Broome & Beyond: Sandfire Flats

Sunday 9th July, 18:45

As long as I can remember I have taken photos on holidays. For almost as long, I have kept a holiday journal. Back in the days of photos on film, I would use less than a roll of 36 on a multi-week holiday. Now I take hundreds of electronic images. The journals have varied but in general they have become longer and longer.

I am less interested in photos and more interested in words. Photos must be done at the time, on the spot. Not well suited to a long-drive holiday. Words can be written after the fact, at any convenient break in the action. On the down side, this means that I often need to stay up later than Deb, to finish the day's journal.

What's worse -- and more recent -- is that the internet has so many many photos... I may be amazed by the beauty of a famous sight... and I can find a dozen beautiful photos -- on the web -- which capture that beauty. And capture it better that I could.

I could improve the quality off my photography, I hear you think. Not  interested.  I take photos to capture *my* mood, *my* impressions, at the time that I was there.  If I was not there at sunrise -- then I don't want even the most gorgeous photo of sunrise. Yet I still -- when looking at the internet's best photos -- I still feel that my own photos are not so good.

What do *my* photos provide? Memories. What do my *words* provide? Memories. And my words provide memories of where and what and who... and why and what I was feeling and what I was thinking. So I write more words. And take less pictures. Unless I am walking with my camera in my hand...

All of which may explain this blog :-)  I write for myself. And for Deb. Though I do consider you -- my other reader. (One effect of that is that some thoughts are censored.) I write to capture my thoughts and impressions at the time. When Deb & I are old and grey we will -- I hope -- enjoy reading these blogs and journals. The words -- plus selected photos -- will bring back pleasant memories.

And for you -- my other reader: I hope that you enjoy the words. And I apologise that ... well, no, I *sympathise* with you because... there are so many of them.

And so, back to Port Hedland, earlier today:

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Leaving Port Hedland. I enjoy the freeway system. I'm a bit nervous: how far is it to the next fuel stop? Aha! a distance sign, 120km to "P". I check my book of maps. That would be P for Pardoo. Yes, it's marked as a fuel source. I have plenty in the tank for 120km. Drive on!

Pardoo: Fuel guage shows that I am still on the first tank. Plenty of fuel to get to Sandfire. I take a brief break and buy a chocolate bar and -- a cup of soup! Just what I want!

The outside of the insulated paper mug is hot, so I let the soup sit for a while. After 15 minutes I sip some -- and burn my moutrh and throat. At 30 minutes I can taste that it is, indeed, thick pumpkin soup. Again, I burn my mouth and throat. At 45 minutes I can definitely taste pumpkin. I can also taste spice, possibly chilli. At 60 minutes the soup is cool enough to drink. Definitely chilli. Not to worry, my mouth and throat are too burnt to worry about the effect of chilli.

The soup is delicious :-)

There's a geocache, just off the road! I almost drive on... but... this will be my first cache in the Great Sandy Desert. The last log says that the gps lead straight to the cache. Well worth stopping...

It's less than 50m off the road, "buried under a pile of sticks". Mr I've-found-20,000-caches had no trouble... He must own a magic cache-finding wand.

There is no pile of sticks. No feature which says, Look here!  There's a straight fence line, 10m from GZ, a possible top-of-rise about 40m away. Did the cache owner stop for a leak and decide that he may as well also leave a cache? I can see no other reason. I can see no cache. This is now on my "Waste of *** time" list.

And there's another cache, just 200m away. At the exact crossing of lat and long lines. (That is, at zero minutes and seconds for both lat & long.) That would be fun. But I've lost interest in caching.

The next nearest cache is at Eighty Mile Beach, 20+ km away, well off the road. It's a nice beach, a nice place to stay, I'm driving straight on to Sandfire Flats. (Where there seems to be another cache. I'll check it out in the morning.)

I arrive at Sandfire just after dark... The sun is now setting before six pm. And will rise at 6:30. I go in to book a room for the night.

Do you want a room with shower, or without? I'm asked. What's the difference? $120 or $50. Tomorrow I meet my wife in Broome... I'd better take the room with a shower. And it's a better room, says mein hostess.

She has an American/Canadian accent. Her kitchen co-worker looks and sounds Italian. Last stop a waitress sounded distinctly English. Fortescue and Pardoo have Indian managers. Lots of overseas arrivals and visitors enjoying the unique Outback experience!

I fill up with fuel. Interesting: when the guage tipped over to "second tank" I had done more than 700km. I find that hard to believe! It would give me 1500km from the two tank total of 160 litres. Anyway, just after "tank two" and I have used 96 of those 160 litres... So when the guage says, "tank two" I have used well over half the fuel. I need to look into the facts...

Find my room, it's very nice.

Back to the roadhouse for dinner. I walk past the  shared ablutions. Something has definitely died in the shower rooms... I'm glad I chose the en suite :-) At least with my own shower I know what it is that smells...

I choose the "mini breakfast"... I guess that the "full size" breakfast is for starving truckies. The dining room tv is set to a cartoon channel (ABC 2-me). I watch most of a Ninja Turtles cartoon. Looks like fun -- if only I could hear what they are saying -- but the cartoon quality is worse than World of Warcraft. From what I can understand, the plot is weaker, too.

Back in my room -- for coffee! First room so far that has had  tea and coffee in the room... Real flash :-)

Time to write this blog. Just a few paragraphs back I phoned Deb. All is well at home :-)

Now to wrap up this post.The hotspot would not stay connected, it may be better in the morning. I'll try to get blog post to the web in the morning... or whenever I remember.

Oh, and I suppose I should include the standard facts:

96 litres of deisel at Pardoo at 153.5c ... $148

that took me 782km

Today I drove 380 km in 9.5 hours

accommodation $125, dinner $17.50

Hmmm... And it's 320km to Broome Airport... I need to be there by 6pm. Looks as though tomorrow's drive will not be as relaxed as I expected!

btw: Those daily distances travelled... The Garmin GPS shows distance travelled. I reset it to zero each morning. BUT whenever it gets powered off -- it *may* add a random distance to the total. Not exactly random. It measures from current position to the start, then back to where it really is. And adds that to the trip total. An annoying bug.

Day one, I ran the gps on battery when the truck was stopped. That resulted in an accurate measure of the day's distance travelled -- and flat gps batteries. Now I let it add random distances. Then say, How far by road from "here" back to where we started the day. Stupid, really, but it works.

So, done. Till tomorrow.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot." ... André Breton