Day 2 or, It's all gummed up!
Have you ever been so cold that you thought you were wet? Honestly, I think I now know how Leonardo de Caprio felt during that scene in Titanic , when they were thrown into the water clinging to some flotsam to stay afloat! We woke in what must have been about minus 2 or minus 3 but which felt like what Scott and Amundsen must have experienced!
My zero degree rated sleeping bag was ably assisted by a light "throw rug" which spent the night over my head! I did attempt to remove it at one stage but when my ears felt like I was stuck to a glacier I decided that it needed to resume its task of covering my head
. I fell asleep dreaming of being in a fridge…
The site of this experience was Bowenville Reserve. This is a nice enough spot, relatively flat, a few trees, even “proper” toilets! More on them later. A quick pasta meal when we arrived preceded an early night. I woke feeling refreshed at about 3am, wndering why I was in Antarctica. I curled up into the tightest little ball that I could and wondered what time we would get going later that morning given that Graeme would need a can opener or dynamite to get me out of my sleeping bag.
As it turned out nature found a way. Unfortunately G reported that the toilets were “all goomed oop”. I asked if he meant frozen solid, he said no, and repeated “goomed oop”. I eventually figured out that I probably wouldn’t be using the loo there this morning! When I saw what he meant I was certain of it. I was also certain that someone staying at the reserve had eaten an entire horse the night before.
After attending to ablutions that were possible I returned to the van to pass G heading off determinedly for what I thought was a walk to take a look around. I started packing up and some time later G returned with a big smile saying “mission accomplished”! Turns out he had gone stick hinting and whilst I’ll spare you the details he described (which was quite grotesquely interesting) the loo was no longer “goomed oop”! When he is a man on a mission there’s no stopping him!
We hit the road around nine and refuelled in Dalby, grateful for the air conditioning. I took great delight in pointing out to G that we were averaging 14.2 L/100km – a fine target for him to beat!
Today’s drive saw us leave the “downs” and we entered some pretty hard country with a little more relief than the last few hours, where we passed through some absolutely beautiful flat black soil plains. We decided that there were a few things we needed at our stop at Roma at lunchtime. For me it was another doona, nuts to fix the broken support struts on the van and a bucket, for G it was supplies to cook up a meal tonight and a thermometer so we would know exactly what the temperature is – masochist!
It turned out that there weren’t many shops open. Crazy Clarks had some of what we wanted but believe it or not the doonas were very expensive. I found a Repco open on Sunday and bought the locknuts I needed. They informed me that it was standard practice to wear a beanie to bed in these parts - it had been minus 3 there the night before – I resolved to return to Crazy Clarks to buy a beanie! Strangely, when rubbing my head waiting for the customer in front of me to be served, I noticed that my head was sore, bruised in fact, I wonder what caused that! Would you believe even Woolies was closed and the shop assistant said they never opened on Sundays! We scoffed some pies and quite nice coffees from a bakery and hit the road.
We arrived at Takkarakka bush camp around 4.30pm, booked in, set up very quickly and I replaced the missing nuts on the stabilisers. A couple of beers accompanied by cheeses and a couple of currawongs that had found the brekky cereal I had to sweep up and throw out (I forgot to lock the cupboard) were very welcome. I would have had some pictures but as soon as I produced a camera they scattered!
GG’s feed was very tasty and we watched a DVD he’d recorded in the absence of a TV signal or a mobile signal (so we couldn’t play on the 'Net!)
Now, where’s the old blanket from the car and the beanie I bought to keep my head warm tonight!
It's all goomed oop!
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland, Australia
Other Entries
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1Watch your head
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2It's all goomed oop!
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3A walk in the woods
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11Bye Bye Alice
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18Homeward bound
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20Epilogue
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Comments

2025-02-10
Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank
cheryl
2015-07-23
I am chuckling as I am reading this, I love the commentary, but I am killing myself laughing on the "goomed oop" and the fact someone ate a horse ..... very nasty vision I have in my head ....