Borderline

Today we drove from the Flinders Ranges to Clare down the R.M.Williams highway. The Orroroo Shire was looking lush with hectares of healthy green crops and fat livestock.

It was  run of seasons like this one that attracted my Great Grandfather A.R.Addison (M.P.) c1880. He uprooted his family from a successful flour mill business at Middleton with the prospect of success in the more frontier lands to the north. 

My Grandfather​ 'Addie', the youngest of 9 children was born at Orroroo and his mother died soon after. Today the town cemetery includes the graves of his parents, uncle and many siblings, but he (farmed off to be raised by an aunt when his father remarried a woman uninterested in raising some one else's children) escaped for a career with the ANZ bank that took him to N.Z. via a start at Mt Gambier at only 17.

Today in a good season the rolling green hills are scattered with stone ruins, a reminder of the fickleness of the semi desert regions, and the hunger and heartache of many who took their chances and failed.

Stowaways

Living in a confined space for an extended length of time has it's challenges, but one we didn't really count on was sharing it with other critters.

Early on in the trip, while traveling with Kathie, we managed to pick up some ants that decided the folds of canvas might make a good nest. Thankfully we dealt with them fairly easily and quickly..

Some time after leaving Broome we noticed a bag of bread rolls had been chewed into. The following night in the same location Steph put out his infrared camera which revealed a mouse. The way it looked and moved suggested a run of the mill town mouse. And we moved on. A day or two later I lifted the bed to access clothes and there it was, up in the battery compartment but with easy access to our clothes for a cosy nest. Not much we could do being out of town but a visit to the hardware in Fitzroy Crossing soon fixed the problem. Poor little guy.

About this time I started smelling more thing bad under the bed and assumed it was the mouse. When it continued to worsen after catching the mouse I though it may have left babies somewhere (heaven forbid).

The next day I set about locating the source. It didn't take long to track it to Steph's undies/socks box where treasures are also carefully packed. A black plastic parcel had a chewed spot in it; it looked like the mouse had tried to access what ever was inside (which I couldn't remember at that point).

it turned out not to be something trying to get in, but something trying to get out! Up at One Arm Point on the Dampier Peninsular we had visited a trochus hatchery where the son of our camp hosts worked.  We bought 2 beautiful polished shells there.

Polished trochus shell

Now at this point I know you think it was the shellfish and that they had sold us a live shell, but no. As I unwrapped the parcel I found a shriveled up hermit crab that somehow had taken up residence, stayed hidden on their table of sale items, and then got wrapped up on purchase and had sadly died under our bed!

Fellow travellers

Grey nomads. They don't have a great reputation really do they? So it's interesting to see and meet who REALLY is on the roads of remote Australia other than us.

The renowned grey nomads do exist. We've bumped into them in their dressing gowns in caravan park shower blocks, and they've watched us, instant coffee in hand, as we pack up camp and escape back into the bush. Our friend Kathie talked of her experiences of caravan etiquette, park 'happy hour' and the subtleties of waving to passing compatriots on the road.

But there is another world of travellers out there. Most of our time has been spent in National Parks and similar unpowered camp grounds so who inhabits these?

Certainly we have met a lot of retirees; people in comfortable off-road caravans and hybrid vans who have hit the road, many semi-permanently. And why not? They've reached retirement, maintained their health, children have left home and they want to make the most of the time and their savings to see our gorgeous country rather than sitting at home vegetating. 

Overwhelmingly, the other group we mostly meet are young European travellers; German, Estonian, French, Swiss, Danish etc. Typically they hire vans or Apollo 4wd utes kitted out for camping. Many are circumnavigating Australia or are here for at least 6 months. One German woman we spoke to went home only long enough to work to save enough money for her next trip. Over a conversation about how wonderful it was to have clean hair, she divulged that the longest they had gone without a shower as 3 weeks in Angola! Without fail they are loving Australia. They are well researched and prepared, and willing to go to places and to experience, what most young Australians do not. They are respectful of the country, and angry when they find the bush abused (strewn toilet paper and rubbish) and we are.

We've seen very few young Australian travellers. Probably the most noticeable were in clapped out vans and dreds sitting around in the Cable Beach car park, having reached 'mecca'. We're a long way from the rest of the world, but even if we cannot find the means to see it, it's sad to think that our youth are not immersed in their own beautiful land.

CC FlickR image by anonphotography

Volunteers make the wheels keep turning

Those of us who have volunteered our time in one way or another will, I'm sure, acknowledge the pleasure and benefits that brought. We also, however, may have teetered on the boundaries of 'over-use'.

During the peak seasons in WA, national park campsites are cared for my a large community of volunteer camp hosts. Largely these are retired couples who, following minimal induction and training, base themselves for a month at a time in a particular site. For free camping they welcome new campers, collect fees, provide guidance, clean toilets and any other facilities. They also handle complaints and battle difficult campers.

One host confided that she had been told by a ranger that without them the rangers, desperately under-staffed, simply couldn't keep up with all that is required. The hardest sites to fill we're told are those that are more remote and which require off-road vehicles. We met one couple who had traveled all the way from QLD to participate.

Sounds like a great adventure, but the Govt needs to be very careful not to ask too much.

FlickR image by Flo & Jim Wilson

Grant

There's something both magical and surreal about visiting childhood places; people and places appear as though visited yesterday, memories re-emerge, changes challenge perception.

This week we spent a few days in Stephs childhood community, camping by the creek where he and his brother Mark fished, camped and bogged motorbikes. We passed the primary school, where friends lived, the old hall where he built model planes, Stephs family home, the vines and neighbours.

When Steph wanted to visit an old friend of his father's I knew he must be special, and he was.

Grant was an absolute delight; bright and sprightly despite being around 80, with a wealth of general knowledge and loads of common sense acquired through a life reading and adventuring. He greeted us in bare feet and white overalls, his long term uniform and over a wonderful cold glass of Nippys (OJ) recounted his time off the coast of the Kimberleys as he circumnavigated Australia in his huge aluminium hulled catamaran built in his Monash farm based engineering sheds and sailed to sea down the Murray River. 

Steph recounted childhood visits to Grants farm and the array of continually improved go-carts ready for trial. Grant showed us his bespoke self-built semi-powered long wheel base bicycle he rides each day to do the businesses mail run, amounting to 100km a week. And of course Grant just loved the quadcopter that was put up!

We parted with warm genuine hugs, and returned the following morning to fill our empty tanks with precious Riverland rainwater so generously offered and gratefully received.