Western 4W Driver #113 Summer 2019/2020

John

2384,

(08) 9291

Kristina

THOUGHT

Supporting our own

InJanuary of this year I would never have dreamed that Karen and I would be the owners of Australia’s oldest commercially produced 4WD magazine. Fast forward to December and our third edition has rolled off the printing press and is in your hands. The feedback we are getting is both fantastic and encouraging. Being able to show our readers the amazing places on offer both within Western Australia and further afield across this great southern land is both an honour and a privilege. As part of the process of producing Western 4W Driver we get to meet some amazing people and listen to their amazing stories. Some, like Ray Miles, just wanted to honour not only his mates from the Vietnam War but all our service personnel with his permanent and lasting reminder at Eighty Mile Beach. His memorial is an emotional reminder of sacrifice and what it is to be an Australian.

I met Kylie and Tony on a recent trip to Queensland who built their own BBQ platform to use with their caravan. They have turned this into a business that operates out of their shed at home. Now they sell their BBQ Arm all over Australia. On that same trip I met Brad. Brad used to produce a publication for 4W drivers in Queensland. One day he had an idea of a better way to extract your bogged 4WD using traction boards. Maxtrax was born. Manufactured in Australia, they are now sold around the world.

Andrew Brown is the owner of ARB. ARB started life in his shed building bull bars.

The point I am trying to make is this: we Australians are an innovative bunch. The Black Box, spray-on skin, the electronic pacemaker, Google Maps, the bionic ear, the electric drill, Wi-Fi, the ultrasound scanner and even the inflatable escape slide used on aircraft (just to name a few) were all invented by Australians. Where adversity appears, Australians make a stand.

In the era of social media, it has never been easier for 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' to rear its ugly head. Keyboard warriors spew misinformed, derogatory comments and hateful outbursts towards our innovators with no intended outcome other than to 'cut that poppy down'. We should celebrate our achievements and be proud of them, not viciously attack them. In an age where we have unprecedented access to the knowledge of the world literally at our fingertips, time and time again we let social media be our reference.

Stop and think for yourselves. Research using multiple sources and make up your own mind.

Celebrate our innovators and support them. People are always telling me that they prefer to buy Australian products except where it is cheaper or more convenient online. Think about this before you buy something else from overseas when there is an equivalent Australian product. Most businesses are owned by families who identified a need and produced something to meet that need.

What is the cost of not supporting our own first?

Ningaloo to Narndee

By Susie Underwood

After our frantic fling to the Flinders in July, I was looking forward to a much more leisurely trip when we left home on a dull wet day at the end of August. Our initial destination this time was Exmouth, a place which holds many happy memories for me - we honeymooned there and have been back quite a few times since.

Still waters at first light.

Thistime was to be a different experience though - we were joining the caravanning set at a camp ground. We were going to camp for 10 WHOLE DAYS with the caravanners in a bollarded and camp-hosted camp ground, specifically Mesa, in the Cape Range National Park. This was to be our longest stop at one place and we were both looking forward to a relaxing stay, beach walking, fishing and so on and so forth. However, Exmouth is quite a way from Perth, so as we now have plenty of time on our hands (being retired) we decided to take a leisurely route north, stopping on the way for a few days. Our first stop was Hamelin Station Stay which is just off the highway on the road to Denham (I know, I know, not exactly a leisurely drive from Perth but we shared the driving and took our time!) We have stayed there before and were very impressed with the camp grounds and facilities. Well once

again they didn't disappoint. We stayed for two nights, camping the first night and spending the second in one of their rooms, which are basic but clean and comfortable. The next morning we decided to head up to Francois Peron National Park for a spot of sightseeing and fishing. We stopped at Gregory Beach as Nick was keen to catch some whiting, however the highlight of my day was practising fishing while being fed oysters fresh off the rocks by the man of

Whiting and oysters kept us smiling at South Gregory in Francois Peron National Park.

my dreams. I even managed to bait my own hook AND retrieve a poor hapless minnow which I had somehow managed to catch and return it to the sea. If you had ever been fishing with me you would realise this was a huge achievement. Hamelin is owned by the Wildlife Conservancy and as luck would have it they had a bunch of birdwatchers stalking their little lake and we were lucky enough to sit in on a talk about bird life. I must be getting old ... if you'd told me 20 years ago that one day I would be sitting in with a bunch of enthusiastic twitchers and hanging on every word from an ornithologist I would have laughed in your face. By the way, did you know that magpie larks mate for life?

Now you do!

The whiting made for a delicious dinner and the next morning we packed up and headed more northerly. Our first stop was the old space station at Carnarvon. I had always wanted to visit there, so we popped in for what we thought would be a half hour visit, which turned into an hour or so. Unfortunately we had arrived just after a large group of excited school children, so the wait to get into the replica Apollo 11 was a bit too long for us. Something to look forward to next time we're there. This time we were making for Bullara Station

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map. Bullara had a range of campsites and a great feel to it.

not far from Exmouth, our plan being to bail out early the next morning to get to our campsite in a timely fashion. As you know we have recently changed our camping set up and we were not sure how much time it was going to take us to figure out how to put up the awnings and other accoutrements. Bullara is a very well organised and well set up campground with all the facilities plus barista-made coffee and scones on order. The lava trees are well worth a visit - there was a queue when we had a look at them so we didn't get the chance to try them out. Next morning saw us in Exmouth stocking up at the IGA, which is one of the most well provisioned I have ever been to. Their deli

counter has to be seen to be believed. We relieved them of quite a few of their baked goods and then hit the track for Mesa.

One thing everybody knows about camping up in that neck of the woods is that it can get a little breezy. Well we set up camp in the teeth of a howling gale, canvas flapping and ropes going everywhere they shouldn't, but finally got everything nailed, tied, sandbagged, weighted and drilled down, our efforts being critiqued by various residents of the campground. By then we were sweating our heads off, so ventured across the beach, legs being sandblasted on the way, and threw ourselves into the choppy ocean.

Having never stayed at a camp ground up here before, I have to say it was very well run. The facilities were clean, rubbish emptied regularly and the people we met

Radar tracker at Carnarvon.

Old Thames or Bedford at Bullara.

were lovely - most of them on the road year-round. We even met a couple who keep a gin still under their bed and brew their own gin as they travel (very nice it was too). Our camp site backed on to a shady picnic table with views over the lagoon where the residents gathered every afternoon for drinkies, very convenient for us to stagger back to our home. We met some lovely people during our stay there, with many a hilarious hour or so over the wine glasses.

Over the next few days the wind blew relentlessly and the new camper shook, rattled and rolled all day and all night. By day four we were sleep-deprived and totally over it, our only lifeline being we had phone signal so we could check the BOM and know the wind was due to drop the next day. Plus our good friends Stefan and Nadja were joining us towards the end of the week and we were looking forward to catching up with them for a spot of socialising. During those few days we were confined to barracks so Nick got his whittling tools out while I amused myself with a bit of knitting, reading and generally

Mesa has been improved out-of-sight since the last big storm.

Shady trees brought welcome relief at Mesa.

Our new shower produced happy bodies all round.

chilling out. I looked up from my book one afternoon to catch Nick mid-nap indulging in his sugary weakness with hands in his lap fondling a pack of Ginger Nuts (and no he's not a Ranga). Even though the wind howled all day, we did manage to get in a few walks early in the morning and it was very relaxing - neither of us are used to that kind of leisure (being recently retired and all). Day five dawned and I looked out our bedroom window to the ocean to find it as still as glass. We threw ourselves out of bed, set up the kayaks and took off into the lagoon. Ningaloo is a bit like that little girl, when she's good she's very, very good. The sea was like a mill pond, there were turtles popping up everywhere and fish jumping out of the water, which was so clear we could see straight to the bottom. We snorkelled around a bommy just off the beach to find the tail of what appeared to be rather a large shark poking out from underneath the rock, which had me back-pedalling to the beach toot suite. The rest of our stay passed in a haze of fishing, kayaking and snorkelling (plus champagne, gin and scrabble). The only problem for

Great lighting on the new camper. Check out the reading light.

us being camped up was that we couldn't travel anywhere, so when Stefan and Nadja arrived we took the opportunity to head down the coast for a spot of snorkelling (or as Nadja calls it "shnorkelling" - she's German you know). We stopped at the Oyster Stacks, well, what a treat! From the beach you're looking out at what appears to be a bunch of rocks in the water, but once you jump in with snorkel and goggles a whole new world opens up. The fish are such vibrant colours and the colour of the coral is breathtaking. We spent a happy hour bubbling away in the water before heading to the romantically named Sandy Bay, where the turquoise water was so inviting. If I hadn't witnessed the colour myself I would swear the place had been photoshopped. It is just dazzlingly beautiful.

Yeah, yeah - another sunset.

But then, suddenly, our endless 10 days was abruptly over and we were both very sad when it was leaving day. We swapped the blinding blues and whites of Ningaloo for the deep red and muted greens of the bush, our destination being Melangata, Narndee and Warriedar Stations, one for a surprise birthday party, another for Camel Camp on the Rabbit Proof Fence and the last for a bit of a cleanup with Track Care. We spent a night at Wooramel Station Stay on our way south, which is well worth a visit if you haven't been there already. It has just had a bit of a makeover and is now home to four artesian spas, so after setting up our camp we donned bathers, grabbed a bottle of cold sparkly and headed for the warm water where we stayed until we got more wrinkly than we are already. The bore water does tend to stain you a deeper shade of brown, so looking like a couple of elderly film stars, we headed out the next morning for a lovely breakfast at Wooramel Road House. Neither of us like highway driving very much so we turned left at Butcher's Track and headed towards Murchison Roadhouse. This track is really well maintained and well worth a drive - after the trucks and caravan mayhem on the highway it was a relief to have the road to ourselves and we saw only one other vehicle on the way through to the Mullewa-Carnarvon Road.

