Part 5 - Fangs for the memories – The dust bucket and the Red Centre

Dad! Look! Snake!

The four of us roped up in pairs, crossed the glacier section and opted to take a bit of a short cut and start the climb at the bottom of the west face, not too far before the start of the South West Ridge. We packed away our rope and took out our tools. An ice ax in each hand and crampons on our boots. 4 points of contact with the ice. No need for a rope unless it started  getting real steep. Up we blazed and after a couple of hundred meters we gained the South West ridge. We could see Al and The Guys headlamps following below. We charged on, 50 steps at a time. Then we might chisel a tiny ledge with the adz on our ax's for our feet so we could stand sideways and give our calves 30 seconds of relief. The surrounding landscape just dropped away as we climbed. Myself and Marko were grinning at each other, we were on fire and ascending at not quite the velocity of the Saturn V booster rocket. We looked down and could still see the lads headlamps hundreds of meters below, fainter now. "Christ, the lads are going real slow", remarked Marko. We just passed it off. "Yeah man, I suppose they are just not ice fit and still getting into the swing of it". Onward and upwards we went up the ridge and it wasn't long before we lost sight of the not so dynamic duo. After climbing Mt Cook, we felt at the time, that Aspiring was just a sporting little outing and no need to hang around and make a big deal out of it. We rolled towards the Sun and it started to get light within a few hundred meters of the Summit just at that point where there is a short mixed rock and ice pitch followed by some steep ice. "My fucking toes are frozen Marko". "Well you better just get up that fucking pitch and get moving" Marko consoled. I took the rope, a couple of ice screws and a hammer in along with a few quick draws out of my pack. I tied into the end of the rope. "On Belay Simo". "OK man, climbing". The pitch was short, about 10-15 Meters of vertical rock and ice, followed by 100M or so of steep ice but it wasn't too difficult. After about 5 or 6 Meters I chipped out a tiny hole with my ax and attempted so put in an ice screw. The ice was frosty white on the surface and after I would get a few turns on the screw, the ice would break off into a plate and I would have to start again. We had heard stories of this type of ice and how to protect against it. "Use the hammer in Simo", Marko shouted up at me. The hammer in peg is thinner and much longer. More like a nail than a screw. I took the hammer in peg and belted the shit out of it into the ice. "Bomber" I shouted down. Jargon to indicate that the protection was solid and I'd be happy to take a fall on it. I clipped a quickdraw into the hammer in peg and again into the rope hanging below me and connecting me to Marko. The ice was quite steep but I was now confident to run out the full 60 Meter rope length without any further protection. A slip up here would see me fall twice the distance to that hammer in peg below me as Marko would lock off the rope on his belay device. A fall without a rope would see me slide a kilometre plus down the South West ridge and wind up in a big crevasse called a Bergschrund below with HEALTH=0 if I was unable to arrest my fall on the ice with my ax. When I got to the end of the rope, I placed another ice screw and clipped myself into it to make myself safe. I chiselled a small ledge for my feet and put the rope into my belay device so I could take in the rope as Marko climbed. I let a huge roar "Saaaaaffffffffeeeeeee. Climb when ready" while giving the rope a few tugs to signal to Marko. After a couple of minutes I felt the rope go slack, Marko was climbing. Almost immediately it paused for 5 or 6 minutes before continuing towards me. When Marko got to me he saw me doubled over in pain and great distress, tears welling up in my eyes. "What’s wrong man ?". "Its my toes. They’re beginning to thaw". The pain was excruciating but I knew it would only last about 5 minutes or so and then they would be toasty warm again. Hopefully there would still be 10 of them. For the second time in 2 months I swore I'd invest in a better pair of Mountaineering boots. After reminding me of the Crackpot motto and to harden the fuck up, Marko further commented, "Were you trying to hammer that peg back to fucking Ireland ? It took me me 10 minutes to get the bastard out and my fingers are freezing now". I blew him a big kiss.  Marko climbed through and ran out a rope length himself. When I climbed up to him the gradient of the ice had decreased and we decided to pack the rope away. 20 minutes later we were standing on the Summit. We gave each other a huge hug and a pat on the back. We had done it again in style and we were immensely satisfied with our performance. We clipped into a snow stake, sat down, had something to eat and a nip of Black Bush Whisky produced by my ever prepared climbing partner. “I wonder where the other two jokers are ? I hope they are OK?", I asked rhetorically. We had no possibility of seeing them from our location on the summit. "They’ve probably picked up the pace and are not far below" we assured each other. It was about 10:00. When you reach the summit of a mountain you are only halfway there, statistically most accidents happen on the way down. Therefore, after dispelling the notion of remaining on the summit to guarantee our safety, we packed up our gear and scooted down the relatively easier North West ridge and we were back in the hut below by 14:00.

