Blogs

Had an amazing day on Thursday, a lovely sail from Waya Is towards the mainland. A pod of dolphins joined us for a while near Vomo Island. It is always a thrill to see them and these were large ones! Then the wind died and the sea became glassy smooth, so we motored for a while. The water was so inviting on such a calm sunny day that we anchored beside Nukunicakaunituba reef and went for a snorkel in the middle of the sea. Apart from the usual suspects of coral and reef fish we saw an octopus, a crayfish and a grey nurse shark close by. Perfect conditions and a nice reef! We motored the rest of the way to Lautoka and dropped anchor beside Distracted. Enjoyed a yummy roast chicken dinner on board Distracted - what a treat! Friday was shopping day. The Lautoka market is incredibly good value. Four paw paws for $2, a 1kg bag of tomatoes for $1, everything was so cheap - and great quality produce too. We also stocked up on meat from Fiji Meats. A wonderful shop and they vacuum packed all our meal parcels for us too. Moved down to Saweni Bay for the next couple of nights. Caught up with Distracted again last night - great to spend some time with them before they disappear to New Caledonia in a couple of days. Tonight we are back in Lautoka to get an early morning start to the market - time to get some more fresh produce before heading to Denarau to fill up with water and fuel and collect our VIP guests. Fingers crossed for more great weather - the last few days have been warm and sunny - a beautiful 30 degrees.

Its been ages since I have actually got off my back side and blogged!! As you've gathered, we have been up the Tanami, soaked up Broome, stayed longer in Port Headland than was necessary due to me getting a stomach bug, and finally landed in Tom Price, our western most destination for the trip.
Tom Price was a welcome stop on the trip. An odd stop though I must say. Russell and Linda are relatives of a good long time family friend. Although we had all been at various family gatherings such as weddings etc, we had never actually met as such. We arrived and the rest is history.