Errabiddy Bluff was worth the drive.

Shearers quarters with a different profile at Meka Station.

Just before Murchison lies Errabiddy Hills, a place Nick had always wanted to visit but we never had the time. This time, however, with plenty of time up our sleeves (did I tell you we're retired?), we took the opportunity to have a look-see at this place. Errabiddy Bluff is a very impressive eminence with a lookout to check out the surrounding scenery. Just a word of advice, the track in is a bit windy so it might be a good idea to stick your car in 4WD if you haven't already. We made very good friends with a small bush on a slippery corner, much to Nick's embarrassment and my hilarity. It's the little things isn't it? Although Murchison Roadhouse disappointed me in the milkshake stakes, it is a nice spot to stop for a drink and a rest before we pushed on to Melangata. Our road took us past Meka Station on the Yalgoo North Road. It was just coming to

Breakaways on Melangata Station have some stunning caves.

the end of wildflower season so we were lucky enough to snag a few photos of the shearer's quarters in a sea of pink flowers.

Melangata never disappoints. If you haven't been there before, you should go. Jo and Ken have done a great job on the campgrounds and there are many places to explore in and around the station.

Picture perfect views from the lookout.

Unfortunately we arrived at the start of a burst of very hot weather, but we made the best of it and the birthday party was a hoot. After the heat of the day it was lovely sitting on the lawns watching the full moon rise over the bush. Magic. We had a couple of days exploring the station surrounds with Jo and Ken before our next appointment at Narndee.

Still a bit of colour around out towards Cue in mid-September.

Once again we had decided to take our new-found time (retired!) to get there, this time heading via Cue (where we had a sensational breakfast at the Cue hotel) to Narndee Station where we camped for a couple of nights. Narndee is the home of the famous Camel Camp where the infamous Snowy Rowles began his murderous spree. We spent the day exploring the sites where various unfortunates met their grisly end at the hands of Snowy (who looks disturbingly like Shane Warne) - the Lonely Graves people have marked a couple of these places. Camel Camp is just off the Paynes Find-Sandstone Road, so easy to get to, but be warned, it is mostly held up by flies, so take your veils.

Either there's been a lot of erosion over 167 years or the artist exercised considerable licence.

Mount Kenneth and its outliers had some unusual profiles.

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

You also need to contact Narndee Station for permission to travel across the lease to get there. While at Narndee we took the opportunity to have a closer look at Mt Kenneth, named by Robert Austin in the 1850s, and then after a fly blown lunch at Camel Camp we (well Nick) decided to take a drive down an old fence line on the property. Well I'm up for an explore any time, but after a couple of hours wrestling through thick scrub and rattling down steep stony hills I was a bit over it and looking forward to camping up somewhere. Sadly this was not to be, well not for a while yet. After scrabbling down to the base of a hill, optimistically expecting the fence line to keep heading towards the road, we were met with a wall of thick scrub and no track to be found. Faced with the prospect of turning around and heading back up the hill with an unhappy (to say the least) wife and night fast approaching, Nick took the only option available to him and headed off on foot to try and chase up the elusive fence line. Suffice to say he found it, just in time to put a smile on my face and find a lovely little campsite to spend the night (happy wife, happy life). After telling me that really we were lucky to be getting into camp late because the flies had all gone to bed while frantically filling my wine glass, equanimity was restored.

Camel Camp where Rowles hatched his dastardly deeds.

A Snowy Rowles victim remembered.

After a couple of nights at Narndee we back-tracked to Mt Magnet to have a look at the museum there. It is well worth a visit, they have a replica Camel Camp out the back which was used in the movie '3 Acts of Murder'. We bought a copy of this movie while we were there and I was interested to learn that Arthur Upfield, author of the Bony detective novels and unwitting instigator of Snowy Rowles' criminal career, had lived in Kalamunda for a while, so we're practically related.

From there it was on to Warriedar, but first we had a couple of nights on our own camped on the shore of Mongers Lake which was just magic. There's nothing like waking up to a chorus of butcher birds, galahs and cockatoos. Even though the flies were atrocious, our new camper provided a nice spot to shelter out of the elementsthere's just enough room inside for a table, chairs, the scrabble board and a bottle of giggle juice! From there it was all hands on deck with Track Care at Warriedar Station. Track Care have been working on the homestead for a while now, bringing it back from the brink - this time it got a coat of paint and some new veranda posts and beams. It is a great spot to camp with toilets and a bit of shade.

On the day we arrived the temperature had plummeted to freezing from the last week of stinking hot weather so we got the big guns out and set up the whole awning, with lots of wind protection. It was very cosy looking out at the scenery with a nice cup of tea.

The Track Care team got stuck into the list of jobs to be done with gusto and great efficiency, so much so that we were all done a day earlier than expected. The homestead gleamed with its new coat of paint and the veranda was looking much more robust than when we arrived. With all our 'to do' list ticked off, we packed up a day early to head southwards to home. This had been our longest trip away on our own (being as we're retired now) and we certainly experienced our fair share of Western Australian delights, from the blazing, breezy north-west to the baking red ground and mulga of the rangelands. Our new camper certainly makes life on the road very comfortable (I never imagined I could get so excited about an inside dunny) and we're both looking forward to our next adventure, this time heading eastwards where there will be oysters and no doubt much more fun to be had.

Warriedar Homestead bathed in campfire light when most have hit the sack.

The Narndee cleaners were very efficient.

The Jewel of

Located in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia, roughly 70 kilometres from the town of Kununurra, Lake Argyle is a vast freshwater reservoir nestled among a rugged billion-year-old landscape.

Dam wall overlooking Lake Argyle.

Lake Argyle the Kimberley

Words by Benedict Smith

Photos by Danny Carter and Benedict Smith

Formed

by the Ord River Dam, it is classified as an inland sea and at its peak in the wet season, the lake holds an astounding 10,760 million cubic metres of water at maximum capacity. That is more than nine times the volume of water in Sydney Harbour.

It is Australia’s second largest and Western Australia’s largest freshwater man-made reservoir by volume. The lake forms part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme in the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley and is approximately 80km inland of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. The Northern Territory border is some 40km to the east of the Lake Argyle Resort and Campground, an increasingly popular destination among the caravan and 4WD fraternity.

Lake Argyle normally has a surface area of about 1,000 square km (390 square miles). The storage capacity to the top of the spillway is 10,763 gigalitres. Lake Argyle's average storage volume is 5,797 gigalitres,

making it the largest reservoir in Australia. The combined Lake Pedder/Lake Gordon in Tasmania is bigger but is actually two dams linked by a canal. At maximum flood level, Lake Argyle would hold 35,000 gigalitres of water and cover a surface area of 2,072 square km (800 square miles).

Lake Argyle, along with Lake Kununurra, form part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. There are currently some 150 square km of irrigated farmland in the East Kimberley region. The original plan was for dam water to irrigate rice crops for export to China. However, these plans were dashed as waterfowl, particularly magpie geese, ate the rice shoots faster than they could be planted. A variety of crops are now grown, but Lake Argyle still remains Australia's most under-utilised lake.

The lake was named after the property it partly submerged, Argyle Downs. In 1971, the well-known original homestead of early Kimberley pioneer Patsy Durack was

carefully dismantled and moved from its original site to prevent it from being flooded by the dam. It has been reconstructed as a museum about those early pioneering days. It is now accessible on foot from the Lake Argyle Resort via a picturesque walking trail or just a short 2km drive. The story of the Duracks is well-known in the Kimberley among pastoralists, locals and history buffs alike. Michael Durack and his brother Patrick drove almost 8,000 head of cattle from South-West Queensland to the Kimberley, arriving in 1882 and forming Argyle Downs and Ivanhoe Station. That gruelling journey was one of the longest of its kind to have ever been attempted.

Since then, the relationship between the Durack family and traditional owners of the land, both good and bad, has been well documented and a partnership that continues to this day.

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

Lake Argyle - a veritable inland sea.

The traditional owners are the Miriwung Gajerrong peoples who have inhabited the area for thousands of years and knew the Ord River as Goonoonoorrang. This is believed to be how the nearby town of Kununurra, got its name. It means ‘meeting of big waters’ or ‘river’ in the local dialects. The dam was built without consultation or compensation to the Indigenous traditional owners - a sore point among locals whose families were displaced during the construction stage.

The Ord River Dam post office opened on 1 March 1969 and closed on 15 November 1971, indicating the approximate timeframe of the construction camp. The lake filled from 1971 to capacity in 1973, and the spillway flowed until 1984. In 1996, the spillway wall was elevated by 6 metres (20 feet), which doubled the dam's capacity. Kununurra is the nearest township to Lake Argyle and was established in 1961 as a service town for the Ord River Irrigation Scheme after the initial success of stage one and large investments from both State and Federal governments. Today, it remains a service centre for the agricultural sector as well as a thriving tourist town in the dry season, typically April to September.

Lake Argyle, Lake Kununurra and the Ord River Irrigation Scheme (ORIS), supply water to the Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) - about 14,000 hectares in the Ord Valley. The Ord River Irrigation Area is the product

of an audacious and imaginative plan to develop a portion of the nation's tropical north for concentrated irrigated agriculture by utilising the waters of the Ord River. Early crop failures such as rice and cotton have been replaced with Indian Sandalwood and food crops such as melons, pumpkins, legumes, chick peas, bananas, mangoes, citrus and various others.