Al and The Guy slowly started making their way up the West face,  but slowly and consistently they began to fall into an unrecoverable position behind. “It's easier to keep up then catch up”, Al prodded The Guy, a statement that fell on deaf ears. “Those guys are tearing away”. As night turned to day, they reached the South West ridge and were still 500M’s below the pitch. Al was having mixed feelings about the whole undertaking. He could understand why Marko and Simo were blazing ahead, but The Guys lack of fitness and confidence was driving their insufficient forward progress. “How the fuck did I end up getting lumped with The Guy? It’s a conspiracy! At least The Guy will step up and lead up the mixed and steep pitches” Al thought to himself, “then I’ll be able to switch back into passenger mode”.

After we dumped our gear in the hut, Marko grabbed his small pair of binoculars,  "Jesus Christ. They are still on the South West ridge!".  We were absolutely stunned. We could not comprehend how they were going so slow. "Maybe one of them is injured", I postulated. "Maybe one of them has dropped a tool", Marko chipped in. Both plausible reasons for their sloth like progress. We spent the day eating, snoozing and watching the tiny dots of the two lads climb, although it looked more like a vertical battle against gravity. We were very worried but there was not much we could do at that point. We saw another party of two climb past them on the steep pitch. Then they gained the Summit, descended the North West Ridge and it looked like they were heading back to French Ridge hut at the top of the Matukituki valley.  Our boys however, were only approaching the mixed pitch.

Al and they guy reached the step in the terrain which was the mixed rock and ice pitch. They took off their packs and began sorting out their equipped. Al started threading the rope though his belay device which was implicit of The Guy having the first lead. “I don’t think I’m up for this Al, can you lead this section?”. Al was mildly surprised by the suggestion that he was going to have to lead. “What the fuck are you talking about Man?”. Al had two choices:

1. To use the force and kit up and lead the pitch.

2. Sit down and allow time to pass slowly.

Al gathered his ax’s and himself and grabbed all the climbing gear available in sight, comparable to the stock level of a suburban climbing store. He then took The Guy off  belay and tied himself into the end of the rope. “On Belay”, The Guy whispered, trying to keep it all under radar level. “Fucking climbing”, Al replied. He was about as enthusiastic about leading as a teenager would be about washing up after a dinner party. Al began to climb, but it felt as if a combination of fear, inexperience and exposure were holding him back like a big rubber buggy attached to the ground below, a feeling that I have experienced myself on countless occasions. All he could think about was getting that first piece of protection in. After 5 or 6 meters he was able to maintain is position by  spreading his legs, his crampon toes jammed into the near vertical ice on one foot and the other on some ice covered rock. When you swing your ax and it connects with the ice, you can tell if it has made good contact by the reassuring “thud” it makes. “The ax sings to you!”, Al would waffle standing around a campfire, waving an ax around in one hand and beer in the other. This time however there was no THUD. It was more of a light crunch, like a small indigenous rodent nibbling a bag of chips.  Al was expecting to hear AC/DC but was somehow tuned into Bananarama. Al spotted two other climbers on a mission. They had come up the same South West ridge and we're now beginning to tackle the pitch about 10 Meters off to one side. Al fumbled with the ice screw. Every time he would get two turns on the screw a piece of ice the size of a dinner plate would break off around the screw in his hand. “For fuck sake”, he screamed to himself. He felt exposed. His fingers were on the verge of freezing. He was tired. He was cranky. He was God dammed pissed off….just like Charles Bronsen. Things were beginning to unravel in a non-determinable sequence of events. “Hey man”, he screamed over to the other climber. “I’m in trouble here, but if you can take my rope up with you and belay me we will be fine.”. The other climber agreed and gave Al some useful advice and top tips for climbing in the New Zealand Alps in the future.

