I thought I would write a blog every night during my trip to the Outback town of Meekatharra on http://www.australialiterally.com/, and then also update pics on http://picasaweb.google.com/australialiterally. I'll start with Monday and every so often add another day etc. Day 1 started with a Beautiful sunrise over Perth City. I was up at about 4:30am. Yeeeaaaah! I love early flights, especially on Stat Holidays! The flight to Meekatharra took 1 hour 30 minutes, and it was packed! I think there were 8 of us on the flight! Small plane, but better service than any Air Canada flight I've been on lately.
Incident 1 - It really began when we forgot to pick up the "hired" sat phone at the end of last week. Woops... well we have more coworkers coming on Wednesday, so we can use the one in the car. No worries.
Incident 2 - No keys for the car. The airport staff were given the keys to look after, and they forgot where they put them! Fortunately, someone left the door open!!! Not the best move as there is a Huge Break-In issue in Meekatharra as there is obviously nothing else to do.
Incident 3 - The car wouldn't start! Yeah! Turns out there was an electrical problem. We had one local help us jump start the car. He almost electricuted himself about 10 times. I stood back and watched. Far back. Once we got on the road, we noticed that nothing was working, lights, speedometer, blinkers, radio etc. The airport staff (one woman) was kind enough to lead us to the Auto shop, and she helped us get a "Hire" Car, while ours was at the Sparky's.
Incident 4 - Not really an incident. I was in charge of driving the hire car from the airport back to town. First time on the road in Australia Baby!!! It's a bit awkward using the stick shift with the left hand. I only turned the windshield wipers on once when I was about to turn the corner :)
Incident 5 - Someone left open a bottle of tire sealent in the back of our car. This stuff reminded me of the ooze you see in Ninja Turtles movies. Gross.
Incident 6 - We had to pick up a pump for the drillers at a Courier, but due to the stat holiday, it was closed. We just waited outside for 15 minutes and eventually the owner saw us. People live where they work here. So we got the pump! Patience pays.
Incident 7 - The drillers requested bread .... Every store was out of bread due to the Great Bread Shortage of 2007. Fortunately we met some stations owners who let us borrow a couple loaves from them.
Incident 8 - Complete disorganization. Due to the car switch, we left a lot of important gear behind in the old car. Woops! Also, the GPS wouldn't communicate with our PDA, and we didn't have the password for the satellite phone. Well we won't need those anyway.... right?
The day went pretty smooth once we were at work. Some nice photos below:
Incident 9 - On the drive back (me driving ... and on the correct side of the road), my coworker Jacqui tells me of all the times she has run over kangaroos, and emus, and how dusk is the WORST time. Her advice, "Don't break, don't turn, just hit the damn thing". No more than 2 minutes later, an emu comes screaming out of the bush, and I brake a little and just miss slaughtering the big bird. 20 Minutes later, a kangaroo comes flying out from the right, not nearly as close as the emu. Holy crap, this is going to be interesting....
Incident 10 - As I was driving I noticed how the car was really losing power. Then it got bouncy. Then I could smell burning. Uh oh, we blew another engine. NOPE. I blew out a tire!!! Wahoo! My first one! Good thing the sun has just gone down and we are in the Middle of nowhere!!! We'll just use the satellite phone to, oh wait no, Not working... Luckily we had a crappy jack, but we struggled to find a good location to get the car up enough. Enter the helpful aboriginal couple who stopped.
Incident 11 - We could have been there for hours if they didn't stop. The guy came out, and scoped out the situation... Who we were ... what happened ... I now know it's EXTREMELY dangerous meeting people in the bush in the middle of the night. But we were ok for him. He brought out his super jack, and helped us with the replacing of the tire. As a thank-you, Jacqui offered him another co-workers beer stash. He was quick to accept.
Incident 12 - Hmmmmm, I use the flashlight to see if we missed anything [more on that tomorrow], and found a BULLET!!!!! Jacqui said she saw him drop some stuff and scramble to pick it up. Yikes!!!! Did we ever get lucky.
After 5 minutes of driving, we caught back up to the couple (on the road now), he waved us to pass .... I wonder where the beers were now!!! :)
Lots of bad luck, but lots of good luck. Time for bed!!!
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