This land is harvested to produce a diverse range of crops, including tropical forests and sugar cane. Sugar production once accounted for approximately one third, by area, of the cultivated land in the ORIA. Sugarcane has been studied in the Ord River Irrigation Area since the 1950s. A commercial sugar industry was finally established in 1995. It had a raw sugar production capacity of 60,000 tonnes

Freshwater crocodile on the bank of Lake Kununurra.

per annum. In 2000, CSR sold the mill to Cheil Jedang Corporation, South Korea's largest food manufacturer. In 2007, the sugar mill closed its doors and hasn’t been in use since.

The damming of the Ord River has caused major changes to the local environment. The Ord River flow has been severely reduced and access for indigenous locals' fishing and hunting grounds has been affected. Within Lake Argyle itself however, a thriving new eco-system has been established. The lake is recognised as an important wetland area under the Ramsar Convention and with Lake Kununurra it forms the Lakes Argyle and Kununurra Ramsar site.

They are recognised as Ramsar protected wetlands and were listed as such in 1990. They form the largest in northern Australia and an excellent example of a man-made lake.

Lake Argyle, alone, is now home to 26 species of native fish and a population of freshwater crocodiles currently estimated at some 35,000. Fish species that are present in Lake Argyle include barramundi, silver cobbler, southern saratoga, archer fish, forktail cat fish, mouth almighty, long tom, bony bream and sleepy cod. While the official website states that it is only incidentally that a saltwater crocodile is found, locals and wildlife experts disagree.

Cane toads reached the dam in late 2008, mostly travelling via the Victoria Highway from the east, with numbers rising sharply during the summer of 2009. Local organisations and wildlife warriors have been trying to eradicate the toads with varying degrees of success, both in Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra since that time. They have had a devastating effect on the local native wildlife, as has been recorded

in other parts of the north of Australia. A fact of life nowadays, the toads have moved in and are likely to stay, as conditions are perfect for breeding and multiplying.

Looking to the future, Lake Argyle remains a major drawcard for adventurers and holidaymakers alike. People from all over Australia are drawn to this region in the dry season (April to September) like moths to a flame. There are plenty of tours on offer at the Lake Argyle Resort and Campground. As well as daily boat tours of the lake, gourmet camp oven dinners under star lit skies, mountain-bike and hiking trails, there are various 4WD tracks and waterholes to explore. The spillway

creek is a real favourite among the hardcore fishers and hikers.

More recently, there has been a dive charter company from the Pilbara offering full PADI certified dive courses at the lake. They will be back in 2020 to do it all again in October, as this is when conditions in the lake are ideal. A real buzz for local history buffs and keen scuba divers, the author included! I can honestly say, after diving the Argyle Downs Homestead site, it was a real highlight of my years spent in this magical region of Oz. Put it on your bucket list folks, if you haven’t already. Lake Argyle, in the East Kimberley region, will knock your socks off for raw beauty, adventure and aboriginal culture, like nowhere else.

Sunset Boab above Lake Argyle.

Excerpt from Hema’s NT State map.

Our dream was to do a 4WD trip through Arnhem Land, one of the last frontiers in Australia for exploration and roughing it. Equipped with a new Hilux 2.8 litre twin cab ute, we were all kitted up and ready to go. At this point we started asking around our caravanning mates to find some travelling companions. This search proved unsuccessful, as none had travelled into this part of the territory.

We approached Ian Elliot to act as our guide as we are in awe of his skills with navigation and mapping. As it turned out, Ian had skirted around the bottom edge of the region on an expedition tracing Frank Hann’s 1895 journey from Queensland. He asked around his circle of travellers and found a couple of keen explorers in Russell and Toni Chrimes. Russell being a motor mechanic and Toni a nurse, we felt that, all in all, we were in safe hands for our ...

Arnhem Land

Territory Odyssey

By Neville Passmore

Kata Tjuta heading east.

Quite by accident

I uncovered a photo album which no one in my family knew about that included official war photos of my father’s training and service in the Territory. Looking at captions on both the front and rear of the photos it was plain that Dad had served in and around Roper River, then Adelaide River, and finally in Darwin before being shipped to Jacquinot Bay in New Britain where he ended his war service. As a result the trip took on a family history

Suspended steel drainage line at Yellowdine.

of Peter's son, Patrick, Laverton's Shire President, to link the many halls of fame around the country into a great hall way. The road took us through Warburton and the Len Beadell museum at Giles and on to the WA/NT border.

At this point we were preparing ourselves for the worst as Russell and Toni had travelled this route just a year earlier and had encountered floodways strewn with boulders the size of small vehicles to drive around. You can imagine our looks of pleasant surprise to find glorious bitumen instead. This route across WA is becoming more popular by the day and as you come upon Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas) and Uluru (Ayers Rock) from the west, the road turns into a spectacle.

The trip began at our first meeting point, The Lakes servo on Great Eastern Highway. On the way to Kalgoorlie Ian took us off the highway to see some beautiful and historic stonework at Yellowdine and Karalee. Next morning we set out from Kalgoorlie to Laverton where we met up with Peter and Maureen Hill, real, living pioneers of the area. We also had a brief call at the Explorers Hall of Fame at the Laverton Visitor Centre. We didn’t have time to take this in fully so it's been added onto our bucket list.

We drove the Great Central Road for the next two days, finding a wide well-formed desert highway. This represents a dream

Upon reaching the Stuart Highway, our camp was at Erldunda Roadhouse, a spot of civilization in the caravan park with hot showers and a laundromat. Lacking pegs, we hung our washing half and half over the line. Overnight we experienced a mini-cyclone with rain squalls and bruising winds, a first for our rooftop tent. The tent was fine next morning but the washing that didn’t finish up on the muddy ground disappeared never to be seen or worn by us again.

We set off for our first destination off the Stuart Highway, which was Borroloola at the southwest corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Only a few weeks before

Albert Passmore at Holiday Inn.

we arrived two cyclones had battered the area including 'Trevor' which had caused a full evacuation of the population. The countryside was quite green when we turned up although this was as patchy as the rainfall accompanying the tropical depressions.

Just before we reached Borroloola on the Carpentaria Highway (a single lane bitumen road), we turned into the Caranbirini Conservation Reserve to see a mini 'Lost City' as it’s called. This consists of a field of eroded sandstone structures that look like organ pipes. Excellent signage traces the story of erosion through to the formation of the tall stone structures, both from a geological viewpoint as well as that of Aboriginal Dreaming. We encountered a series of walks including short one to two kilometre trails as well as an eight kilometre trek. This pattern of walks was copied in most of the trek locations around the territory. A shaded billabong with water lilies, archerfish and a bird hide added to the delights of this reserve.

Borroloola provides a link along the Savannah Way, which runs from Cairns in North Queensland to Broome in WA. It's also 'Fishing Central' which we experienced when we camped for two nights at the nearby King Ash Bay Fishing Club Camp. This was the first of a number of fishing camps filled with Barramundi 'tragics' from down south who come to the Territory with a tent, a campervan, or even a caravan together with a 'tinny', to bag fish. My tragedy was I didn’t catch anything here except a graphic warning about the ever-present crocodiles. This took the form of a sand imprint of a fullsize croc from earlier that morning.

Two horticultural finds in this area were the Rock grevillea (Grevillea

pteridifolia) and Silky grevillea (Grevillea heliosperma). Both were small trees to around 3 to 5 metres with brilliant orange and dusky red flowers respectively.

I could easily see these fitting into southern landscapes.

Lorella Springs Wilderness Park was a major destination for us as it offered many activities and interesting country to explore in 4WD. This million-acre cattle station has been opened up for 4WD tourism. Tracks have been cut to over 60 destinations varying from a ‘next to the office’ 400 metre stroll and hill climb to Sunrise Walk and at the other extreme we camped for two nights at Rosie Camp 2 which is 85kms from the

Caranbirini Conservation reserve.

Grevillea pteridifolia.

homestead. On the Rosie Creek site we managed to catch a couple of small fish (not Barramundi) and six mud crabs, which were steamed in a pot for the first course that night.

We also visited waterfalls, swimming holes, fern-lined pools, beach and river fishing camps and mountaintop viewing platforms. You can also take helicopter flights all around the property for fishing or sightseeing.

Our intrepid leader Ian managed to test the water by driving into what appeared to be a shallow pond in the middle of a track. Down to the axles, the Troopie needed a serious snatch to extricate it from the bog. Russell applied a snatch strap and gave it a pull with full V8 power. Bang - the strap snapped. “Must have been too old”, he reckoned so a second strap was unearthed from Ian’s recovery gear. This time I recorded the event on video. Bang - same result! Next, two kangaroo jacks were brought in to lift the rear and rocks gathered from all around were packed under the tyres. A chain between the two vehicles restored the Troopie to terra firma.

Rocks packed under the tyre.

Snatch strap one.

Fern Pool at Lorella Springs.

Next we headed back into Limmen National Park to walk around the Southern Lost City formation, which was spectacular and similar to that which we had seen near Borroloola. The Nathan River Rangers office was certainly worth visiting as the rangers were very helpful and the signage at the office gave us plenty of 'ah ha' moments as it covered Aboriginal history as well as the identification of birds, plants and animals of the region. We stayed overnight at Towns River Camp and paid very good attention to the crocodile warning signs.

Port Roper was our next destination and I was looking hard for links to Dad’s wartime experiences. We did find an abandoned airfield, one of many built as defensive installations to repel an expected Japanese invasion of Northern Australia.

Roper Bar was next stop and this consisted originally as a rocky shallow bar or ford over the river. Now reinforced with concrete it makes an easy water crossing during the dry season. Russell generated an undercarriage-cleaning wave as he moved over the bar at faster than snail’s pace.

Back on the Stuart Highway and Mataranka provided an overnight caravan camp complete with hot springs and beautiful fan palms (Livistona mariea), not to mention hot showers.

