Day 6: Kalgoorlie - Laverton

We are now in Laverton, can you believe our Telstra broadband card for our laptops works here, better signal here than in Perth! We are unlikely to get mobile access over the next 4 days or internet so hopefully we will arrive in Uluru in the 4 days if not Alice Springs should be another 5 or 6 days after that and we should be able to update the blog.

Our day started off with getting provisions and a new fan as our little one was not really up to it in this heat, plus we purchased a UHF radio, "breaker, breaker!"

We then set off on our ghost town road trip which went smoothly.

Laverton has a population of 1100 and its tiny, we are the only van in the caravan park and its a bit scary in the dark. Oly said he will walk me to the toilets before I go to bed and he waited outside the showers for me this evening.

The road we are about to drive down will be 1200 km of unsealed road, it is likely it will be dirt or gravel. We are planning to leave at 6AM tomorrow so it will be cool for Henry as I think he is going to need all the help he can get!

We have plenty of fuel - 40 litres in jerry cans plus a full tank, 60 litres of water and food to feed an army of ants many times over and us for at least 2 weeks so we should survive in the outback if anything goes wrong and wont need to resort to drinking each others wee.

Em

Distance: 360km
Time: 4 Hours
Temp: 33c
Music:
Duran Duran - Greatest Hits
Orishas - A Lo Cubano
Garbage - Garbage

Day 5: Kalgoorlie

Today was so hot.

Pop spent around three hours tweaking Henry and in the end he found that the points had little or no gap so he cleaned them up and increased the gap and it was like magic. He wouldn't take any money from us so we insisted he had a few bottles of wine we collected in Margaret River.

So that was that, finally everything was good and we could leave.

We pulled into Bunnings to pick up some fly screen for our door and my window wouldn't wind back up. This was recently fixed by a mechanic so this was not a good sign!

Back at the caravan site Oly fixed the window and we did lots of other little things that really needed doing... then I noticed our tent frame had broken. This was getting ridiculous, what next! I am starting to think that Kalgoorlie is like the Bermuda Triangle and we will never leave.

We are attempting to get to Laverton tomorrow, its 360km NE further into the outback and there is not alot between Kalgoorlie and it except for about 10 ghost towns.

Wish us luck!

Em

Temp: 40c

Day 4: Kalgoorlie

We took Henry back to the mechanic and he said the fuel pipe had kinked so they replaced the pipe and he should be as good as new...

Kalgoorlie-Boulder is host to the Super Pit. It is Australia's largest open cast gold mine. Originally it was lots of smaller mines with shafts but in the 80's the mines were consolidated and the in between bits between the shafts were blasted out and gold extracted from them.

The Super Pit is currently around 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and 360 meters deep. It's HUGE! Well worth seeing. The mine operates 24 hours, sadly we were always too tired and Henry was too sick to go out at night to see it all lit up, it would have been quite spectacular.

So back to Henry, he was still juddering and stalling so we called the RAC out again and they said to bring it in on Monday to their workshop, in the meantime Oly called Pop who had given us some numbers for mechanics in the area the day we limped in to Kalgoorlie and he said he would take a look at it tomorrow for us.

We are still smiling!

Em

Temp: 39c

Day 3: Kalgoorlie

Henry would not be ready until mid afternoon so we decided to get some chores and paperwork done as we had already walked up and down the high street.

After that we decided to go on a brothel tour and ended up at Langtrees 181 Hay Street which is a working brothel. I have never been in one before and was not sure what to expect. Two other groups were already waiting for the tour, two girls (aussies) and two guys with a girl (pommies) all roughly the same age as us, so we didn't feel to weird.

The tour was interesting and I would recommend it. One of the current Madams of the brothel was born a man and the last one worked until she was 84. I am sure that not all brothels are as nice and touristy as this one was, but over all it was fun.

With Henry's new pump fitted we drove to Boulder to a caravan park and he started stalling and juddering so we called the garage and booked him in for first thing tomorrow.

Ho hum,

Em

Temp: 32c

Aussie slang
Bushwacked = extremely fatigued or exhausted.

Day 2: Hyden - Kalgoorlie

We wake up at 5AM and pack up the van for its long journey to Kalgoorlie.

The day didn't start well.

Em: Where's the towel?
Ol: In my wash bag
Em: Its dry, have you not had a shower?
Ol: No
Em: How come?
Ol: You'll see

Off I trot to the ablutions. Open the door. Stare at wall, floor and ceiling carpeted with locusts. Turn on my heel, go back and brush my teeth by the side of the van.

We drove to Merriden, the roads varied from nice road to single strip of road and red dirt on either side to just red dirt. We arrived at around 8AM and had a brief walk around so Henry could have a quick rest.

Arriving in style at Kalgoorlie, we stalled every time we stopped or had to slow down. This time we weren't limping, we were kangarooing. It did not help that I had not emptied my bladder since I had gone to sleep the night before due to the locusts. After much searching we found a place that could fit an electric fuel pump the next morning, so we left Henry at a garage between two brothels and walked to a motel.

The RAC kindly paid for our accommodation. At this point we were pretty desperate for a shower (embarrassingly so) and that was the first thing we did when we got into our air conditioned room. The second thing we did was turn off the air conditioning as we were freezing and didn't want to lose our resistance to the heat or get to comfortable.

We had a walk up and down the main street in Kalgoorlie, came back to the room, had a nap then a nice meal out and watched a movie on TV.

Surely it can only get better.

Em

Distance: 450km
Time: 6 Hour
Temp: 34c
Music:
Depeche Mode - The Singles 81 - 85
Seal - Seal
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Come Find Yourself
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Jestofunk - Love in a Gold Dimension