Meekatharra - Day #4 & 5 - warning! graphic content

So after the many warnings, and many near misses as kangaroos, cows, emus, and sheep ran across the road, I finally hit my first animal.... It was an emu that ran out in front of the car, and I had zero time to respond. I tapped the break a little, but held firm and kept the wheel locked straight. Emus don't really cause the damage that kangaroos or cows do because they are smaller, and lighter.

Unfortunately, the emu did not take the 80km/hr impact very well. We sat in the car knowing that we would have to go back to put it out of it's misery. Our only option was a tire iron meaning we'd have to get up close and personal ith it. Fortunately a car came up a few minutes later, and there was an old bloke who took a look at us and knew he would have to do the deed. He got out a shovel. It was very heart-breaking, but as any Aussie would tell you, it's just part of life down under...

Also, we had the pleasure of changing another tire today. At least this one wasn't in the middle of the night... Only in the heat of the mid-day sun. The temperature was very hot today, up to around 37 C [In Perth it was 21 C today]. As compared to the cooler 32, 33 C that we worked in the previous three days. I think I drank about 6 litres of water, and only went the washroom (i mean toilet .... don't say washroom here, ppl laugh at you) about twice. The water just gets sucked out of you!

One more day to go .... what crazy adventures will happen tomorrow. I can't wait!!!

FRIDAY - Day 5

Not too exciting today, hung around town and enjoyed country living. Watched some store
owners go wacko losing their patience.

Took the worst flight ever, 30 minutes from Meekatharra to Mt Magnet. We stayed low and
were stuck in thermal winds (vertical winds) that are caused as the hot surface air rises
into the atmosphere. Major turbulence the whole way. The woman behind me asked the
stewardess if this was normal. She smiled and said "Yup". Just great.
Can't wait for the next adventure!

Meekatharra - Day #3 - Meatalcoharra

Decided to add a couple photo features on my pic site. Daily Outback Sunsets, and Daily Self Portaits in Krazy Mirror.

Back to the daily blog. What can I say .... another interesting day in the outback.
I saw my first cloud today as the sun was going down. There aren't many clouds in the sky during the day. Although I've found the sky to be quite gray during the day. Probably because their is so much dust in the sky.

I'm starting to learn about aboriginal affairs. It is a prickly issue here... They haven't been treated very well for the past 200 years. We ended up going back to the location from the previous days aswe had to take an aboriginal fellow to supervise the drilling. So we met Trevor [after searching for 217 Darlot st..... which really is technically 95 Darlot street ... why do houses have two street numbers?] and took him out for a day of geology fun. We fed him, drove him around, provided him with Coke. We had a great day!!! I don't really want to get too into the stories from today. Maybe another time. He was actually a very sweet fellow, but he always repeated what you said, and then made it sound like he came up with it. "Looks like the fence is over there". "Yah, I see the fence is over there". "There might be some tracks in the sand". Ï see tracks in the sand over there"....

All our stakes were taken out by the Rancher because they had flagging tape. We had to re-find the locations.... and then use flagging tape as we didn't have any more stakes... since the rancher took them. The issue with flagging tape is that the cattle will eat it and die. The cattle are so short on food that they have also been eating our sample bags. They also stalk us. They will follow us from hole to hole, hoping that we will be dropping food for them. Then they tear apart our bags. Looks like we are going back again tomorrow to try to save as many bags as possible.

There is no shortage of Meat and Alcohol in this Shire [not a town, it's called a shire] ... I'm considering calling this place Meatalcoharra. I think I'll gain about 10 pounds due to the food I've eaten here this week ... that's assuming I won't have a heart-attack before the end of it. [update- survived without a heart attack but stopped eating any local meals on Friday, just stuck to bananas and apples and iced coffees].

Meekatharra - Day #2 - Introducing Khaki-Man

Not really very exciting today. We did lots of work, as things went reasonably well. The biggest hastle was finding the wooden pegs that were hammered in to show locations of drill holes. "Supposedly" the cattle had knocked them all over yah right.... Cattle actually knock over pegs on purpose.... then we saw one in action. literally! They also would go through our sample bags looking for food. There isn't a lot to eat in the outback. Then crap in the samples. Nice

1st Biggest Highlight today was bringing out Khaki Man! That's me, but wearing nothing back Khaki. Australians pronounce it Car Kee. I thought I was supposed to wear Car Keys ... [true story]

2nd Biggest highlight was one cow really "Manning" up to us, and facing us down. Moo... Mooo ... MOOOOOOO. You had to be there.

Headed home late tonight again, we almost ran over a few kangaroos, we almost hit some cattle, and had some goats run out in front of us. It's KRAZY driving out here!

Continuation Incident from Day 1 - My sunnies disappeared [Sunglasses that is]. They likely fell off during the Changing of the car tire. May go back to Yalgar and try to track them down. Odds of that happening .... 5,000,000 to one. But it does happen. Flashback to "What started out as a 10km race, finished as a 10km smile". [end of week update .... the 5,000,000 won]

Sunsets in the outback are spectacular.... not sure if i'll bother to get up for a sunrise. Not a morning person. But the sunsets last for quite some time, and light up the WHOLE sky.