Next morning the serious business began as we headed out on the Central Arnhem Highway to Nhulunbuy, the largest town in Arnhem Land. The highway runs 633 kilometres and varies between single lane Roper Bar.

Lost City at Limmen National Park.

bitumen through to punishing sections that are traversed in a ‘brakes off, swerve and brakes on mode’. Ironically the best road conditions had 60km/h signs where the worst sections carried open road limits of 110km/h. The reason - the slower limits occurred where the road repair activities were happening. As most of the road passes through Aboriginal lands a permit was required from the Northern Lands Council to travel this road. We were required to nominate the days of travel in advance, which proved a bit tricky, however we were easily able to vary the dates by walking into the Nhulunbuy office of the council.

Having reached Nhulunbuy, a further recreational permit was required from the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation in order to move around the town, visit the town beach as well as any other camping sites in the East Arnhem areas. Unlike the Northern Lands Council travel permit, there is a range of charges applying which varied from $15 for one day to $35 for seven days. Visiting and camping in some of the 'special recreation areas' carried a fee of $20 per day and involved restrictions on the numbers of vehicles, which was aimed to give visitors an experience of

wilderness without being 'touristed out'.

It was about here that we started to pay more attention to anthills as these were a major item in many of the landscapes and the variations in size, numbers, form and colour gave the areas a different character. Some views from the side window revealed literally thousands of these termite homes. One of the photos in Dad’s war album was of a giant anthill and we found one that rivalled that for size.

Two horticulture highlights for me were an elegant blue frond cycad (Cycas armstrongii) and a delicate fan palm (Livistona humilis) with yellow flower spikes. Both were first seen about half way along the Central Arnhem Highway as we moved into more tropical, moist country. One bush food we tried with a very pleasant acid taste, was the green ants that swarm over the foliage and make their nests by knitting together the edges of leaves to create a refuge.

Yirrkala Art Centre was one of our early destinations being just out of Nhulunbuy. It was exciting to see worldrenowned artists creating their art right in front of our eyes. The eye-watering price tags caused me to wonder who would come to buy these exquisite works

Livistona humilis.

Photo of giant anthill found in Dad's war album.

Green ants.

Artist at Yirrkala Art Centre.

given the state of the road to Nhulunbuy. We learned that artists take their work to major exhibitions around the country and to international venues but one of the main conduits for sales is the world wide web.

Cape Arnhem is one of the special recreational areas and carries a link to early Dutch activities in the region. Dutch East India Company captain William van Colster named it as he sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1623. The Cape was named after his ship the Arnhem, which in turn carried the name of the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands.

As we drove along the deep and soft white sands of the beach on the way to the point of the Cape we made a discovery of a different sort – garbage, and mountains of it. Cape Arnhem is a flotsam magnet; most of the rubbish consists of plastic and

Yirrkala Art Gallery.

appears to come from Indonesia. Regular, organised volunteer clean-ups take place and the volume of collected material is measured to reveal trends.

Macassan Beach was another special camping area. The name recognises Indonesian contact with northern Australia by Macassan divers who collected 'trepang', 'bêche-de-mer' or sea cucumber to be shipped to China where it was used to make soup and considered to be an aphrodisiac. This international contact had occurred at least from the 1700s but possibly earlier. These contacts had a profound effect across many aspects of Aboriginal life including trade, language, art and genetics. My touch point here was studying these early contacts through my Anthropology course at UWA.

Volunteers organise regular clean-ups to remove washed-up garbage from Cape Arnhem.

Memorial Park or Gapuru was for me the most beautiful of the special campsites with spectacular waterfalls and ironstone red riverside cliffs. We visited this location on the way back along the Central Arnhem Highway. The track in is only accessible by 4WD vehicles. Cost of camping here is $20 per night per vehicle.

Back on the highway our next permitted destination was an Aboriginal settlement called Ramingining. The main business in town was an art gallery which was well worth visiting. The town lies beside the Arafura Swamp, the largest wetland in the territory. We managed just a glimpse of this natural wonderland from the grassy shores of the Murwangi Safari Camp, which caters to well healed travellers who come in by coach.

Back home I subsequently spent considerable time leafing through wildflower books and websites with no better result. Then I spoke to Digby Growns who leads the Kings Park grevillea breeding program. I sent him the photo and within a few moments he messaged me the nameGrevillea goodii.

Further investigation revealed that the plant was named by botanist Robert Brown who accompanied Mathew Flinders on the Investigator on a voyage of discovery. The sample of the plant was collected in 1803 and is today housed in the Herbarium, Kew Gardens in the UK. So you could say our 'discovery' was only 216 years too late.

A sandstone formation had captured our eye on the road into Nhulunbuy and on the way out we took a turn off the highway to explore. All of us independently 'discovered' a stunning prostrate grevillea with large cluster flowers in red and yellow shades. It had a most unusual foliage which looked like a gum tree leaf and was a blue-green colour. I was totally foxed when it came to ID, as I had not seen anything even similar.

That night we camped out near the new Goyder River Bridge and a walk to a comfort stop revealed another horticultural humdinger in the form of a large shrub/small tree with sulphur yellow filament flowers. I was aware of a xanthostemon called Golden Penda from North Queensland but was not aware such a plant might be found in the territory. I had found the gorgeous Xanthostemon paradoxus right beside our campsite.

After a couple of days layup in Katherine, Ian led us back home via some wonderful campsites along the Fitzroy River. On one of these the dawn chorus woke me up to see a glorious sunrise on the Fitzroy, which produced my favourite photo of the trip

Roy Bungilla - artist at Ramingining gallery.

Grevillea goodii - botanist Robert Brown collected a specimen in 1803.

Fitzroy River sunrise.

ONE VISION, 50 YEARS IN THE MAKING.

Fifty years ago, when the remote Australian outback was so treacherous and communication was scarce, a broken vehicle part could mean the difference between life and death. In many ways, little has changed.

Our founder and Managing Director, Frank Hutchinson, listened to his touring customers to learn from their experience and saw the need for innovative solutions in the design and manufacture of strong 4WD parts.

Looking back over fifty years of service from those pioneer Bedfords to today’s modern 4WD’s, those thousands of lessons have culminated in over 40,000 unique Terrain Tamer parts and a network that now serves 80 countries all over the world.

Thank you for being part of the journey.

VERSUS

UTES TRUCKS

By Neil Dowling

Conventional

one-tonne 4WD utes are easy to drive, relatively inexpensive, have commendable safety and convenience features and cope very well with dual roles of family weekends and work-day chores.

The problem with these vehicles rears its head immediately when they get loaded for a holiday. One-tonne utes can quickly exceed their safe load limits, putting all

the vehicle’s safety technology at threat and if the overloaded ute is involved in an accident, potentially voiding any insurance.

The issue has sparked resources companies to look at small trucks as a replacement to the utes, with some major miners now moving into 4WD single and dual-cab light trucks including the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, Iveco Daily and Isuzu N-Series.

Isuzu NPS 75-155 4WD is a solid rival to one-tonne utes.

It solves payload shortfalls and ostensibly raises the safety bar, though by comparison with some of the latest utes - Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton - the light trucks don’t have, and are legally not required to have, sophisticated safety equipment such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot warning and lanechange monitors.

That could change as early as late next year with the Federal Government’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development presenting a discussion paper that could make AEB mandatory for trucks.

It could make AEB - and other aidsstandard for trucks and buses by November 1, 2020 and for all new heavy-duty vehicles by November 2, 2022.

Travellers wanting a heavy-duty off-road machine and need the high payload with a 3000kg-plus tow rating will also have to factor in the cost of building a body for accommodation and storage for camping equipment.

Isuzu is the most popular truck brand in Australia and has two models suited to getting off the road and hauling a large payload without problems with durability and safety breaches.

You are entering a different world when selecting what is effectively a truck. The major stumbling block may be that the payload will be re-rated (that is, down) if you have a car licence.

For example, the Isuzu NPS 75-155 4WD tested here has a payload of 3.7-tonne if you have a truck licence but that drops to 710kg for drivers with a car licence. That is the result of the GVM falling to 4500kg from the truckie’s 7500kg.

That should make most buyers line up for a truck licence. The second problem is that most trucks don’t have an automatic transmission. It’s not a deal breaker but most people prefer the ease of an automatic.

The Isuzu NPS 75-155 4WD here now comes with an optional automatic - well, it’s an electronic manual so there’s no clutch pedal - and is currently the only 4WD vehicle in its class with this option. Iveco has said it will import an auto version of the Daily soon, and Hino has an aftermarket auto available through Penske dealers on the east coast.

Service body and truck can be bought together off the showroom floor.

This Isuzu is rated with a GVM of 7500kg and GCM of 11,000kg that with its weight of 3790kg, gives a 3.7-tonne payload (truckies) or 710kg (car licences).

The car licence version has a GVM of 4500kg and GCM of 8000kg. It can tow 3500kg. How does this compare with a onetonne 4WD ute?

The latest Mitsubishi Triton ute has a GVM of 2900kg and a GCM of 5885kg with a payload of 985kg. It can tow 3100kg.

So the truck is clearly ahead in what it can carry. What’s it like to drive? Well, like a truck but the automated manual transmission takes a bit of any stress out of driving it, especially around the suburbs. Clearly, it’s tall and the steps aren’t attached below the door for decoration. The visibility up there is excellent, especially to the rear with Isuzu fitting over-size mirrors, pleasingly with heaters and electric adjustment.

Cabin space is open and unobstructed at the front while being broad and free of floor obstacles in the rear. Taking the kids along? Then the rear seat, designed for three adults, can easily fit three child seats for kids of various ages.

The dashboard is simple and easy to read. The NPS has part-time 4WD with a lowrange transfer case that are controlled by dash buttons. The automatic gear selector is a standard pattern with manual selection of gears available.

