Home again

Well we couldn't resist the pull towards home. After making it to Peterborough on saturday night we headed off early sunday morning with our eyes on home. 1300kms and 14 hours later we made it. What a big day. Now the clean up

Coober Pedy

We made Coober Pedy yesterday. We are stayed in an underground hotel last night. It was a real blast. We did a mine tour this morning which was also fun. Now we are heading for Peterborough.

Alice Spring R & R

Well we made it to Alice. Very dusty and tired and ready for a couple of days off. We spent some time walking around town checking it out. The camper is uninhabitable with incredible amounts of dust everywhere and a broken door. Looks like we will be swagging it for the rest of the trip

Tanami Desert & Wolfe Creek with Bush Man Mike

Tanami Crossing success

Lisa and I made it across the Tanami desert without significant drama. We popped out in Alice Springs NT after the 1050km desert crossing from Halls Creek in WA. The track was rough and corrugated but we managed a moving average of around 70kms per hour. We had to let the tyres down on the car and the camper to around 24psi to cope with the incredible corrugations. The Camper didn't escape unscathed, with the door breaking off and now held on by cable ties and 100 mile an hour tape. Also there is so much dust inside the camper that it is virtually uninhabitable. The car handled the road with ease, it was bloody amazing. I never thought id say that about the car I've always loved to hate on. We didnt see many other travellers. In fact we only had 1 other traveller going in our direction. The longest distance between fuel stops was 700km. We made it by filling 3 x  20 litre jerry cans and putting them on the roof of the car. Made it with one to spare. We filled up twice at aboriginal communities. That was a real eye opener. They allow Europeans in only to buy fuel. I will put up some photos shortly.

Cool Boat/Car on Cable Beach WA

Check out this cool boat. A must when trying to get off the water in a place where there is 9m tides

Evening traffic jamb on Cable Beach, WA

Here is a clip of the 4WD's lining up to get off the beach after the sunset rush at cable beach.

Spinner Shark Broome Warf

While taking a stroll along the warf at broome, one lucky punter was hauling in the 2.5m spinner shark. Needless to say he couldnt land it as it was about 10m to the water.

Tanami Desert-

Off down Tanami track news in 2days

Moon,star sunset-Cable Beach WA

Can't stop lookin

Biking at the beach

Beach traffic

Afternoon traffic broome style. Leaving the beach after sunset. 

Broome sunset ver2.0

Afternoon ritual. Ride to the beach and have a bevy while watching the sun go down. 

Broome Sunset

We made it to broome for some R&R. Realised everybody in Australia over 65 years old is here too. It's like a retirement home for landcruiser owners. In winter the population goes from 15000 to 45000. It's FUCKED!!!

Anyway we enjoyed the sunset with 20,000 other old people. The rest of then were already in bed. 

Last day at Rocklea

I put ash on the plane this morning and went back to camp to pack up. 4 hours later and very red and sad we headed north. 

Lisa visits Karijini.

I took Lisa to Karijini for the weekend. She was completely blown away. 

Another amazing petroglyph site

Ashlie and Martin found the best collection of petroglyph rock art to date. The images of animals are much more anatomically correct than we have seen before. The carving is incredible into the hardest rock imaginable. We can't work out how it was done. Can you see the kangaroo.  

Another Karijini shot

View from a Swag

I've slept in the swag about 50% of the time. I wake up and there's so much to see that you can't go back to sleep. I have to return to the camper so that I can get a full sleep. I know this selfie is a bit arty but "what the hell". 

Tom Price Speedway - GOLD!!

We went to the speedway at Tom Price on the weekend. Incredible facility with an awesome track. Unfortunately only 8 competitors over 5 divisions. Yep not much going on. Anyway these to clips show that a couple of the 8 competitors really knew what they were doing

Karijini the movie

Here to short clips taken at Karijini on the weekend

Karajini wonderland

Ash and I spent the weekend out at Karajini National Park. People kept telling us it was the best spot in WA. We went prepared to be disappointed after such s big buildup, but it was great and totally lived up to expectations. Here are a couple of photos. Videos to follow. 

