Day 162

8 July 2013

We were leaving the falls today happy we made the effort to come up here and ready to move on to our next destination. We were heading back to Drysdale Station and seeing whether we would stay or keep going to Mt Barnett.

Another bumpy 78km and we are back on Kolumbaru Road which has just been freshly graded for the first part so smooth sailing. Towards Drysdale it started to get a bit rougher, grader hadn't visited this part yet but we hammered along. Made it to Drysdale, refuelled and bragged to the lady there that we hadn't busted a tyre yet!

Pulled up to park for a beer and some lunch and Joel noticed a trailer with its wheel off and a couple of fellas working on it. He thought they might have busted the hub and as he had a spare he went over to check it out. Turns out they were doing other repairs and needed a drill which Joel also had so they were appreciative for the help as the station people had refused to help at all because of liability etc.

Just handed the drill over and a young girl comes up to us and says "someone told us you might know something about cars, can you help us?" (I'm still not sure who told them this) so we headed to their car to check it out. They were a couple of German backpackers and they had snapped the rear brake line and fluid was coming out everywhere. They had also been told by the station that they couldn't help them because of liability issues.

Well an hour later, dusted up clothes (from Joel rolling around under the car), a clamped brake line, some exorbitant money spent on brake fluid (by the Germans), pumping and bleeding of the brakes and a quick test drive.....the verdict was it was better than it was before and they were on their merry way again! Good deeds done for the day and Joel got $10 and a offer of a beer for his efforts haha (it's a long story) but we drove away feeling good for helping.

We decided to keep going to Mt Barnett and in hindsight this might have been the mistake we made for the story that comes next.

60km back to the Gibb and 110km to Mt Barnett which means today we did 355km on harsh road. At about the 300km mark we hear a bust and the car slides around..... Flat tyre!! Bound to happen but I thought after all our good deeds today it could have held off at least another day! Haha

Well let me tell you it was not just a flat tyre, it was a shredded, f$cked, blown to pieces expensive friggin tyre! Another hour spent replacing with spare and people travelling past throwing up dust in our faces! We both looked decidedly orange/red colour by the time we got back into the car! There was at least three people that actually stopped and checked we didn't need help and now it was out turn to do the thumbs up which means you're shit but you don't need help signal! Good news is there is so many cars around at this time, if you needed help, it wouldn't be too far away.

Now this is why they tell you to carry two spare tyres on the Gibb! We chanced it with only one and now we are in the middle of the Kimberley's and we have to just hope we don't blow another before the next tyre shop. Luckily 80km down the road is a tyre repair shop and they have a tyre we can use as a spare so we will be picking up that tomorrow! Wish us luck on making it the 80kms!

Settled at Mt Barnett now and buggered from our eventful day! Tbone, mash and gravy for dinner signals our official running out of food! Luckily the shop here can stock us up even if it will cost the earth!

Carly & Joel

 

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