Handy tool boxes on either side of the tray are part of the truck's central locking system.

Cabin highlights include simple dashboard and plenty of storage.

Included in the standard features of the NPS are a mechanical suspension seat for the driver. You may be wise to go for the optional air suspension and while you’re ticking the option boxes, get one for the passenger to retain long-distance incab harmony.

There’s also two airbags, a multi-media system with satellite navigation and Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, air conditioning, cruise control and good storage spaces.

On the road the NPS picks up speed without much fuss with the semi-auto box

taking a bit of a leisurely step through its five ratios. Cruising is similarly relaxed with the diesel engine barely putting any effort into sitting at the speed limit.

Typical of the genre, the NPS has leaf springs front and rear that are designed for a hefty load. That creates something of a trembling ride over poor bitumen as the dampers try and pacify the firm leaves and is not helped by the recirculating-ball steering system that is a bit like Sylvester Stallone - tough but vague.

Some owners in the leisure sector have changed to parabolic leaf springs and changed the standard hydraulic dampers for better aftermarket units.

The lack of accuracy of the steering is something that will become familiar to owners though there are tyre choices to improve the ride. Isuzu fitted from the factory the off-road Bridgestone L330 225/80R17 for the test vehicle.

These tyres are designed to complement the drivetrain, load weights and maximise traction away from the bitumen.

Owners can - and should in the case of non-commercial

applications - opt for other rubber that better suit a higher bitumen use.

Even better is the move to taller wheels of 19.5-inch and the replacement of the dual rear wheels with singles to improve off-road ability by allowing the rear tyres to track with the front tyres. The taller diameter will also improve touring, bringing down the revs at 100km/h from 2700rpm to about 2400rpm.

The NPS has excellent fleet sales with organisations such as bush fire brigades. The hard work fighting fires demands off-road capability while hauling heavy payloads of equipment and water tanks, along with a relatively narrow body that can get into places too tight for larger fire equipment.

These attributes work well for the leisure owner. The NPS is certainly capable with

Off-road tyres are standard though owners have a choice of rubber depending on final use.

Live axle with leaf springs and plenty of underbody protection.

a 5.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel rated at 114kW/419Nm, with the torque peaking at a flat 1600-2600rpm. The fuel tank is 140 litres and fuel consumption, heavily dependent on load and driving conditions, is around 15 litres/100km.

Away from the bitumen - and with a bit of trepidation given the potential prospect of shovelling a 3790kg truck from wet clay - the NPS is surprisingly able to get out of muddy trenches and over slippery creek banks.

Most of the work was done in low-range (the second dash button) and helped by the standard rear limited slip differential. Drivers need to be reminded (as I did) that the front hubs are manually lockable and overlooking this task brings us back to the shovel scenario.

Good news is that engaging low range 4x4 converts the automatic transmission to manual mode. This is especially good when crossing very rough ground and

need to maintain a low speed, and also for steep declines where the gear can be locked to maximise engine braking. This gives excellent control without the fear of the box suddenly selecting a higher cog and allowing the truck to run away.

The Isuzu was tested with the company’s factory-made Servicepack-X body that comprises a tray with a large lockable rear feature gull-wing doors on struts and a small 2200mm by 2120mm tray with drop sides.

The dimensions inside the covered and lockable area are 2060 mm long by 1970 mm wide and with a 1000mm high headroom. That could easily be converted - with not a lot of effort - to a sleeping area and general storage for a couple on the move.

The NPS 75-155 4WD automatic costs about $99,000 and up to about $130,000 with the Servicepack.

Nuts ‘n’ bolts

Price: from $99,000 plus on-road costs

Japan Engine: 5.2-litre 4-cyl turbo-diesel Power: 114kW @ 2600rpm

419Nm @ 1600-2600rpm

average: 15 L/100km (6.7km/litre)

tank: 140 litres

5-spd auto

2-spd transfer; part-time 4WD

front: single-stage multi-leaf springs, hydraulic dampers, stabiliser bar, live axle; rear: multi-leaf springs, hydraulic dampers, live axle

Brakes: front/rear: drums

Hydraulic recirculating ball

circle: 13.6m

17.5x6.00 steel six-bolt

225/80R17.5 Bridgestone L330 tubeless

(cab/frame): (L) 5985mm; (W) 2040mm (w/o mirrors); (H) 2490mm; (WB) 3395mm

clearance: 250mm

3790kg

3500kg

intervals: 12mths

3yr/100,000 km with 3 year roadside assist.

(Glass’s Guide): n/a

SOMETHING

Isuzu

has an option to the one-tonne ute sector that’s not as large - and as expensive - as the NPS but can do much of the heavy lifting needed by the traveller. The NLS has been introduced with an all-wheel drive system and a payload, depending on accessories, of 1690kgalmost double that of a conventional onetonne 4WD ute. It is priced from $58,164 plus on-road costs.

This NLS 45-150 is Isuzu’s smallest light truck, with a GVM of 4500kg and GCM of 8000kg, allowing for a payload of 1690kg, and a 2500kg tow rating.

Using the same comparison as the NPS, this compares with a Mitsubishi Triton 4x4 dual-cab ute with 2900kg GVM, a GCM of 5885kg, a payload of 985kg and the ability to tow 3100kg.

But while the NLS has applications in some off-road conditions, it’s not really to the level of the NPS or some utes.

Smallest Isuzu truck sits low but has all-wheel drive and a huge payload.

It better suits a buyer wanting a highpayload vehicle that can be driven on a car driver’s licence and had applications away from bitumen roads, ideally gravel, limestone or hard-packed soil. Against it is the lack of an automatic transmission option.

The NLS 45-150 AWD is modelled on the NPS, using the same basic chassis layout, though the trucks are separated by big differences led by the physical sizes and the drivetrain specifications.

Where the NPS is a hard-edged, highlycapable platform for serious off-road work thanks to its two-speed transfer case and leaf-sprung front suspension, the NLS is more akin to components used by utes.

It has a 3.0-litre turbo-diesel twin-cam engine that is practically identical to the engine in the Mitsubishi Group-owned Isuzu Ute D-Max and MU-X.

In the truck, it is rated at 110kW/375 and drives through a five-speed manual (no automatic option) to the rear wheels through a traditional live axle with leaf springs.

For all-wheel drive, it has an on-demand system with viscous coupling similar to many SUV systems that sense traction loss in the normal driven wheels and then allow drive to be shared with other axles.

The system needs no driver intervention though there is a dash switch that will lock the drive to both axles.

On muddy tracks outside of Perth, the NLS showed no problem traversing deep tracks, its momentum intact thanks to the strong torque of the engine, high ground clearance and the low first gear ratio. That low first gear means that it’s used predominantly off the road or when towing at slow speeds. For the majority of traffic situations, take-offs can be easily achieved in second gear.

The NLS is more like a ute for comfort and drivability, with surprising quietness and loads of comfort. The seating is cushy and the tilt and telescopic steering adjustment gets the position right for any driver.

Coming from a ute, the manoeuvrability of the little truck is pretty amazing. It has a turning circle of only 10.1m - compared with a Triton 4WD at 11.8m - that is made a lot easier because of the driver visibility and the driver’s seat being close to the front of the truck.

Much of its appeal is also because of this fantastic visibility, from the deep windscreen to the slanted glass area in the doors, to the oversize mirrors that are electrically adjusted and heated.

Cabin features are good, with a touchscreen for Bluetooth and audio, digital radio and two speakers. Satellite navigation and a reverse camera are optional.

The cabin is more like a ute and boasts excellent visibility.

The factory service body has potential for campers.

Gunbarrel Highway

Fabulous or folly?

By Amanda Burton

Nowadays, Len Beadell’s Gunbarrel Highway is about as far off resembling a highway as you can get (unless you’re used to travelling on NSW highways, in which case you may have grounds to argue that point). It’s one of those top 4WD bucket list destinations where it’s the journey that is the experience. A rite of passage for many 4W drivers is to have 'done' the Gunbarrel, but on this occasion our little group was going one better. Yes, we were pitting our 4WDs against whatever the Gunbarrel Highway could throw at us, but we were also bringing our glamper-campers along for the ride. Fabulous trip, or complete folly? We’d soon see.

Our little group was made up of five couples in total with a combination of LandCruisers and one lonely Land Rover doing the tow work, pulling a range of different model Australian Off Road camper trailers. The manufacturer touts that for all their luxury they are extremely off road capable, and we were certainly planning to put that to the test.

We congregated at the Gunbarrel Laager just out of Wiluna, which is a logical kick off point for a Gunbarrel trip. Gil and Mal have done a great job tarting the place up, with a great undercover camp kitchen area and communal fireplace. A last taste of life’s little luxuries was on offer, with homemade ice cream, Devonshire teas and strong, hot showers in the donga style ablutions.

The start of Gunbarrel Highway is deceptively well graded and actually goes by the name of Wongawol Road. We knew we were into the desert though and starting our adventure as we spotted our first camels. Lunch was a stop at Wongawol Creek crossing. There are cattle yards on the south side and a track in on the north side to a small loop where you can get off the track for a stop. There were still pools of cool water and, though not quite nice enough to inspire us in for a swim, they made for pleasant scenery whilst we ate lunch and were entertained by the local perenties.

Plugging the new Cooper tyre.

Back on the track, before we could get lulled into a further false sense of security one of the Tyre Dog sensors started alarming - a relentless slow leak in one of Lucy’s tyres (Lucy being our glampercamper). We limped into Mingal Pool to find that the brand new Cooper tyre had been staked straight through the tread, despite lowered tyre pressure. With all hands on deck we soon had it changed, the damaged one plugged and up on the wheel carrier just in case it needed to be called back into service. On a previous trip we had overnighted at Mingal Pool, and there is ample space along with a shelter and BBQ.