Swaging it at Karajini national park

Ash and I spent the weekend at Karajini National Park. The joint is off the hook. Here is our little camp

 

Getting out the RED

It's just relentless. 

Lisa's car gets a tub

When we were in town yesterday doing our weekly shop and wash I decided to take Lisa's car for its first wash since leaving Bathurst in June. The car wash was $8. All you got was a hose and a bucket. I had to buy a sponge and detergent from the super market. Car came up a treat. It looked fantastic until we drove home on 80 kms of dirt. 

It's the thought that counts. 

Another Petroglyph site found

Ash stumbled across another great rock art site yesterday. There are lots more symbols at this site. It's almost like graffiti. We plan to visit the aboriginal leaders in the nearby town of Tom Price to report the finds just in case they are unknown to them. 

Do you reckon that's a bird above?

Lots of emu's 

Gold

While I am sick of people asking me where all the gold is, we did meet some more prospectors today. They had an extremely successful few days with a total of 9 ounces. 

Fireside warmup

2.7 degrees thismorning. Lucky I've got thermo thongs on

Big aboriginal site find today

Ash and I found a fantastic site today. About half way through our 7.5 km hike we came to an area of granite that had a big basalt dyke running through it. I though the huge basalt stones were a likely place to fine some rock art. Sure as eggs we found 3 symbols on a big boulder (see below) the left hand symbols are for women. 

That's was all we could fine so we started to move off through the granite. As we worked our way forward I noticed a large flat area of granite up on the hill under the dyke that had some large basalt boulders sitting in it. I thought it looked hopeful. What I found just blew us away. Most of the boulders had petroglyphs on them. There were probably 30 different figures. It will take some time to work it all out. The area had a large rock pool with clear water in it. There was also two grinding pads on basalt boulders. It was s lovely spot looking over a large basin. You could just imagine aborigines living there. Here are some photos. 

The left hand symbol above is an emu ?

The bottom right symbol above means elder ?

This last photo shows one of the large grinding stones. 

I am so excited about this find that have made contact with a friend who knows someone in the aboriginal community in the area. I intend to report the find to the elders in case the site is not known to them.  

The place felt really nice. Ash and I wanted to stay and spend time there but we had many hours to walk to get back to the car. I hope to return again before we leave. 

Injury strikes

Mikey's willing to go to great lengths for a sample. Can you spot the granite shard in his shin? 

Coffee time

Confused about the weather

I know Ashlie is. Gloves , ear warmers and shorts. She's a fashion statement. 

Pretty - Harsh

Road Train Fuel Tanker

Check out this rig

Big day!

Geo Mikey needed a little lunch time nap after a big morning. He collected HEAPS of granite! We walked the last 4kms with at least 6kgs of rocks in each pack.... Battle.

Ashlie's office

The camper has many uses. Ashlie's Geo office included

Pilbara Rock Licking Pty Ltd

Aboriginal discovery's

Ash needed to spend a day in camp today licking rocks, so I decided to do a little exploring. I went to an area of granite by a dry river as I thought it was a likely spot for the aborigines to hang out. There were some depressions in the rock that would hold water when the river was dry. Sure enough I found about half a dozen grinding rubs where they ground up seeds for flour. You can clearly feel the smooth depression in the rock surface. I also found stone that had been used for grinding and some worked stone for cutting tools. On the way back to camp I saw a granite dyke that was close to the river bank and I thought it might be a good place to look for petroglyphs ( rock art ). I crawled all over the dyke in the midday heat and was just about to give it away when I found what I was looking for. Check out the photos. 

From what I can work out on the Internet this symbol means "main camp fire with tracks". Cool hey. I'm sure there will be more stuff there. Ill go back when it's cooler. 

Grinding rub with grinding stone ( see smooth patch top right. 

Grinding rubbing and worked flint tool 

Can you see the depression in this rock by the river. Would have been a great spot to sit in good times. 

This depression in the rock would hold water after rain. You can see the grinding rub at the base of the photo.