Mud and peepot
- Ingetje Tadros
- Nov 25, 2017
- 4 min read
Finally we were on the road. We left Broome the15th of November, kissed our daughter, her boyfriend and their two dogs goodbye and headed, early morning to Halls Creek. I really wanted to go off the bitumen asap and the goal was to camp on the Duncan Rd. which we reached late afternoon. We found a magic spot just after Palm Springs.
The plan was to drive to Carmila in Queensland. We were a bit in a rush as, by strange coincidence, I had met ‘Rensina’ on Facebook and she was also the person who helped me, again by sheer coincidence at the online bidding of our car and I just felt this connection with her. But Rensina was also planning a big trip and she and her partner Allen were going to leave around the 23rd of November. I did not want to drive all the way on the bitumen so planned at least to drive a part of the Duncan Rd, Buntine Highway and the Buchanan Highway as these are all unsealed and so much more fun to drive!
Our second stopover was just out of Top Springs, at the Yingawunarri Creek. We had a very heavy downpour just before in Kalkarindji (Wave Hill) and Romani was very
concerned that the dry (and muddy) spot where we had parked our car would fill up with water overnight and he kept checking during the night, especially when it started dripping again. Yes we were very muddy but we did not float away in that dry riverbed.
The next morning we took the Barkley Stock Route, which was a bit of an adventure! I remember our daughter said before we left, ‘watch out for the mud as it’s been raining in some parts and it can get really muddy!’ And she knows that we are not that experienced in mud and sand driving (yet) and before this thought came up Romani was driving in a long stretch of grey mud!
We hit a pothole later on and the whole windscreen was covered in red soil! El Donya was baptised now and looked like he could go and drive anywhere! Now it’s up to us to learn to drive this beast! As we had more confidence Romani offered the idea to take the Ranken Road (another Stock Route). This time I was on the wheel and before I knew it we where swirling in grey mud and realised this Route was closed. Well I can tell you; I was very happy about that ! As we searched for a camp along the road, both sides were fenced and it took us quite a while to find a spot. We nearly got bogged as we went off the road into the bush and were relieved when we got out in one try.
After this night we decided just to keep driving as long as possible to reach Rensina and Allen in time. (on the boring bitumen). Also because we found the car’s steering was behaving a bit strange and had troubles keeping it on the road. W’ve had this problem before but we thought, as many others had mentioned to us, that our tyres were not good, too old fashioned, too narrow, too this and that.
Allen, Rensina’s partner is a landRover specialist and I had the urge to meet him and was hoping he could help us with this ‘weird’ swaying of the car (some call it ‘wandering’).
One morning while we driving at the Stuart Highway which we found rather boring after all our muddy experiences, the car just stopped. It would not start anymore and we were in the middle of nowhere! I get acute diarrhoea in these kind of situations, so ran in the dirt but there was no bush or tree to be found. There was nobody around anyway. Romani continued to try to start the car. It appeared that as we have a double tank and he had switched from the empty to the full tank, the empty tank was too empty (he should’ve switched just a bit earlier) but luckily he knew where to press a pump thing under the bonnet and not long after, the car started and I was just finished doing what I was doing.
Our last night before reaching Carmila we camped in a beautiful spot, which I found by coincidence, as we just could not find a place to camp as everywhere the road was fenched and it was impossible to find a spot! The WikiCamps App helped me out. I found the Red Lilly, a spot on a Cane Farm in Mount Kelly and after phoning Arthur, the farmer, we found ourselves in a magical spot, on a little lake full of red lilies and filled with birds. While we where setting up camp and collecting the stuff we normally take upstairs in our rooftop tent, like our little peepot, we realised it was not in the car! We looked everywhere and then looked at each other and screamed NOOO! We must‘ve forgotten to take it downstairs the morning before and yes we both had used it the night before, I raced upstairs and I was surprised it had leaked only a little tiny bit. It must’ve been squeezed and squashed over while closing up the tent! Since then we haven’t used it as we were so peeved off with ourselves and I wanted to punish that bloody peepot!
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