That time we had even braved the pool for a swim (it was April and stinking hot) only to be told a few days later by a local that the pool was full of dead horse carcasses (still not sure if that was true or someone having a bit of a laugh at the tourist’s expense).

Carnegie Station was the spot of choice for our first night’s camp this trip. With a warm welcome we were pointed over to the camping area, a circle of gravel around a central fireplace with ablution blocks (two toilets and two showers) behind the camp kitchen. There’s interesting memorabilia on both the station and Len Beadell to peruse in the camp kitchen, though my favourite was the old Bundaberg Rum ad (see breakaway). There were also a menagerie of animals to see and cuddle behind the station homestead (the potty calf and friendly chickens being favourites).

After an amicable evening around the fire, next morning was city-life déjà vu as we cued to top up fuel (at $2.50/L) before heading off. The eftpos connection was a bit hit and miss, a good reminder that it is worth carrying at least 'a tank’s worth' of cash when you are travelling remotely,

“Whether you’re a bloke who imports a few bunnies, or has a few too many to drink, your harmless ideas can get out of hand.

In 1859 Thomas Austin imported and released 24 rabbits for a bit of hunting. Tom obviously wasn’t a very good shot, because by 1926 there were 10 billion little buggers running wild across Australia.

What seemed like a good idea at the time got out of control and did some damage. That can sometimes happen when you end up having a few too many with your mates.

There are enough pests around, don’t be one of them.”

Classic.

Campsite at Carnegie Station.

as it’s not uncommon to come across issues like this. Peak hour rush over, we were on our way again.

The wide graded track continued through to an expansive, very dry claypan before narrowing to a graderblade-width track which only had distant memories of having last seen said grader. Once you exit the Shire of Wiluna all signs of the grader cease. It’s rutted, corrugated trails often with a number of options to choose from as those who have gone before leave marks of their indecisiveness on which path was the better option. Whilst negotiating this web, a call came over the radio from our tail-end-charlie that there were a couple of motorbikes moving up past us. They were followed intermittently by others until seven in total passed us by. The corrugations felt punishing, even from the lounge chair comfort of a LandCruiser with beefed up suspension. Even as a female I was wincing in sympathy at how those poor boys must have felt bouncing up and down with the

Outback Adventures running repairs.

primitive springs on their trail bikes – no wonder they all seemed to be spending most of their time standing rather than sitting on their bikes.

Not far behind these trepid travellers was Steve of Outback Adventure Treks, driving the support vehicle. As the track was blocked with a tyre change in progress, we had a chance for a quick chat. The group of seven European tourists on the dirt bikes had come from Perth and were on a more or less direct path diagonally across Australia up to Airlie Beach in Queensland.

Chin high spinifex on the Gunbarrel.

Their journey lasts twenty days, sleeping in swags, with Steve making running repairs as needed on the bikes with just one in reserve in case of an irreparable breakdown. Steve then turns around and makes the return journey with a new group of masochists, and he’s been doing this now for twenty years. Does that make him the biggest masochist of all? Or does he have the best job in the world? It certainly made me think I should never complain from the front seat of my LandCruiser about dust or corrugations again.

After skirting the dry Mangkili Claypan, we took the obligatory photos at one of the plaqued Len Beadell Trees before setting up camp at Geraldton Bore. Attributed to the Geraldton Historical Society, a hand pump was installed in 2007 by the Department of Environment and Conservation and some 4W drivers to allow travellers to access the water. We found it still working well today with nice clean water (requiring just a bit of man-power to pump up). As the sign says, it may save a life: Use it. Respect it. Leave it here.

Over the next day we covered all of 88km, averaging about 20km/h. A few more tyre fatalities and a dented rim from an unplanned slide down a wash-away did

How many 4W drivers does it take to change a tyre?

Len Beadell replica plaque. Man power at Geraldton bore.

slow the pace, but the track wasn’t made for going much faster. Though it is easy to simplistically argue that the more rubber you have on the ground (i.e. towing), the higher your chances of getting a puncture. In our group’s case the high tyre-fatality rate had more to do with someone’s experiment with a new brand of tyre, one which clearly in retrospect wasn’t up to the harsh conditions (even though extensive prior research had suggested it should be). Live and learn. There were admittedly a couple of towing-specific casualties; the dented rim from a slide down a wash-away did occur on one of the campers (luckily the rim was a steelie, so nothing a mallet and some thoughtfully applied brute-force couldn’t fix). The second incident was undeniably towing related in the form of stone-strikes to the trailer plugs requiring generous application of cable-ties and tape to keep the connection happening. It was a day of dramas but we eventually arrived at Mt Beadell, home to the monument of a replica of Len Beadell’s theodolite and our last night’s camp on the Gunbarrel. A hike to the top of the mount rewards with panoramic views of nature

No easy puncture repair here - dented rim.

Trailer casualty from stone strikes.

Lucy makes it to Mt Beadell.

Sunset from top of Mt Beadell.

Camped up at the base of Mt Beadell.

at its best. Sunset and sunrise both offered stunning variations on this theme, with changing colours and awesome vistas. If the Gunbarrel Highway has a 'destination' then this would be it. The next day for us was a short hop, with a quick look-in at Camp Beadell, before taking the Heather Highway southwards to join the Great Central Road and then on to Warburton for refuelling.

So the final verdict - fabulous trip, or complete folly?

We all made it through. We did it in comfort. We got out to the places we’d all rather be and shared a meal and a yarn under the stars with a group of great mates. Do you need a glamper-camper to do that? Obviously not. But I’m getting soft in my old age. Sinking into an innerspring mattress at the end of the day after a hot shower, and knowing that you don’t have to brave the mozzies for any middle-of-the-night pit stops. Call me a princess, but for me that just takes a great trip up a notch to being truly fabulous.

Gunbarrel Laager Traveller's Rest

13km east of Wiluna Campsites (powered and unpowered), ablutions, hot showers, dongas Tel. +61 (08) 9981 7161 Email gunbarrel.laager@ riverblueholdings.com.au

Carnegie Station

340km east of Wiluna Campsites (unpowered), ablutions/hot showers, dongas $20 per person per night, or $50 family rate per night (2 adults and 2 children). Power is not 24 hours and use of electric appliances is restricted. Telephone:(08) 9981 2991 www.carnegiestation.com.au

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

Have

By Bryan Mitchell

Western Australia has a unique location and sparse population distribution with over 80% of our population living in Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world. This means that regional areas of Western Australia have very low levels of light pollution, giving us an excellent view of the night sky. However, many people around the world are now growing up in areas where the stars are disappearing due to light pollution. In June 2016 it was estimated that one third of the Earth’s population could no longer see the Milky Way above, including 80% of Americans and 60% of Europeans, while in the Southern Hemisphere, Singapore was found to be the most light-polluted country in the world. This trend is increasing at a rate of 2% each year around the world as populations increase and the modernisation of third world countries continues.

Travelling to an area with a known dark sky environment to take advantage of these conditions is known as Astrotourism and it has been listed in the top ten emerging tourism trends of 2019 by Lonely Planet. As such, international visitors, tourists and locals alike are all being encouraged to

Telescopes and people in the dark.

Local children looking through a telescope.

get out and take advantage of the special dark sky viewing conditions we have here in Western Australia. 4W drivers and caravanners are really in the box seat as across the state our country towns and shires are creating special places and setting up protections to ensure their unique stargazing opportunities are maintained.

The recent Mount Magnet Astro Rocks Fest, held on the weekend of 20th to 22nd September 2019 in the Murchison Region, incorporated an astronomy evening on the Friday which was well supported by the Perth Observatory, the Gravity Discovery Centre and Observatory, the Astronomical Group of Western Australia (AGWA) and International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). This included a selection of more than 15 telescopes set up for attendees to view astronomical targets, roving informative guides to explain what was being viewed, a stunning

exhibition of astrophotography prints and ICRAR had plenty of red LED lights and planispheres as giveaways for the kids.

On the Saturday there were activities and tours showcasing the town and region, including tours of local indigenous art sites and one of the local mine sites, public talks and art exhibitions at the RSL hall, local markets, demonstrations of prospecting equipment and an eye-catching display of hand-made quilts that referenced the Aboriginal night-sky knowledge and existence in rocky landscapes, the result of a collaboration between the Wirnda Barna Art Centre and the Mount Magnet Quilt Project. The town visitor’s centre has a fantastic collection of geological specimens of rocks from all over the world and is also home to an excellent mining and pastoral museum with loads of interactive exhibits to get your hands on.

In the afternoon it was time to put on your best clothes and head out to the local racetrack for the annual race round, highlights being the cold beers, hot beef and gravy rolls or woodfired pizzas and the kids running races for bikes and cash prizes, followed by a local musician playing into the evening.

Ron and Bryan with their Astro Rocks Fest Bags.

Stella King with some of the Astro-themed quilts on display.

The children’s running race to catch and win the bike.

The Mount Magnet Races and crowd.

Unfortunately, we had to pack up and leave on the Sunday morning, but the festival continued on with more events and tours including a geology field trip and by all accounts a hugely popular Introduction to Astrophotography lesson and field trip.

Two weeks prior to the Astro Rocks Fest, the Wannamal community hosted a Wannamal Stargazing Campfire at the Wannamal Hall, around 100km north east of Perth in the Shire of Chittering. More than 80 people attended the family-friendly event. Astronomers from the Stargazers Club WA set up several telescopes for people to use and ran guided tours of the constellations of the night sky throughout the evening.

A visitor looking through a telescope.

Setting up the telescopes for stargazing.