We got onto French Ridge hut on the HF radio and spoke to the other climbing party who said the lads were simply out of their depth and very tired. We couldn't understand it. The Guy had told us he had heaps of experience. It got dark and we could see their little headlights in the distance making glacially slow progress down the North West ridge after by passing the summit. It was about 22:00, just when I was yawning and debating whether to go to bed, when I heard Marko shout "Shit Simo, look, the’re flashing SOS!". At this point it was going to be an effort for me to climb into the bunk never mind back up the mountain. We were both very tired but we were super fit and our bodies were fuelled up and hydrated with an afternoon of grazing. I don't think we ever even discussed it. "I'll put a pack together with food and the cooker" announced Marko. "I’ll get sleeping bags and thermarests sorted", I contributed. Nearly 24 hours later and with little or no sleep, we were heading back up to rescue our friends. I left instructions with The Guys non-climbing girlfriend who was staying in the hut, that if we were not back by 08:00, that something serious was wrong and to call a chopper.

Trudge, trudge, trudge off we went again. It felt like Groundhog day. After about an hour and a half or so we got to a point just below the west face where we estimated we had seen the headlamps above. "Al! The Guy!" we shouted but heard no reply. We negotiated the Bergschrund and walked around the immediate area, calling out to the lads. Eventually we came across the two of them lying on their packs on the ice shivering. "Good morning gentlemen", we greeted. "Everyone OK?". The Lads were obviously very happy to see us. Marko cranked up the burner and got noodles on the go. I inflated the two thermarests and got the sleeping bags out so the down would loft. Al scoffed the noodles like it was the last supper, but The Guy said he wasn't hungry. Marko towered over him and explained that if he didn't eat he would have no energy and he wasn't going to be carrying him down the mountain, but I think it sounded more like "Eat those fucking noodles or I'll fucking leave you here!". After a good feed we stuffed boys into the sleeping bags and they slept like fed babies. Fortunately my nappy changing days were still ahead of me. Myself and Marko just sat beside each other, taking it all in and yacking about the last 24 hours and how we had now run out of food in the hut and it would be a struggle walking out the Matukituki valley, a full days walk, with a glacier chucked in for good measure, with our fuel gauges hovering around empty. We woke the lads up at first light. Al must have slept well on a full belly as he thought he was at home in his bed. We each roped up with one of the lads and marched them back to the hut on a short line. When we got back to the hut we heard on the radio that the chopper was coming in to drop off a couple of climbers.  We could meet the chopper  near a col about an hours walk away and get a back flight for a fraction of the cost of the chopper hire. We could be eating and drinking beer in Wanaka in a matter of hours! Al and The Guy had little or no food either but there is no way they would have managed the march in time to meet the chopper. We packed up our belongings in the hut, said fair well to the lads and marched over to the col. We put our packs down in the snow and lay down in the warm sun. It was about 10:00 the next day and we still hadn't been to bed. I started drifting off to sleep.

Daka Daka Daka......I heard something in the distance getting louder ..........Daka Daka Daka......It was definitely the chopper. DAKA DAKA DAKA DAKA. Within minutes its was deafening and picking up spindrift. A few climbers jumped out. We nodded at the pilot,  jumped in and had a very quick 20 min flight back down the Matukituki. We Jumped into our van and drove back to the campsite in Wanaka. Showered and shaved.....what a simple pleasure. Within an hour we were sitting in a restaurant drinking ice cold bear and eating yummie food brought to us by a pleasant waitress with a massive pair of glasses. The next day Al and The Guy hired a chopper ride out. Everyone was safe and sound. We learned from the experience that with some people; when all is said and done, more will be said than done.

“All right Al? Get the gist of it? All set for Pakistan?”

