; well, what we assumed was the centre, as we didn’t really check.   

Nice big balls

Even through our grumpy glasses, it seemed a nice place. We did see quite a few people who looked the worse for wear, which we put down to the ice epidemic gripping SA, a conclusion we came to based on a half-watched news program we saw years earlier... so definitely 100% true then.

Looks nicer than pasta stir-in

Later that afternoon we went and picked up the car from the exhaust guy. He’d welded the metal bracket and changed the rubber bracket. He mentioned that the rubber bracket looked very old and worn. This was strange, as it has been replaced twice on this journey, so either we have been conned for a very cheap part, or the roads we’ve been on have just been that rough. It was only $90, which sounds like a lot but isn’t in the big scheme of our cars problems and fixes.

We enjoyed a final night in our lovely hotel, watching YouTube videos and discussing what we should do next. It was then we decided that, as we'd holidayed in Victoria and NSW before and really couldn’t face another period in the cold south, we should head to warmer climes, and the familiar humidity of QLD. Once there, we could decide if we would just jack it in or drive north again, and maybe end the holiday amongst the cassowaries we failed to see all those months ago.

A little place by the lakeside

The last “big” thing on our list of things we wanted to see was Lake Eyre. It’s a huge lake, which most of the time is just an empty salt bed and has only been filled with water four times in the last 150 years. On the way, we thought that we’d check out Coober Pedy first, the largest opal mining town in the universe. The blurb mentions how apocalyptic it looks, and has been used in such films as Mad Max 3 and some other unknown shit. They also all live underground, like hobbits, to hide from the high summer temps, which can reach 50 degrees. When we got there we were a little disappointed, as it just looked like every other shitty outback town.  

We popped into the information centre, and the lady behind the counter made the Kalgoorlie information centre look like a fountain of useful facts. Dejected we went to explore the town. We headed for the big winch, which was a large winch.

Say what you see

The whole town was quite run down and there weren't many people. We couldn’t work out if this was because its glory days were behind it, or it was just off-season. There were a few opal trucks, which looked a little like a Mad Max prop, but not much else.

Looks similar to our car

We stayed at a place just out of town that had the novelty of camping underground for a few extra dollars. The owner turned out to be a bit of a douche, dropping daddy jokes with a dickhead edge. Having seen the place, camping underground seemed to be like camping in a basement, so after he had given his salesman pitch to us we took the cheaper outside plot. The rest of the hot afternoon we spent in the campsites TV basement, and the whole basement thing made sense as it was a lovely temperature down there. Becky entertained herself with podcasts and puzzles while I wrote a blog. Just before we left the basement, I swigged on the last remaining dregs of a coke, and my sunglasses that were resting on top of my head, fell off and the lens cracked on the hard floor. I was pretty pissed, but luckily I had brought a second pair with me… It had seemed silly to have two pairs, but in the end having a spare pair paid off. That night we had three-minute noodles under the stars.

The next day, after stocking up on supplies and fuel we headed towards Lake Eyre. The dusty, unsealed road was in lovely shape, and things were all going very well when we pulled up to the William Creek hotel, the last place before the turn off to Lake Eyre. They had an interesting area filled with junk and graves of locals and some woman who’d died in 1998 aged 28. Sad.

Where next?

We asked a lady working at the hotel what the 4wd track in to Lake Eyre was like, and she grumpily replied it was "just a track". Brilliant, that was the kind of inside information we were looking for, and it felt good to tap into local knowledge rather than rely on a tourist book. After a burger and chips at the hotel, we began the 60km drive to Lake Eyre. Turns out it's not "just a track", and nor is it really 4wd; it’s just a badly managed shitty road that is really, really corrugated… It was almost as bad as Mitchell Falls! After 20kms we started talking about whether we should turn around, as it was very slow going and the flashbacks of the dramas we'd had were haunting us. I decided we should push on as the road started to get better. For the next 20kms things seemed okay, and the scenery was amazing.