A huge campfire kept everyone warm and a local musician provided the entertainment with his live music. Delicious pulled-pork rolls were on sale for dinner along with fresh camp oven dampers and billy tea also available for the participants. Overnight camping was available on the Wannamal oval. The event proved to be a wonderful introduction to our remarkable night skies and plans are underway to make it an annual event.

Dampers cooking in a row.

Local singer-musician Phil Ramsey entertaining visitors.

These types of events are just the tip of the iceberg but they are proving to be very popular.

The benefits of preserving our dark sky environment in Western Australia are numerous, especially given that astronomy in particular requires dark sky environments for the best viewing of deep space objects in great detail, reducing carbon footprint and avoiding light pollution repercussions for the environment.

Light pollution can include:

• Glare – excessive brightness that causes visual discomfort.

• Skyglow – brightening of the night sky over inhabited areas.

• Light trespass – light falling where it is not intended or needed.

• Clutter – bright, confusing and excessive groupings of light sources.

To preserve the future of the dark skies in Western Australia, Carol Redford’s Stargazers Club WA and Astrotourism WA are championing the cause for a dark sky. Carol describes herself as an “Accidental Astronomer” who fell into astronomy while owning and operating the Gingin Observatory (Now Gravity Discovery Centre and Observatory) with a good friend from 2007-2012. In September 2018 Carol was among 100 delegates who attended the Australian Dark Sky Alliance (ASDA) at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW. This was the first conference on Australian Light Pollution, modelled on The International Dark Sky Alliance (ISDA) which was formed in 1988.

In 2001 ISDA introduced the International Dark Sky Places Program to preserve and protect dark sites through public education and responsible lighting

The campfire and many of the stargazing visitors.

policies, encouraging communities, parks and protected areas to work towards these goals, including an annual International Dark Sky Week held from 31st March7th April 2019.

Carol has recently been instrumental in liaising with Western Power to provide an alternative to 4000K blue/white LED lighting to <3000K spectrum lighting to reduce environmental impacts and light pollution to regional areas. A programmed roll-out of new lighting for regional areas will now be taking these lighting designs into use to preserve our unique dark sky environment for future generations. Another fantastic initiative from Carol is the release of a list and an interactive map of Astrotourism towns, Astrophotography Hot Spots and Observing Sites where the local community welcomes visitors with binoculars and telescopes in Western Australia. These links are listed at the end of the article in the Information Bay section.

In addition, The Gravity Discovery Centre and Observatory is working together with the City of Wanneroo, Main Roads WA, the Shire of Gingin and the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage to create a dark sky reserve at the Gravity Discovery Precinct. This dark sky reserve 70km north of the Perth CBD would include 2000km2 of protected night sky within the Shire of Gingin. Primarily this reserve would service astronomy tourism, astronomy

education, Aboriginal cultural heritage and astronomical scientific endeavour while the rest of the reserve will serve as a buffer for the prevention of localised light pollution.

Australian Astronomy has continued gaining momentum from its indigenous origins and our involvement providing space tracking support to the United States started in 1957, pre-dating NASA. The Mercury space program was historic because on the 20th February 1962 astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in Friendship-7. Back then, my Great Uncle Jack Duperouzel was working as part of the acquisition team at the Muchea tracking station near

Muchea staff working – Jack Duperouzel bottom left. Image courtesy of Jack Duperouzel. Muchea tracking station staff. Image courtesy of Jack Duperouzel.

Gingin, WA. The Muchea tracking station was vitally important to the project as it was the only tracking station outside of the US capable of issuing instructions to the space capsule. Looking back on his three years of involvement with the cutting-edge Mercury project, Jack described it with great pride as “one of the highlights of my life”.

At the time of John Glenn’s first orbit, NASA had requested the Australian Government to leave the lights on at Perth Airport to see if they could be seen from space. The Lord Mayor of Perth at the time said it was a waste of money, but then WA Premier David Brand agreed and the decision gained enormous popularity with the public here in Perth. People hung sheets from clothes lines in the back yard, left lights on and used torches and gas lights to illuminate the sheets. As John Glenn crossed the dark Indian Ocean, the lights from Perth and Rockingham were clearly visible from space and Perth became known as the 'City of Lights'. John Glenn commented, “The lights show up very well, thank everybody for turning them on”.

While this is the opposite of a dark sky story, these were new frontiers in exploration, space and science and these experiences led to the construction of the Carnarvon Tracking Station which was the largest outside mainland USA and the most accurate radar station in the southern hemisphere.

Many Australians may be familiar with the movie 'The Dish' about the Parkes Observatory's role of relaying live television of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, but it was the Carnarvon Tracking Station in WA that was able to communicate the approval for Apollo 11 to begin the moon landing mission after ensuring all the telemetry and equipment was correct. At

the moment, Western Australia has both the European Space Agency and NASA conducting experiments in the Pilbara region as they believe the environment is similar to what they will encounter in their planned future missions to Mars.

Western Australia is also capitalising on the unique isolation and sparsity of population to drive science and technology by recognising a unique ‘dark’ sky opportunity with the foundation of The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in 2009. ICRAR was formed with the specific purpose of supporting Australia’s bid to host the world’s largest radio telescope – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Traditional optical telescopes only show the visible light spectrum whereas radio telescopes are used to look at the emissions of stars, galaxies, quasars, pulsars, planets, supernovae and more which are a much larger part of the spectrum than visible light and include infrared, ultra-violet, electro-magnetic and radio waves.

Radio telescopes have to be much larger than optical telescopes because the wavelengths in the radio spectrum are so much longer than in the visible spectrum, which is why the SKA will be co-located primarily in South Africa and Western Australia. Both locations have been chosen due to their radio silence, another form of the ‘dark’ sky from the isolation and low population density. Western Australia will host the Low Frequency component in the Murchison Region, and South Africa will host the Mid-High Frequencies in the Karoo Desert.

Regional tourism is also embracing the astrotourism opportunities as few traditional operations operate in the evenings, so the ability to offer afternoon/evening/night time tours can provide another income

" ... the lights from Perth and Rockingham were clearly visible from space and Perth became known as the 'City of Lights'."

Designed

CRUISER CONVERSION

Words by Neil Dowling

Photos by Christine Arnasiewicz

Life is a compromise but you don’t always have to give away some creature comforts when juggling between a family 4WD and a rugged ute. Clever adaptations of the Toyota LandCruiser have become upmarket dual-purpose vehicles for some years but the expertise in the challenging work has become so good it’s at factory-spec status. The featured vehicle here is the stunning creation of Perth Motor Bodies with the slick chop-job done by On Track Fabrication.

Extensive work includes bull bar and winch, snorkel and flat racks.

The 2019-build LandCruiser 200 Series

VX first went to Luke Bonner at On Track, then onto Gary McIntosh and Martin Large at Perth Motor Bodies, part of the Pilbara Motor Group.

Luke Bonner, owner of On Track has completed about 25 of the LandCruiser 200 Series chops but his list of similar work to Patrols and both 80 and 100 Series vehicles, is much larger.

“We have four 200s here now and we had 11 in a month ago, so it’s a popular alteration to that model LandCruiser,” he said.

“This vehicle was cut before it was registered. It was important to keep all the safety equipment in place so the most important piece, the curtain airbags, were retained in their original position.

“We also ensured the existing body was securely fixed to new mounting points, as the original mounts are removed where the tray is added.

“It is also cut so it will be the same length as the original LandCruiser.”

The turnaround varies but it generally takes 10-12 weeks to complete a 200 Series. Changes include the removal of the body from the C-pillar back, leaving sufficient room for the headliner-mounted curtain airbag, then relocating and modifying the wiring and adding a new rear window.

This is the first private retail module made by Perth Motor Bodies.

“Some customers say they don’t want the rear window, especially if they have a module on the back which obscures the view out the back, but I keep the glass there.

“The first point is that it’s part of the vehicle’s certification that is required for registration.

“The second point is that a future owner may remove the module and want to have a tray back.

“This would mean cutting the vehicle up again to fit the glass. It’s better that the glass goes in first while we’re doing the job.

“The third point is that keeping the glass won’t affect the resale value.”

No bog is used to finish off the rear metal plate where it meets the existing bodywork.

“It’s all new metal and we spend a lot of time to get the panel fit perfect, without using fillers, and with strong welds before the vehicle goes to the paint shop.”

During the process of closing off the back of the wagon, Luke says it’s important that metal is protected, even where a new piece is added to the existing chassis. He uses extensive rustproofing materials so there’s no corrosion in the future.

The mounts for the tray or module are also lapped to the chassis rail and welded across all the joints so the strength is as good or better than factory spec.

The new frame is finished with a polyurethane coating called Raptor that protects against corrosion and chaffing, and the exterior paint precisely matches the vehicle.

Once the vehicle here was completed by Luke and his three employees in Neerabup, it was taken to Perth Motor Bodies in Malaga.

PMB operations manager Gary McIntosh said the LandCruiser shown here was for a private buyer in Broome and was fitted with a purpose-designed module that accommodated water tanks and a large fridge.

The fridge is mounted on a slide that was also pivoted to swing down for easier access to the inside of the fridge.

PMB’s module fitted to this 200 Series is similar to the service modules that the business manufactures for mining and allied industries.

But while these units are made of steel, for added durability and cost reasons, the retail module here is aluminium.

“It is designed to complement a caravan, so it has room for the fridge and water tanks and other gear so the van can be parked and the 4WD can go alone to another destination,” Gary said.

The unit has an internal space of 2m wide by 1m high and 1m long with access by gullwing doors.

For durability, it has a hammertone finish to the internal frame and a Raptor coated floor and underside which gives it protection for off-road work. The rear valance is a fullwidth unit with LED lights for the brakes, lights and indicators.