Adelaide boasts two AFL teams. Adelaide, sensible enough name considering the team plays there and Port Adelaide which is about 15 km away. During our stay in Port with Shane O, I got up early one morning and went for a cycle on the Port cycle path to explore the vicinity. I passed Beaches, Marinas, Yachts, commercial ship building, playgrounds rivalling the numbers observed in Port MacDonnell. Half the population of Port must have been out exercising and drinking coffee. Pelotons of bikes whizzing by, girls out running in lycra skins, tight asses and leg warmers more dressed for an audition in Fame…or possibly a try out for Port Adelaide. "Hey Coco, where I can get a flat white around here?".

There has been some speculation on the trip from people that we have met on the road that myself and Al are gay. The majority of travellers we have encountered are heterosexual couples, mostly grey nomads, but there are also family's with kids, the usual sprinkling of backpackers and the occasional gem of 2-3 females in a Wicked camper van which is always a highly sought out prize.  A pseudo family of two middle aged blokes and three kids is quite unique though. Statements from Al like "That’s another splendid erection Simo" after I have popped up the camper trailer and awning, to the sound of screeching brakes and smashed glass do not help argue the case. Some of the biggest perpetrators are our own kids. "Dad, everyone thinks your gay cause we travel around with Al". Fortunately, my days of giving a fuck about what anybody thinks are long gone.  “Simo, you are about 50/50, you can just get away with it”, Caoimhe commented on the Manilla Paragliding bum bag I have been using to keep my Cannon Camera handy to capture historic moments on Kodak Gold ……..I mean Static RAM. “….but Dad just looks gay. Period.” I still wonder why Americans say “Period” at the end of some sentences, yet I’m still waiting to be surprised by the words “semicolon or exclamation mark”. We also found out that people have been analysing our campground antics to uncover and understand the quasi genealogy. “Dad!”, one of the kids would broadcast. My brain receives a non maskable interrupt and responds automatically with “Yeah.” “No, not you, the other one!”. Our neighbours heads pop up like meerkats and scan the immediate vicinity drying to decode the source and destination of the information stream. "Where are your wives or partners?", we would  be asked regularly. "Oh we got rid of them", we would casually reply. The gay facade does have some advantages though. We rocked up to a particular campsite and we were asked if we would like to pay for two campsites. "No thanks", said Al, "We are an alternative family!", a phrase that was to save us $100’s over the course of our adventure.

Prior to the trip, I did most of the planning, organising, purchasing and modification of equipment required. Since we have been on the road however, Al has taken over the helm with respect to route planning. In the first few weeks of the adventure, we thought we had all the time in the world, a common misconception when you are released from slavery for 5 months. We would spend four nights here and three nights there. One day we decide to look at the big picture on the map. “Fark, Simo….On the map we have only travelled about 8 inches”. “Al !”. “Sorry Simo, 20cms”. “I conjecture our journey is over 400cms. At this rate we will be lucky to get half way through Western Australia and then we will have to teleport home!”. We had always planned on travelling clockwise around the coast and bouncing the centre from the North West on the Tanami track, but we could see that time was slipping away and it would tear us away from exploring the Kimberly later. “Why don’t we head North into the Centre now and come into WA across the Red Center Highway Al?”. Al does the maths because he can’t do the math “Exclamation Mark”.  “I’ve done the maths”, announced Al,” and I think its viable from both a displacement and chronological perspective.” The 1100km of sand and dirt across the less than sparsely populated Red Center would test both the stalwartness of our vehicles as well as our own personal resolve. “I approve those options for further consideration and discussion.” ….and so began the first 3500km detour bypass. I smashed a few more pegs into the ground with a large rubber mallet and left Al to develop the plan.

We headed North from Adelaide towards the gateway town of Port Augusta. This is essentially the decision point for West across the Nullarbor or North into the Centre. About 30km south of Port Augusta we stopped at Chinamans creek in Winninowie Conservation Park.

Winninowie Conservation Park is located on the east coast of Upper Spencer Gulf within 50km of the two main regional centers, Port Augusta and Port Pirie. The small coastal shack settlement of Miranda is surrounded on three sides by the reserve and the coast on the forth side. The reserve covers an area of 7,847 hectares…..and yes I copied that from a tourist brochure….

