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. 

Trip to town proves difficult

Ash and I headed to town today for a cleanup. Neither of us had any clothes left. After getting all our town jobs done including 4 loads of washing we were sitting under a tree in the campground beside our swags ready to spend the night when we both got claustrophobic. As more and more campers arrived and set up close to us we panicked. So we packed up our camp and headed for club coates rocklea camp. We were both so relieved to be out of town and back in the quiet. 

Campground camp before departure. 

Club Coates rocklea solitude. 

Week 1 Complete

Week 1 proved to be a battle but thanks to camping extraordinar mike I survived relatively unscathed.... Well except for my legs which look like they've been used as a scratching pole. 

Martin had clearly never seen an outback camp set up like club coates - the Pilbara edition. He certainly enjoyed the Thai red curry, Mexican feasts and Canadian pancakes on the menu. I think he'll have trouble camping without Mike now. 

Although, there were some differing opinions over what should happen on Sundays. Dad tried to play the "we are seriously religious and Sunday is our day of rest" card to be excused from going mapping. No such luck. To overcome the poor moral on Sunday morning we took some roadies...

Which continued into an afternoon Sunday sesh for Josh's birthday. There were a few sore heads this morning.

Martin seems to think he'll come back in two weeks and find Dad leading the mapping. Apparently Mikes got the gift...

Off to Karajini

Camp food

While I try hard to provide a healthy balanced diet at camp, sometimes people just do there own thing. Here is a vegetation salad sandwich with a cracker meat substitute. Looks great?

31 degrees -hot work

It was 31 yesterday and getting to some shade back at camp was a welcome relief. So was a cold beer. 

We got a new truck

So we don't knock Lisa's landcruiser around we have hired a ute. Certainly makes things much easier. 

Great! My turn to shop

Hmmmm, where's the health food isle?

My futures so bright

I gotta wear 2 pairs of shades

Ashlie the worker

Ashlie and Martin

Poor old ashie is really under the pump trying to absorb all the information she can from professor Martin while he is here. His knowledge and energy is amazing. I think Ash will fall in a heap next week after he leaves. 

Stone spear point. Amazing find

Today while we were walking a transect ( that's geo talk )  Martin stumbled across an aboriginal spear tip napped from stone. It is in amazing condition. He gave it to Ashlie. It was an amazing find. 

Big day in the field

After a huge first day yesterday we were all a bit doey this morning, however we headed off at 8 am to explore the dome. We had another monster day and covered a lot if ground on foot. Ashlie and Martin continue to gain a better understanding of the area and today made s very significant discovery that caused great excitement. It was a little beyond my understanding but I still got caught up in it s bit. The highlight of my day was finding an aboriginal hand tool.  We also saw a very fat and happy dingo wandering about. The low point for me was falling on a spinafex bush and copping a hand full of spines. I also have blistered feet from the hard terrain and difficult walking conditions. 

The country is hard but beautiful 

Geos at work

Hand axe

Wild flowers 

Bloody spinafex