Day 3

Early morning mist and overnight visitors

Day 3. Definitely heading North. Woke up with the site to ourselves. Everyone was gone by 8:00. There was a very thick fog and you could not see 20m, but everyone rushed off. Apart from the fog, there had been a heavy dew and I mean heavy, it looked like it had rained there was so much water about. Organised a leisurely breakfast and packed up the van. We had not disconnected the car so we were ready in no time. First night with no facilities and all went well with the batteries and gas. Maureen has the cooking down pat. We set up a table outside and use our little gas stoves. One pot meals – perfect. I supervise and suggest possible improvements until I it is suggested that I don’t!! some people just don’t want to improve. Anyway, whilst we were having breakfast a huge road convoy went passed with 3 new trucks and 2 new back bits that the ore goes into (cant think what they are called) going about 80 ks, so that was the reason for the leisurely breakfast. Not because I was slack, thank you very much!

Me having breakfast. Note the toilet in the background and light mist

We hit the road and started to feel we were heading north as the trees became very short and the road consisted on very long straight sections. I managed to pass 2 road trains today, very chuffed. We average about 95 kph so not to bad, I have yet to be passed by a road train.

Saw our first Wedge Tailed Eagle. He was sitting on top of a dead red kangaroo, another hint we are getting north, the roos are no longer grey but red. He was only a small one, but obviously used to the traffic as he just hunched down as we drove by to avoid the wind rush.

We went through Paynes Find and it really was just as everyone said, a road house! We passed the truck carrying convoy there and drove into Mount Magnet. Well there certainly seemed to be a hill still there that no one has dug up yet!

Topped up fuel and the truck convoy went passed so we decided to have lunch there at a lovely park. Great little town with very friendly people. Hit the road again with the intension of going through to Meekatharra. I wanted to be off the road about 3 so we could setup and give the generator a run to keep the fridge cold. We decided to stop short of Meekatharra and just as we went through Cue (which by the way the passed the truck convoy who were re-fuelling) we got a message from friends Judy and Pete Bright that they knew sight right near us called Lake Nallen, it was 24 ks north of Cue, we had to go round the back to get lake views said Pete. We drove along looking for a sing and right at the 20 k mark there was a blue sign about 40 m off the road that I just caught a glimpse of and thought it was something about a lake so we pulled up and went back and sure enough, it was the sign.

Maureen pointing to our caravan at Lake Nallan. Crowded spot

Circle work on the lake

We drove in and found the spot with “Lake” views. It is about 20m wide and 50 m long, but it has water. Another couple drove in behind us and we set up camp. Beautiful spot, very quiet place, just the two vans Syd and ? are from Mackay and by chance know friends of Maureen – the Wolffarts. Small world. We swapped info on routes. Maureen and I went for a walk around the lake, the gopher goes really well and I was able to do some "Circle work" on the lake flats. We have had tea and we are sitting listening to the generator going and watching the phone network drop in and out so that we cannot ring home!

Unloading Gopher ready for action

Tomorrow we are aiming to be most of the way to Newman. There are not many sites listed between here and there but with our new found confidence, we will find somewhere to stop. We will hit Newman the following day and setup for a day or so before entering Karrijini National park.

Sunset over lake Nallan