We drove down the corrugated gravel road and found half a dozen tents and campers scattered around the area. It was an open, barren and wild environment salt and peppered with scrub, small trees and little creeks intertwining around. The stars were doing their thing. We got away from Adelaide late so it was about midnight and the kids were all passed out in the back. Myself and Al hopped out of our vehicles for a quick conference. “What do ya reckon Al ?”. “This place looks awesome, I can’t wait to see it in the daylight. Where will we stick the camper trailer?”. Orienting the Camper is always a trade off. The winds were supposed to freshen from the South. “Lets face North, that will give us shelter from the wind. Not worth putting up the awning for a night or two. Lets just tip down and we can stick up the Gazebo for some shade in the morning if we need it”. We tipped down and fork lifted the kids into bed. Goofed at the stars for a little and hit the sack.

In our drive to become increasingly efficient, we have developed 3 main Modes of camp set up depending on how long we are deciding to stay in a given area.

1. Tip Down – Used for over nighters for on the side of the road camping. Generally when splitting up a big drive into two days. The floor on the camper trailer is flipped down and the kitchen is pulled out. Al puts up his swag. Set up and tear down time is about 15 minutes. Caoimhe uses the term “Pitch Up” which I believe is more closely related to docking the Lunar and command Modules during Lunar orbit rendezvous, rather than camping on the side of the road.
2. Tip Down Plus – Tip down with Gazebo and tables, which are located on Al’s roof rack for easy access. Generally deployed for a two to three night stay. The real danger here is taking out more and more stuff. This can result in Expando creep.
3. Expando Camp – Full set up with awnings, floor mats and large 3 man tent decked out with two camp beds and rubber flooring. Deployed for stays of 4 nights. Luxury. 
4. Super Expando (Concept only) – This new feature is road mapped for release in Q4 2017 after user acceptance testing has been completed. The camper trailer has a complete second set of poles and awnings for the other side increasing the projected area by approximately 33.33%. The additional completely sealed room could be used as a comfortable bedroom for three large specimens.

In the morning the beauty of the barrenness became bona fide. Doug strolled over and gave me the low down on the area. He was an interesting character who travelled the world and came back and settled here battling the mining giants. His family has owned the whole area and donated into a National Park style trust, securing it for the future for visitor like us. He was full of information, history and activities to do. There were kayaks available for use, however we were warned that the tides could leave us stranded and the complex network of creeks, that would even have Magellen lost, required full attention.

Later during the morning the Gazebo was up and the kids were all stuck into doing some school work which was becoming rarer by the day. It was getting hot. The water pump in the camper trailer had packed up and I was ripping it out and installing a new one that I had picked up in Adelaide. It wasn’t a hard job but it was very fiddly and probably took me a couple of hours all up. Al was interfaced with his tablet making enquiries about permits for Ululru, Katjuta and crossing into WA from the Territory along the Docker Highway. A lady come over from a campsite about 50 meters away. “Can I borrow a spanner?” she asked Al. “SIMO”, Al roared in at me. “SPANNER!”. I popped out with a medium sized drop forged alloy shifter and introduced myself. “Here you go. I’m Simon”. “I’m Sally” and so our first friendships with fellow travellers of the trip were forged. Sally and Sharon had an army of 5 kids between them, all boys. The 17 year old daughter went AWOL a few days previous unable to adapt to life on the road without her 240 volt hairdryer. Zak could hardly contain himself with his new playmates. I barely saw him for the next 3 days. Zak had the first sleep over of the trip, when the two boys and himself set up their own camp 100M away. They spent the time crabbing and fishing in the creeks, returning every few hours with, buckets of Blue Swimmers and Dad I’m hungry. It was also refreshing to hear other parents screaming and swearing at their kids, Al said we should feel vindicated.

