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.

I like winter here....

Well my 2nd day here started off pretty lame with continuous showers for the morning. But the afternoon was another story. The sun came out in full force!!!! I met up with a couple of Uvic friends Amy and Matt, and then we just hung out on Cottesloe Beach and watched the sun go down. I think I could get used to this.

Highlight of the day: When a crazy Australian woman randomly dropped her dog off in the lap of a fellow Canadian at a pub. She didn't want it to cramp her style as she hit on men. Needless to say, it was very awkward, and I was scared to take a photo cause I thought she might attack. After holding the dog for 10 minutes, the guy put it down, and she came racing over, telling him that the dog can't go on the ground. Crazy.

Amy and Matt

Sunset

I like Australian Coasters