1998
Lionel the Landcruiser
and Tap-Tap go Walkabout

Day 10
Purnulu - Pine Creek

So, after that it was pretty much flop time last night. A quick splash down was all that could be managed and then sleep on the flat bed again. Another early start this morning saw us off at 7 and back down the 4WD track to the main road before 9.30. That's not too bad 'cos it is about 70 km of off-road stuff, but it felt a lot easier on the way out than on the way in for some reason. We put in a jerry can of diesel before we started (we probably don't need to carry 3 full ones from now on 'cos the towns are closer together here) and then filled up in Halls Creek again. We had a rather fun little shop there as well, buying a little fold up chair, some rubber solution glue to fix the air bed and a tin of 5.56 which is a thin a bit like WD40 and is supposed to be good at getting rid of squeaks and things.

You see I've developed a few interesting little squeaks just lately to go with the various rattle and clunks. In fact I make a rather interesting selection of noises when we go over the bumps, but the squeaking was noticeably worse and was traced to the hinges on the doors. So, a bit out of Halls Creek, when we stopped to have lunch. Rob gave all my hinges a quick spray and - guess what - squeaks gone! I think there must have been a lot of dust and things got into the hinges lately with all the dusty roads so this seems to have cleaned them up nicely. Rob was a bit daft not to buy a tin of this before we left as a lot of people told him how useful this kind of stuff is, but he thought that a diesel wouldn't have that kind of damp problems and that this water-repellent spray stuff was only for keeping water out of ignition bits - silly boy.

We also glued the patches onto the air bed while we were stopped - and that works fine now as well. So today has been more of a fix-it day, which is not bad 'cos previously we had been having a few too many break-it days for my liking!

Brahmans fighting. Hey guys! Don't fight! Surely there is enough space for both of you!?

Brahman Cattle. 'What are you looking at? Need a push, eh?'

The rest of the days travel was pretty uneventful. Gravel all the way, sometimes a bit corrugated, but rarely bad, A few puddles in the creek crossings on the WA side, but nothing to write home about (so I won't), and lots of cattle grazing both sides of every fence - including those designed to keep them off the road! I was a bit worried at times, but they are pretty bright and stay well away from the moving vehicles - only saw one dead one and that seemed to be natural causes and was away from the road. Did see a road grader on the WA side, but it seemed to be making it worse rather than better.

The tarmac started again just as we got to Kalkarindji and we stopped at the roadhouse where the camp site is about 5. Ten hours is enough for one day we reckoned so we are about to turn in. Reckon we deserve a bit of luxury, so we might stop at a motel tomorrow in Katherine. It will be nice to check our e-mail before we disappear into Kakadu for the last few days before Darwin. We've had no hold-ups (well, none we haven't sorted out anyway) so we will have about 3 days in Kakadu which is nice 'cos we want some time there to relax. And we could also do with washing some t-shirts cos we've gone through a few of those.

So with a bit of luck we'll be sending this one off tomorrow, see you soon.

Lionel