Meekatharra Revolutions

A Willy Willy

Well I did another trip to Meekatharra. This time it was just a quick two nighter because the drillers hadn't finished in time during the last trip. They also said they had struck exactly what we were looking. So I headed all the way back, just to discover that they don't know what they are talking about. Talk about a waste.

Not much exciting from this trip. It was much much cooler, only about 37 / 38 C this time. The highlight of the trip was being in the middle of a "Willy Willy". It wasn't quite as extreme as the photo above, but it shows up out of nowhere. We step out of the LandCruiser, and noticed a slight breeze, as we walked out a bit further it picked up. "Nice wind, it's blowing the flies away" [there were still thousands of flies]. Then the winds really picked up and a piece of paper blew out the LandCruiser door. The fieldie raced to close the doors, while I watched this paper to see where it would blow to. I did not expect to blow almost completely vertical, with a spiral flow. Pretty soon it was so far up in the air that we lost it. I'm guessing well over 500m to 1 km high, and it just kept going as it was trapped in it. I'm just glad it wasn't my hat that blew away.....

My other big event in Meeka was discovering that something was in my toilet on monday. It was large, and moved very quick; it went "under" before i could get my eyes on it. My best guess was cockroach or frog. Anyhow, the next day, and after a few "flushes" (props to it for surviving a couple of them ;)..... I saw it just sitting on the rim, and yes it was a frog. Tried to get a photo, but it was camera shy.

That was the excitement. Then back to Meekatharra:
Jon: Hi, my name is Jon, I'm on the flight
Airport Staffer: Ok Jon, place your bag on the scale, Do you have any dangerous goods or weapons?
Jon: Nope
Airport Staffer: Ok, see you on the plane
You aren't even given a boarding pass .... gotta love outback security ..... :)

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Back to Perth, I had a taxi driver tell me he was going to show me something I've never seen before. He said, he knew a building that was built like a sheep. I was quite excited, as this is not New Zealand. Anyway, he showed me the building, and I was really upset, as it looked absolutely nothing like a sheep. Still he insisted, a sheep, a sheep, a big sheep. That's when I realized that for the last 10 minutes he had been talking about SHIPS.... oh my ... talk about lost in translation.... I'm still learning Australian

I hit up City Beach for a bit and met up with Matt after he finished work. Then spent the afternoon getting tossed around by giant waves. Now I'm paying the price as salt water keeps coming out of my nose whenever I lean over.....

or is it clear blood????

Oh yah ..... Australian Idol winner was Natalie .... the show went on way too long, and I just looked it up on the internet, and then went to bed ....