I’m still receiving real-time event driven information updates about Zak’s operational status e.g. “Dad I’m hungry……Dad I’m cold……Dad I’m bored.” I think boredom is a childhood thing. I wish I had so much time available that I could be bored.  “Cold…? That’s very interesting”. I rattle off the list of actions that could be undertaken to alleviate Zak from the said Antarctic conditions:

1. Take off your wet clothes
2. Dry yourself
3. Get out of the wind
4. Get into the sun
5. Run and up and down
6. Put on a beanie
7. Put on warm clothes
8. Put on some shoes
9. Eat some food

“…..Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…..”. Zak walks away. The sound energy from my monologue obviously warming him back up to within operational parameters.

Al hasn’t flown paragliders in about 6 years and was keen to do some ground handling to dust off the cobwebs. We hopped on our mountain bikes with our paragliders on our backs and cycled a few km on gravel and sand and went down to beach on the ocean side. The was a moderate wind blowing, reasonable conditions for a ground handle as there were no obstacles around. “Alright Al. Whip it out”. “The glider Al!”. Al lay his trusty old paraglider out on the beach, attached it to the harness and carried out a line check. He put on his helmet and clipped into his harness and began to kite the glider on the beach. After about 20 mins observation, I was confident that he was not going to endanger himself and I hopped back on my MTB and cycled another few km up the small ocean facing cliff on the shore looking for a launch area. I eventually came across a small scrappy clearing. The wind had freshened significantly, way more than I had anticipated, causing a large volume of compression on the front of the cliff. I wish I had my Twister I thought to myself. The twister is a smaller, lower aspect ratio glider much more attune to fanging around off coastal cliffs than my Serial class XC glider. The scrub and sticks everywhere made it virtually impossible to lay the glider out and inflate it on the ground. I bundled the glider up into a big mushroom and went halfway down the cliff where the lift would be weaker in an attempt to bring the glider up in one movement without lines catching anywhere. I pulled some pressure on the A-lines and up she came but one of the lines on the wing tip snagged a twig and the glider rotated on an arc around a wing tip and the leading edge slammed back into the ground. Bollox!. I bundled up the glider again and walked back down the cliff. This time the glider came up but it picked me up and deposited me on the ground 5 meters back behind launch. Man, way too strong. I packed it up and headed for home.

 The Stewart highway is a long straight bitumen road of scrubby nothingness. Off to the East we could see the Flinders ranges, another centre of adventure which had to be struck off the list due to the pressures of time. At 538km it was a big drive …or so we thought at the time. We began to notice the lack of fuel pricing on display at the servos, the size of the marketing displays inversely proportional to the price of the fuel. We arrived on the outskirts of the dust bucket Coober Pedy and at a glance, it didn’t look to dissimilar to Mos Eisley Spaceport on Tatooine.

Wikicamps informed us about the "Op Shop (Clothes Barn)" camp. When we rocked up outside it was a large suburban 2000 sqM (0.04942087873 square furlongs) dirt block with tall colour bond fencing around the perimeter. When the gates opened to let us in, it felt like we were driving into the secure compound out of Mad Max 2. Nice and safe inside. There were about 12 4WD’s, caravans and camper vans crowded onto every square meter. “we’ll squeeze you in” Gary, our host told us. Gary is an ex Opal prospector and lives in a bus on the block. “There are no rules in here”, he informed us, much to the delight of the kids. Gary gave us the low down on the do’s and don’ts in Coober Pedy. What to visit, how much to pay. He gave us a little tourist map which he had customised with his scrawls. Were we interested in buying Opals he inquired? Al was, but I’m not interested in rocks dug up from the ground, whose value is determined by scarcity from that fake, made up social science, that justifies and requires capitalism as its vehicle. Gary described to us a dude that walks up and down the main street and looks like Jack Nicholson and speaks with a Slovakian accent. It felt like we were going out to do a drug deal. The cost for staying at Garys place was $5/night/adult, no charge for kids and included as much power and water as you could use. On the step on his bus was a stone the size of my fist with cash under it with the words “Rent rock”. What a kool and trusting host.

Many of the houses on the outskirts of town are dug into ground for the purpose of both mining opals and it being nice and cool to live underground. Everyone engaged in some "Noodling" activities at some stage. We visited Crocodile Harrys which is basically a museum now. This playboy has hunted more Crocs and shagged more women than Steve Irwin and Hugh Heffner combined.