Moon landing in a beaten up cruiser

But then the corrugations started again, and the car was getting thrown about once more. As we approached the campsite, we could hear a familiar clanging sound from under the car. After we picked a spot in the empty campsite, I took a look under the car to find our brand new exhaust, just installed in Perth, had broken off the bracket by the muffler. I couldn’t fucking believe it. It seemed we were jinxed to have the same issues with the same parts of the car. To calm ourselves after all this stress, we went for a walk on the lake. The expanse was mind-blowing. What do you do in such places? Bit of badly done yoga, obviously.

It almost works

As we walked further out onto the lake, Becky started sinking, getting her flip-flops and feet covered in the dark muddy ooze that resides below the thin salty upper layer. She was not a happy bunny! 

Grubby feet

Back at camp, we used some of the 85litres of water we’d carried in to clean her feet. This just added to the worries Becky was having. She wasn't worried about the thousands of flies or the heat, but didn't feel very comfortable with the isolation at the end of a road that leads nowhere. Her biggest worry was if the car broke down, and we were stranded, how much water could she use for her daily shower? The exhaust issues (again) had not eased her fears, and she started discussing escape routes and how long we should wait until we tried to walk out. I just spent my time under the car trying to stop the exhaust clanging against the diff using tie wire. Still, it was an amazing place.

Lighter on foot than Becky

By sunset Becky was still worried about dying trying to get out, but it didn't stop us enjoying the fact we were all alone and getting this part of Lake Eyre to ourselves. The sunset over the expanse of the salt flat was breathe-taking.

Taking in the beauty, and forgetting the risk for a moment

Although the flies were out in force and I had to enjoy it through a green mesh.

I haven't really got the hang of how fly nets work

That night, under the stars of the outback, I slept well, Becky not so much. We got up at sunrise, firstly to enjoy the colours of the morning over the lake, but also because Becky wanted to get out of there asap. 

Ow big is it?

Sunrise was as enjoyable as sunset, but it was quickly over.

Sunrise enjoyed, so let's get the fuck out of here.

Once the sun was up, we packed up quickly and started the slow drive out. We crawled the first 20km over the shitty bit, which took around an hour. We then tried to make some progress over the middle “good” bit, pausing only to take a photo of a plaque remembering the 28 yr old we saw mentioned at William Creek.

A sad story

We later googled her name, and Becky was pleased we didn’t read about it before as it would just have fuelled her worries further. It is a scary reminder of what can happen in these places, with a succession of fuck ups leading to the tragedy. However, our story ended well, taking a little under 3hrs to make it back to the main dirt road.

At this point we weren’t really sure what we should do. We were both a little tired of camping, and the exhaust issue, in conjunction with the engine light and multiple small leaks had pushed us to the limit of fucks to give. We stopped to take in some of the sights while discussing our plans. The first place was a spring with water bubbling up from the Great Artesian Basin, meaning some of the water could be millions of years old. It was an interesting place but so windy that you could only pee safely in one direction. At least the wind stopped the flies bothering us.

Some old water

As we continued our journey, enjoying the multiple abandoned homesteads on route, we whinged about our bad luck on this road trip. Sure, we were lucky enough to do it and had seen sights that we’d remember forever, but we’d had exhaust problems three times… that has to be worthy of some pity! 

We stopped for the night, after driving 7hrs but not getting that far, at an abandoned town called Farina. It has become a restoration project over the past few years, and was a very cool place. The campsite was really nice, and the wildlife put us both in a better mood. 

Daddy and his kiddies.

Wandering around the site, reading about the fascinating history behind the town and the tragic stories of the townsfolk who fought in the two World Wars was just the thing we needed to pull us out of our self-pity slump. That night we both went to bed happy.

A "restored" building... someone should tell them it's missing the roof.

The next morning as I was checking the car I noticed something all too familiar… We had another fucking puncture on one of our new tyres. C’MON, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

New day, similar problems