No quite. Russell is a mad engineering type who has lived for the last 20 years in the haven that is Tom Price. Surrounded by all of the engineering facilities provided by a dedicated mining town, he has been able to indulge in one of his passions. Radial engines. When we arrived he was busy doing the final preparations on his latest creation, a 100% scratch built 9 cylinder radial engine utilising Over head Cam 600cc Honda XR600 barrels and heads. Its fed by an intercooled supercharger and run by a Mega Squirt ECU. What’s itfor?? Just for fun he tells me. Its to big for a boat and not really aircraft worthy, the props just for fun(and cooling). I suggested strapping it to the back of something with big wheels and taking it out into the desert or down a beach!!!
We were also treated to a guided tour of the local secrets. Betsie got a rest on the back lawn and we all piled into his Disco and headed on out. Wittenoom, a long since abandoned Asbestos mine was the first destination. A deserted sealed road up the gorge past deep blue swimming holes and gravel banks flecked with bright blue chips of asbestos were what greeted us. We went right up the to the old workings and around the old mine village at the head of the valley. Such a pretty place, and so ghostly after 40+ years of abandonment. Not somewhere you should be on a windy day perhaps, and a bit of sensible caution around stirring up to much dust is probably advisable. The call for lunch was made by one of the big deep blue swimming holes and we spent an hour or so cooling off. We also headed up to the summit of Mt Nameless and Mt Sheila to take in the vast surroundings. An awesome few days in excellent company, not something we will forget in a hurry!!!
With time rapidly marching on, and lots still to do, we had to say our good byes and hit the road. The plan is was to head in to Newman, fill up every available container we had with good water, load up on as much fuel as we could squeeze in, fill the fridge and cupboards and head on out into the desert again for a few days. We wanted to do a bit of the Canning Stock Route. For those that cant be assed googling it, surveyed and created in the early 1900s, the scale of the Canning Stock Route is epic. It runs for almost 1800 kilometres, crossing 800 sandhills and four deserts in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth. 52 Wells were sunk along the route to sustain the mobs of cattle on their journey South.
The plans was to join the CSR at Well 23 by coming in on the Talawana Track and travel up to well 33, before heading back out on the Telfer mine road. It was roughly 700km off road between fueling points, most of that was going to be bumping along at 15kph over endless hundreds of k’s of corrugated track. By track, I mean just two corrugated wheel tracks through a desert that stretches out in every direction as far as the eye can see. Why not do more of the CSR you might ask? Most people bump along it for about 3 weeks to get from Wiluna to Halls Creek, requiring usually at least one pre arranged fuel dump. Not many people attempt it alone either. The section from 23 to 33 has a couple of restored wells, is less popular/travelled than the section from well 33 to Halls Creek so potentially in better condition and we were told its goes through some spectacular scenery, not just desert with rolling sand dunes one after another. We had mountains, salt lakes, table lands, black wood forests, desert oaks and even a cave thrown in for good measure!!! Add that to the Talawana track and you've got yourself a good solo mission for 5 or 6 days. The heat was intense, 35 to 38 degrees out side at about 10am. We were up to 43 in the truck on the second day. Luckily we hit well 26 at about mid day which had plenty of water for a cool off. Its amazing how quick your clothes dry in that sort of dry heat.
The reward at the end was Carawine Gorge. A magic place with running water after days in the desert heat. We spend the best part of the day there swimming, doing the laundry and checking over the truck. It was while I was under the truck doing a spanner check I met my first red back spider. Well, it actually met the blunt end of my 32mm ring spanner I should say. It was just hanging out under the truck on the side wall of the rear tyre. I was lying underneath checking the suspension bolts and spotted it next to my head........ Later that evening I got talking to our “neighbours’ and they mentioned another pool that was worth a visit before we left the area called Running Waters. Apparently it was another spring fed pool with clear blue water that was around 25 degrees, surrounded by giant paper bark gums. He gave me some sketchy directions, which I only half listened to, as I was sure I would find it on the map and work it out as you do. What I didn't realise was that when he said ” small unmarked road off the main road”, he really meant “two wheel tracks with grass down the middle that head off into the desert, off a little dirt road”. It took some finding, and it wasn't until we met up with another vehicle that had also been camped at Carawine Gorge that same night and compared notes and maps that we eventually found it!!! By this stage I was starting to get a bit edgy about fuel. I had put 20L in at $3 a litre at Punmu as a safety net to get to Marble Bar, not intending to do some more beating around in the bush looking for cool stuff!!!!!
We made it to South Headland this evening, fuelled up with good fuel at a normal price of $1.74 per L, re stocked with food, loaded up with some bottled water for special treats ( all the towns run on bore water and it tastes salty and strange if your not used to it!!) and headed up the road a bit to a 24hr stopover camp at De Grey River. All the main highways over here have these campsites. They are like an large rest area with a toilet block and a couple of rubbish bins. The idea is you drive all day, rock on in and choose a corner, set up camp for the night as ya do, and head back out on the road the next morning. Its just what they do over here, and the entire country is set up for this kind of travel, its incredible, especially when you think of the drama we have trying too find somewhere to camp on a road trip in NZ!!! Anyhow, I digress. We are heading back up north to the Kimberly to do the Gibb River Road and eventually end up in Darwin. From there it is probably time to think about finding our way back towards Hervey Bay.
If you have noticed that Betsie is sporting tape on the headlights, its because its holding the drivers side headlight lens together!! Road trains are brutal and we got peppered the other day, smashed the headlight and put a chip right at the top of the windscreen, in a mongrel place that I can’t get too with my windscreen repair kit. PIA!!! I have marked the crack, and it hasn’t moved over the last week of corrugations and heat so it might be ok. Other than that, I swapped the tyres around, and fitted the two that had been on the rear for quite a while to the front. For what ever reason they have worn in such a way, and been fitted in the correct way, to now make the steering pull to the center of the road. Tempted to swap left for right and see what it does. Wheel alignment still measures ok and all bushes are good, the only thing that's changed is the tyres. The only other thing I have done that is note worthy is park it up on a steep bank and squeeze an extra 750ml of oil into the transfer case and about the same into the gearbox. Being over full has shut the transfercase up heaps, it starts to complain a bit in the heat after a few hours at constant 110kph. The Aussie L.R guys reckon the extra oil volume means the temp stays down a bit, so taking their advice.

The mission continues...................

