Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The loud evening music was present again last night, although it finished at 11 rather than midnight and I slept OK after that. It seems to be an organised gathering so with a bit of luck it won't be happening on school nights - getting kids to go to school in these parts is difficult enough as it is.

Hit the 'road' early again this morning, but you really need to be out before sunrise to miss the heat. The plan was once again to take the road north from town (which I will undoubtedly be thoroughly sick of by the end of this week, even if it does go through some interesting rock) as far as the turnoff to the barge landing, aiming for a bit under 2 hours. By 50 minutes, though, I was struggling, and an out-and-back in a remote area on a hot day is no place to exceed your abilities. It was then a real struggle most of the way home, stopping to drink almost every kilometre by the end. Obviously not yet sufficiently used to the tropics.

Nothing much happens here on a Sunday so I'm no closer to knowing for sure what's going to happen from here, except to ascertain via the RACV website that they should pick up at least some of the bill. Will know more tomorrow.

I got virtually no sleep last night, initially because of loud music in the vicinity, but more because of worry about the potential hazards of the trip out in a less-than-perfect vehicle.

Ran from town towards the King Edward River gorge, and found it after one false start (signposting in these parts is somewhat erratic). Not a bad run on the whole although once again faded away a bit in the last 15 minutes, on a warm and humid morning.

I had good reason to worry about my exit; I didn't make it, failing to get through the first waterhole. A couple of locals towed me out but the car would not start, even after drying out for the best part of an hour. There is no professional mechanic in town but those with more amateur knowledge than I have thought that water has probably got into the engine and will need to be drained, but there is no-one who can do that here.

The upshot - I'm stuck here for a while. Although I will not be able to confirm details until Monday, it seems that my best option to get the car out of here is to have it shipped out on the fortnightly supply barge which is due on Thursday. Not sure if I would be able to go on the barge myself or would have to find another way to get out (most likely on the mail plane). Hopefully the damage is not too serious (although the damage to my credit card balance will certainly be serious) and I will be able to move on from Darwin more or less as planned in the middle of the week after next, but the NT Champs look a doubtful proposition at best.

I could have chosen worse places to be stranded. Kalumburu is not one of the remote-community horror stories you hear about in the media - the fact that the nearest grog is 600km away helps - the campground has good facilities, and the town has wireless internet (at a price, but it will keep me sane for the next week).

C • Hidden Valley Caravan Park 4

C • wet cars 4

This was a travel day to Kalumburu, one of the most isolated of my weather stations (it's on the northern tip of WA), as well as providing an opportunity to visit a remote Aboriginal community. I wasn't sure about the road but got advice, both from our observations people on Perth, and then from the people at the Drysdale River roadhouse about 200km from the end, that I shouldn't have any trouble.

It turned out not to be as easy as advertised. I expected it to be rough and it was (especially the last 70km). As I had been told, there were no major river crossings, but what they didn't say was that there were two deepish (30-40cm) waterholes in places you wouldn't expect them. I got through them both, but not with a lot to spare in the case of the second one, only about 1km short of town. More worryingly, some material on the bottom of the car has come loose which won't help the cause of trying to get through on the way out.

Broome, hitting tropical conditions with a vengeance - warm and very humid. Went OK for a lot of the time, starting out along Cable Beach to the south end and then around the south end of the peninsula. Faded fast after 90 minutes and eventually cut it a bit shorter than planned, although that was partly in the interests of saving a bit of time.

There is still a bit of time pressure on this part of the trip, driven by the fact that (a) you can't get an entry permit for Kalumburu on a weekend and (b) there is nowhere to (legally) camp on the first 300km of the Gibb River Road (although in practice I think you could get away with it if discreet). There is certainly some very impressive country, particularly in the King Leopold Ranges from about the 150km mark onwards. Not a place to go for solitude at this time of year though - the camping ground was very well-populated. No major dramas with the road so far.

Port Hedland to Broome is a 600km trip on what has been described (not without justification) as Australia's most boring road, so I decided to break the trip up with an intervals session on Eighty Mile Beach about 250km in. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find - probably a semi-deserted beach with perhaps the odd person wandered in off the highway. I certainly didn't expect the shore to be lined for kilometres with hundreds of people, nearly all of them perched next to a fishing line.

This was an intervals session on the beach - 10x1 min, 1 min recovery. Quite soft sand so a bit slower than usual. 4WDs parked on the sand were the markers. Felt reasonable.