One of the things that is virtually impossible to do outside of NSW, is to renew your NSW drivers license. Al found himself in this exact situation and unfortunately for him, buying booze in Coober Pedy without a drivers license is impossible. When you walk into the bottle store it looks normal enough, however when you arrive at the checkout, with 3 cases of beer and a mixed half dozen of wine, you are politely informed that you can only purchase a 6 pack and a single bottle of wine on presentation of your drivers licence. Al started to go into cardiac arrest. “Whaaaa…?”, was Al’s comment in disbelieve, unable to complete the word in accordance with English pronunciation. I smiled and waved my drivers license at him and prepared to list off my demands for the next few days. During the course of the transaction for purchasing the contraband, your drivers license is scanned and all the other licensed premises in the township receive the details, prohibiting you from buying any more drink that day. Unbelievable. This is the type of stuff George Orwell warned us about.

The drive north from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs was a transition into Red. If you are a Surfer, then Alice is the place to be. It’s the one town closest to every single beach in Australia. We spent a few days in a camping ground in Alice itself. Once the kids saw the swimming pool and water slide the pressure was on to go Expando camp, a considerable workload. Fortunately, upper management compromised with a three night, tip down plus. There was much work and industriousness to be carried out here in this central outpost. While Al executed the governance role, getting the permits, I embarked on a journey to Bunnings Warehouse, where “the lowest prices are just the beginning” … or so I thought until I arrived at the checkout. In an attempt to build additional water carrying capacity for our journey into the abyss, I spent an hour swanning between isles 24 and 25 in search of PVC pipes, joints and adhesives. I had enough hardware to build a thermostatically controlled, liquid nitrogen cooled three stage THC vaporiser, but I couldn’t risk getting the whole of Alice springs stoned, so I constructed the water tanks instead.

We met some really kool people in Alice from the central coast. Cole, wifey, a NSW school teacher and their two daughters. Niamh struck up a friendship with one of the girls. Sleepovers to neighbours campsites were now on the rise. We met quite a few school teachers on our journey and these public servants were the most skilled in evading or watering down the distance learning school deliverables. “They are learning life skills on the road”, they would inform us, “way more than they would learn in a class room”. “Have you got a copy of where that is documented”, I inquired,  “so I can read it out in court.”

We departed Alice and headed west out the Mereenie Loop and into the Western McDonnell ranges. We bush camped out on the Finke river and set ourselves up to explore the Western Macs for a few days. We followed the sandy track that split up and divided, like a time line that divides at every single decision point in life, each track bringing you into a parallel reality or universe. In this reality, we chose a remote spot in the sparse shade of a gum tree about 200M from the shallow slow flowing river. There were a hand full of camps, the closest to us about 300M away.

The next morning A red ute pulled up with a plethora of kids on the roof rack. Some fella rolled down the window and let a shout at Caoimhe, Niamh and Zak. “So are you getting up or what ?”. We never saw the kids again ......

When we first drove into “the Territory”, I thought we were coming to see a big red rock, but in fact we discovered its so much more than that. The land is impressive, wild and baron. The people and rules are few. No one really gives a fuck or bothers you.  I believe the Northern Territory is a land designed for the recreational use of Lysergic acid diethylamide.

We walked and swam practically everywhere we could, Redbank Gorge being a standout, however our day at Ellery creek was one that is firmly written into the Programmable ROM’s of the 5 of us. We pulled up at the end of the road, unloaded the fridge with sandwich making materials and set ourselves up on a picnic table with a shady roof over it. We started up a sandwich making production line which essentially consisted of Al. At this point I feel the need to commend Al on his sandwich making skills. Al pretty much kept us fed with sandwiches at lunchtime every day for the entire trip, a task he willingly undertook. I here by grant Al an honorary Masters degree in Sandwich making production; M.Sw.(prod).