Spent a few days in the "Blue Lagoon", an area made famous by the movie of the same name. A very special place, a pretty group of islands, white sandy beaches, coral reefs everywhere and a nice resort on the beach. We could happily just plonk ourselves in that area for a week or so and not go anywhere else! Met up with some friends we had not seen since leaving Gulf Harbour in April. We were thrilled to see Gavin and Bindy from Distracted again - our neighbours from D pier who helped us with so much good advice before we set off on this journey. We went diving on a reef known as "The Zoo", an extensive area to explore. There was so much to see that we used a full cylinder each on the dive rather than our usual 1/2 cylinder each. For the first time since arriving in the pacific islands we finally spotted crayfish! They were very shy though and scuttled back into their hole. Not that we would have tried to grab them as they seem so scarce here compared to NZ. We explored several other bays up and down the Yasawa chain of islands, just to get familiar with the area in preparation for coming back here with our VIP guests next week. After a week of lovely settled weather and light winds, we now have a stiff breeze blowing. The forecast does not look great for the next few days. We will head towards the mainland tomorrow to stock up on essential supplies again before picking up our guests, Pieter and Sarah, from Denarau on Monday.

In our previous blog we mentioned we were going into Denarau to get provisions. It turns out, this was not a great idea! Firstly, the boat got covered in black ash from all the fires around the area. Then, the trip to the supermarket was a nasty surprise. We refused to buy much becasue the prices were outrageous. For example, a pathetic looking lettuce was $11, where we have been paying $1 for a nice fresh one from village markets. Some other prices I recall - $13 for a bar of chocolate (usually $4), $105 for 1 litre of Seagars Gin (usually $30), and $4 for a small papaya (we paid $1 for a large one in the market). In desperation we did pay $2 each for a couple of apples as a bit of a treat because apples don't grow locally. Next time we stop for provisions we will go to Nadi or a local village market and avoid Denarau completely! We couldn't wait to get out of the place, so sailed to Musket Cove on Tuesday. Surprisingly, the charts for this area are completely wrong - if we had foll owed the recommended route on the chart we would have ended up on a reef! Good spotting by Karl saved the day and we wriggled in and around reefs that were not on the chart - and anchored in an area that was plenty deep - even though the chart showed that we were on top of a reef! About 70 boats in the bay, many of the ICA fleet were there. Caught up with Fusio and Vegas - we had not seen them since they left Vava'u on 8th July. Joined the Musket Cove Yacht Club - lifetime membership is $5. Going ashore in the dinghy, Karl surprised a striped snake eel while walking in the shallows - it came out of its burrow and followed Karl which is most unusual for these shy creatures and gave Karl a bit of a fright! Went to Dicks Restaurant for a lovely meal - a gorgeous evening, no wind, 22 degrees C, candlelit dinner with a Fijian trio playing the guitar and singing in the background. After dinner, while waiting for our dessert we moved into the lounge to watch and listen to the music. Every couple of songs one of the band would say "It's Kava time!" and they would all drink a bowl of Kava before playing the next song. Some of the other restaurant guests joined the Kava drinking, but we were happy to just sit and watch! After exploring Musket Cove we decided that sitting in a bay with 70 other yachts was not really for us, so we left yesterday and sailed to the northern Mamanucas. We caught a small tuna on the way, so we had tuna steaks for dinner which is a nice change from Mahimahi. After being in busy anchorages the last couple of nights we are glad to be in wide open spaces with clean water around us when we jump over the side! The anchorage we are in has a legend attached - apparently the first Tongans arrived here, rounded up the locals and cooked them in a pot. The islands are considered sacred now and nobody lives here. The gap between the two islands is filled in by one massive coral reef. The whole area is densely covered in layer upon layer of coral formation s. The water here is crystal clear, similar to Tonga clarity - much improved from other snorkeling and diving we have done in Fiji. Until now, although we had pretty dives, the visibility was not as good as Tonga. But then we have been spoiled a little! Visibility in Tonga, epsecially the Ha'apai was around 25m, which is outstanding. So far in Fiji we have only had 10 - 15m visibility and the water has been slightly cloudy (but as we keep reminding ourselves, it is still much better than Waiheke!). The water temperature here is 27.5 degrees, warmer than Tonga and quite acceptable!