Continued into Broome and my last taste of civilisation for a while. I hit the Gibb River Road tomorrow and will probably be out of contact until Tuesday. This will be the most remote part of the trip yet and I admit to feeling a little nervous after my experience on Tuesday, but hopefully everything will go OK, and the country is reputed to be well worth it.

Warm up/down from the intervals.

A morning session from the campground towards, but not all the way to, Oxers Lookout. Some cloud came in and stopped the morning from getting as cold as seemed likely the previous evening. Didn't feel brilliant before the start, but fine once moving.

Sleep was a bit interrupted because of intermittent noise from both humans and non-humans. I like Dire Straits but there is a time and a place for it, and midnight in a national park isn't it.

Saw some more of the gorges before leaving; could easily have devoted another day to this area but there are some constraints on my schedule which prevent lingering this week, plus rain is forecast for tomorrow and one could get stuck for a while if that happened.

I have been falling on my feet a lot in the last day or so, with a succession of misadventures that could have ended up much worse but didn't. The first couple happened yesterday evening. I left my credit card behind in the camp office but went back later to get a drink (it could easily have happened somewhere where I didn't notice until the next fuel stop 500km away), and a critical piece on my camping stove broke, but it was in a place where gas barbeques were available as a back-up.

The next mishap was on a side trip to Wittenoom. I hadn't planned to stay for long here - just long enough to look at the weather station there (number 75 on my list) and assess its topography so I could identify possible replacement sites outside the immediate area. As some of you will know, Wittenoom was the site of an asbestos mine with an associated severe toll of disease, and the WA government has been trying to obliterate any trace of its existence for decades, but has been stymied by the last few holdout residents. (Even the road signs pointing there have been blanked out). We're not officially supposed to go there which is why I did it unofficially, having read enough to decide that the risk from a brief visit was negligible (I know legal arse-covering when I see it).

A hissing sound on getting out of the car indicated that I was going to be spending a bit longer in Wittenoom than I'd planned on. The jack was deployed and I then ran into the next problem - a combination of an inadequate wheelbrace and my inadequate upper-body strength was not enough to budge the mechanically-tightened wheel nuts. Fortunately there was someone else on hand with a better wheelbrace and more brute force, who did the necessary. It could just have easily happened in the middle of nowhere. (I've picked up a better wheelbrace in Broome; the upper body strength is not so easy to do something about).

The tyre, as I expected from the size of the rock lodged in it, was stuffed. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to get a replacement organised before close of business after arriving in Port Hedland at 4.15 (it was at Port Hedland prices but you can't have everything).

My next problem, I thought, was going to be finding somewhere to stay. I'd drawn a blank on initial inquiries earlier in the week (the campsites are filled by grey nomads, the hotels by mining people, and the backpackers have gone out of business) and my original plan was to continue on to Pardoo Roadhouse 150km up the road, but that would have meant 150km of night driving in a part of the world where that is unwise. Fortunately Amy, the Bureau's person in Port Hedland, offered me a place to stay which I gratefully accepted. (It turned out she's as much of a weather nut as I am - we spent most of the evening watching cyclone DVDs).

After a rather stressful day it was time to have a relaxing jaunt through town. I didn't enter Port Hedland with high expectations from previous reports from those who have been there (to say nothing of the guidebook which says of one local establishment that it 'no longer has the highest pub death rate in Australia'), but the waterfront was pleasant enough, admiring the queue of ships offshore (not quite at Newcastle levels). The last 10 minutes were very pleasant indeed, perhaps the best I've felt for a couple of weeks.

C • Leverage 1

C • Gorge 1

A morning loop around Exmouth. Felt good after the initial warm-up but fairly slow. This distance was sufficient to exhaust the exploration opportunities within the town (and I doubt if the military authorities would appreciate too much exploration to the north). Quite cool again.

Much of the rest of the day was spent going across to Karijini National Park, getting there in time to get to the Oxers Lookout area before sunset. I knew this was spectacular gorge country, and it was, but not in the way that I expected. The gorges are cut into a relatively flat plateau (rather than being in already rugged country as they are around Alice Springs), so at first glance you think nothing unusual is going on, and then you see that it suddenly drops down 100 metres (with one of the gorges almost narrow enough to jump across if you're very brave).