After we ate like Kings we grabbed our swimmers, shorties and towels, we walked down to the large entrance pool. It was about the size of 6 Olympic sized swimming pools at the base and narrowed to about 10M wide and bisected the main ridge into a kool Canyon with high walls on each side. We entered the water and it dropped off out of our depth within about 5 Meters. Off we swam heading for the Canyon about 150M’s away. We could hear the screams and splashes of other kids jumping off stuff. I just couldn’t wait to get there and jump off something higher than everyone else. We found the spot where there were about 5 other kids were having a ball. We introduced ourselves, tested the depth and started lobbing off the cliff, throwing Issac Newton into the drivers seat. Al and Niamh were sitting 10M away on the other side of the canyon, on a sunny rock platform just out of the water. The biggest jump of the day was probably about 12 Meters. That’s hitting the water at 54kph. Myself and Zak were getting chilly so we swam over to the Sunny ledge and passed Al and Niamh coming the opposite way. We wanted heat energy. They wanted Adrenalin. As we laid off observing the fun, Zak suddenly shouted “Dad! Look! Snake!” and pointed to a very light brown snake with a narrow head. He was at least 1.5M long and swimming towards us with its head out of the water. Myself and Zak sprung up to our feet in a pico second, far exceeding the velocity of our biggest jumps. It diverted course parallel to the canyon walls and headed on down the canyon. We all managed to breath again. Were charged. “That was close,” I said to Zak, ”I think it was some sort of Brown snake”. Just as we began to relax again, Zak shouted, “Dad look, another snake”. I immediately dismissed it thinking Zak was up to his old tricks, but I was sadly mistaken. This one let a big hiss at us, telling us in no uncertain terms, “I’m coming onto that sunny ledge and I’m not going to be happy if I have to share it with you!”. Our options were extremely limited. The ledge was about 8 meters long and about 3 meters deep with vertical unscaleable walls behind us. I remember jumping into a creek in the Blue Mountains to evade a Red Bellied black snake when I first arrived in Australia and discovered to my shock that it was a champion swimmer! Our hearts were racing. Zak was shitting himself. Our only real option was to apply the Ostrich algorithm. If we can’t see it, then it can’t see us and hopefully it won’t feel threatened. Now “hope” isn’t really a course of action, however it was all we could do at that time. I grabbed Zak and dragged him down the other end of the ledge, over a small rise and squatted down on the ground. Al shouted updates to us from the safety of the 10M cliff on the other side. “Its getting out of the water!”. I knew it was probably cold and lethargic and just wanted to sun itself, however having one of the most venomous and aggressive snakes in Australia and the world, coiled up about 5M away from us, with no real avenue for escape had me on edge. “I’m scared Dad”. “Shhhhh!”, I said calmly, “Me too, but don’t worry, we’ll be OK here if we are quiet and stay crouched down”. After about 6 or 7 minutes, Al shouted “its getting back in the water. Its swimming off down the Canyon”. We poked our heads up and edged our way forward. We could see the snake swimming off down the Canyon, presumable in pursuit of its mate….or its dinner. We were now super amped. We started smiling, laughing, clapping and shouting. What an experience. The next matter of concern was the fact that we had to get back in the water and swim 150M back to the relative safety of the little beach. None of us were thrilled at the thought of jumping back in the water. There was an Asian man on the verge of hypothermia with his daughter swimming towards us, oblivious of our ordeal. I pulled him out of the water and as he was warming up I recounted the story to him. My immediate thought was, “We don’t have to out swim the snake on the way back. We only have to out swim this guy!”. When we were all warmed up and ready to go, we swam back as a group. We shouted and splashed and generally made a lot of noise to ward off any would be predators. We were all a little nervous and scanning the water around us, but we were laughing and making jokes about the encounter. We all got out of the water with big smiles. What an adventure we had at Illery creek. When we spoke to a local at our Finke river camp and described the snake, she told us it was a Western Brown. “Ive been living here 30 years”, she said, “ and I have never seen one. Seeing one is something, but seeing two. I’m very Jealous!”. This was to be the first of many snake encounters on our journey. I think its fair to say that you will struggle to find bigger lovers of snakes than the 5 of us.

The Western Macs was an unexpected treat, we will definitely return to explore the Eastern McDonnell Ranges one day. It was soon time again to pack up and get back on the Mereenie loop to bring us on the next stage of our journey to Kings Canyon, Uluru and into the West.