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September 29, 2001
Overland Australia - Update 55
September 29, 2001
Day 68
21 kilometres west of Lajamanu
from jason
The last couple of days have been much needed layover days, a little R+R after the slog up through the sand of the Tanami desert since leaving Alice Springs 3-weeks ago. The heat was starting to get to us also, adding to the general fatigue felt by all from being on the road for nearly 70 days now. So, at Wednesday’s evening meeting it was decided to halt the expedition at the first suitable camp spot that displayed as many of the necessary criteria for a relatively comfortable stay: shade, water (for washing clothes, bodies and dishes), firewood and an absence of dry grass that might flare up into a Bushfire.
It’s very hard to find anywhere out here in the Tanami Desert that fulfils even one of the above criteria. After a near mutiny at around 1:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon on the Lajamanu Road, when some team members holed themselves up under the shade of a roadside bush and refused to come out until a campsite had been found, Bluedog finally radioed in with the good news that he’d found at least some shade, firewood and a water hole about 6km off the road. With nothing ahead of us by that point in the day save for yet more sun-baked miles of open sandy road leading to perhaps nowhere, we mustered one last effort of the will to push our leaden bikes up the track to the promised land as described over the radio.
It's now Saturday evening and we’re watered and rested in anticipation of an early 6 a.m. start tomorrow morning. The waterhole didn’t exactly fit the waterhole in our minds when first we heard Bluedog’s sales pitch over the radio. Instead of a crystal clear pool of ice-cold river water, we’ve been camped beside a leach infested mud-puddle frequented by cattle, brumbys (wild horses) and a family of white Cockatoos that screech and yell in the early hours of the morning like a pack of belligerent old ladies. We spent most of yesterday and today huddled under the meagre shade afforded by the truck and a tarpaulin stretched to what seems to be the only tree in Northern Australia. Every half an hour we all shunt a few degrees in line with the sun’s trajectory across the sky until the relief of evening comes, with a corresponding abatement of the day’s heat and onset of the soothing night sounds of crickets and birds coming into drink at the waterhole, all of which seems to make life in the Outback tolerable again.
But perhaps the most memorable feature of this camp will be the flies. Burrowing, crawling, wriggling, gnawing flies that laugh in the face of Deet repellent or any other vain attempt to keep them at bay; Hammas flies specially trained in Afghanistan to resist any means of defence until at least one body orifice has been penetrated. Many of us have taken to wrapping muslin around our faces to prevent these things from crawling up our noses and into the sides of our eyes and mouths, with the effect of looking like we’ve taken to wrapping women’s underwear around our heads. The price of fashion is high in the Outback it seems.
So, tomorrow the magnificent eight ride again, escorted by our illustrious life support machine Bluedog. Next stop is Darwin, less than 3-weeks away. It’s strange to think the relative freedom from our usual lives – and all the matters of consequence that go along with them – is so close to coming to an end. And though we complain constantly about the heat, the flies and certain team members’ inability to control their gas, we all know how privileged we are to be out here, blazing a westwards trail each day through country that not many Australians get to see, let alone foreigners from the other side of the world.
Posted on September 29, 2001 2:43 PM