At each side is a toolbox with lockable lid, with the right-side for tools and the left containing the fixed air compressor and the tap for the water tanks. This tap is pressure fed by an electric pump.

The module has a fold-down ladder on the rear, between the spare wheel and a jerry can, to access the two roofmounted flat racks, one on the module and the other on the vehicle’s cab.

Central fold-down ladder gives access to the two roof-top flat racks.

Module fits slide-out fridge and water tanks.

Left-side toolbox holds air compressor and tap for the pressurised water.

Slide-out fridge's cradle lowers to provide easier access to its contents.

Inside are two water tanks mounted to the front wall and the switchgear and fuse box protected by a metal door. This includes two USB ports, switches for the module’s interior and exterior LED lights, and the water pump.

The vehicle demonstrates ARB’s LINX system that uses a smartphone and Bluetooth operated by the driver inside the wagon to control functions in the module.

PMB general manager Martin Large said this unit was the first by the company for a retail client.

“It is based on a 2019 model VX and has been fitted with additional components including bigger wheels, Old Man Emu BP-51 hydraulic shocks, the module and even 360-degree cameras mounted on aftermarket mirrors,” he said.

He said that as it stood, it has a price of about $175,000. The module’s price,

included in the total, is based on the design of the mining and services unit that costs from $16,000.

PMB, which is planning to expand its facilities to cope with additional work in the private retail area, already builds and supplies utes trays for private owners that incorporate some of the features of its modules.

The vehicle keeps its standard spare wheel in the factory cradle.

ARB LINX system works off a smartphone.

Fuse box and Redarc inverter.

OME BP-51 hydraulic shocks mounted on the LandCruiser's rear suspension.

By Lyn Mitchell

To the Tipand Back

Despite the wind roaring across the rocky bluff, we could still hear the triumphant cries of 4W drivers shouting, “We made it, we made it!”

With huge grins, we joined the growing throng to wait for our turn to have THAT obligatory photo taken. The one of each of us gathered around the little sign at the end of the bluff that says, ‘You are standing at the northernmost point of the Australian continent’. We had made it to the tip of Cape York, Queensland.

Itreally didn’t matter whether you tackled the full length of the rugged Old Telegraph Track or the bull dust holes and bone-jarring corrugations of the Bamaga Development Road, or whether like us, you did a bit of both. In getting to the tip, we joined the growing but elite club of like-minded Aussie 4W drivers who have achieved that goal.

Our trusty Nissan and basic camper in the bush.

Cape York, named by Lieutenant James Cook on 21 August 1770 after Prince Edward, the Duke of York, is tropical and monsoonal, and as a result, 4W drivers can only tackle the Overland Telegraph Track in the dry season from May to October.

More than 50 per cent of the peninsula is cattle station country with rolling grasslands. We also discovered sprawling rivers and wetlands, verdant tropical undergrowth, gigantic cathedral termite mounds and wild horses roaming contentedly on the road verges along the way.

Our assault on the tip of Cape York began in late June 2019 when we left Perth, Western Australia to tackle the round trip over seven weeks. While more time would have been better, we simply didn’t have it so we

decided to take the window of opportunity we had and go anyway.

Before leaving, we made the decision not to do the full 4WD Overland Telegraph Track this trip. Our goal was to get to the tip of Cape York and back home again safely with us and our gear intact.

Fortunately, as it turned out we didn’t have any major issues with either our trusty 2004 Nissan GU turbo-diesel 4WD or our basic OzTrail camper mounted on our 6 x 4 box trailer that hubby Ron had rebuilt (overengineered) two years ago. Like the little engine that could, our faithful trailer simply followed us across Australia and back covering more than 15,000km over some of the most rugged roads and tracks and never missed a beat.

A wet section on Battlecamp Road on the way to Old Laura Homestead.

However, we did meet lots of people whose exploits to get to the tip of Cape York, particularly via the old Overland Telegraph Track, were a bit more dramatic. Stories of burnt out winches, staked tyres, panel damage, lost gear, smashed windows from rocks and drowned vehicles headed the list of disasters others encountered but there was no doubt that everyone had a ball trying to conquer this unique destination.

We felt our real Cape York adventure commenced when we left the picturesque Far North Queensland town of Cooktown heading for Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park, the state’s second largest national park. The bush tracks through the park make for great 4W driving and the conditions vary each season. We discovered plenty of interesting water crossings and muddy sections, remnants of Severe Tropical Cyclone Trevor that hit Queensland earlier this year, but nothing too onerous. Rinyirru is Aboriginal land and permits to travel through or camp there must be obtained online prior to your visit. We entered the Park through Endeavour Battlecamp Road and headed for historic Old Laura Homestead, believed to date back to around 1892.

We were delighted to see this grand old two-storey home, consisting of a timber frame with a corrugated iron roof, still

standing after so many years in the harsh, northern Queensland weather.

Originally, the upstairs bedrooms were shaded by a split bark awning and the ground floor was made of oxblood clay from termite mounds. Today, a corrugated iron verandah shades the interior rooms and while most of the old homestead is not open to the public, part of the ground-floor verandah area is and it features a selection of old photos of the property from its glory days.

At Old Laura, the track branches north and becomes Lakefield Road. There are many picturesque waterholes and vast water lily lagoons along the way. Most of these spots have parking areas where you can stop for a break. Nearby signage warns that these areas are crocodile habitats and urges visitors not to take unnecessary risks.

Further up is Hann’s Crossing on the North Kennedy River. It’s named after the pastoralist and explorer, William Hann, who crossed the river during his expedition to Cape York in 1872. William went on to discover gold on the Palmer River, which led to many of the tracks through the southern end of the park being established.

William was the older brother of Frank Hann, who came to Western Australia in 1896 and went on to explore so much of our state.

The two-storey Old Laura Homestead and grounds.

One of our vehicles coming through Hann's Crossing.

Hann’s Crossing is a great spot to camp, although visitors need to be totally selfsufficient, particularly with drinking water. If you don’t want to camp overnight in the park, it is an easy day's drive through the park tracks, exiting near Musgrave Roadhouse, one of the original overland telegraph repeater stations built in 1887.

The Overland Telegraph Track, better known as the OTT or the Tele Track, was the service road that linked the telegraph stations from Laura right up Cape York. Today, much of the original OTT has been incorporated into the Bamaga Development Road.

Heading north, the road passes through the town of Coen, Moreton Telegraph Station and on to Bramwell Junction Roadhouse where today, the last remaining 350km of the original OTT now starts from.

Bramwell Junction Roadhouse, with its iconic tree outside featuring heaps of state number plates nailed to it, is a pleasant camping and refuelling spot where you can make the decision whether to turn left to tackle the OTT or to turn right to continue north on the Bamaga Development Road.

The Overland Telegraph Track

Drivers are recommended to tackle the OTT from south to north because the track is very narrow with few passing areas. It is rated as difficult, requiring a vehicle equipped with low range gearing, high ground clearance, traction aids and recovery gear. It is also recommended to do the track in a convoy or with at least one other vehicle to help rescue you if needed.

The famous numberplate tree at Bramwell Junction Roadhouse.

The beautiful White Lily Lagoon was a great place for a lunch break.

Experienced drivers have their snatch strap connected to their rated tow point or have their winch set up and ready to go before they start as many of the creek crossing approaches are so narrow that if you get stuck, you can’t open your car doors.

In the past, the OTT has been conquered by a variety of means, including a group of young men who did it a few years ago using postie bikes with no support vehicle.

We met some drivers who had just completed it in hired 30-year old ex-army Land Rover Perentie vehicles, featuring Isuzu diesel motors, full coil suspension, a mechanical winch and retrieval gear but no air conditioning or power-steering.

At the tip, we even came across a German backpacker who had spent the last four months walking from Melbourne to the tip of Cape York!

There are several legendary sections which often claim vehicles each season. The first is Palm Creek, just four kilometres from the start of the track at Bramwell Junction Roadhouse.

We drove along the track to Palm Creek to check it out. The creek was quite deep and the entrance was a steep muddy track down with a tricky bend in it across the creek followed by a very steep, slippery track up the other side.

There were a few chicken tracks that looked like they would avoid the main crossing and although we followed each one, they all ended in dead ends. Our visit reinforced our decision not to tackle the track and we came back out and camped the night at Bramwell Junction Roadhouse.

The next major obstacle on the OTT is the infamous Gunshot Creek. The entrance is also a steep, narrow cut-away featuring a 3-4m drop down a 90degree slope into the mud and water of the creek. During the peak season, you’re likely to see dozens of vehicles lined up to cross this section, especially if one of the vehicles gets stuck and needs rescuing.

The entrance to the Palm Creek crossing. The exit on the Palm Creek crossing.

Gunshot does have a detour track, which is well signposted before you reach it. You can also drive into the Gunshot area from the Bamaga Development Road and plenty of people do that to watch the antics of those intrepid enough to attempt it.

The OTT also has several beautiful waterfall areas that are suitable for swimming and great for photos. The first waterfall heading up is Fruit Bat Falls, featuring a 1m high waterfall stretching across the wide pool of crystal clear water, which is amazing to see in all its glory on a sunny day.

There is an easy track in to the falls from the Bamaga Development Road so even those not doing the OTT can visit. Fruit Bat Falls is day access only but there is plenty of parking and well-maintained long-drop loos are provided.

From Fruit Bat Falls you can travel north for around 10km on the OTT through to the turn-off to Eliot Falls, Twin Falls and Indian Head Falls, which are all located within a few hundred metres of each other.

This section of the OTT is reasonably easy with some chicken tracks around any difficult sections. We loved being able to drive even just a small section of the OTT, which included jump-ups, a creek crossing and rocky sections to traverse.

Swimmers and the cascade at Fruit Bat Falls.

Kids jumping into deep water at Eliot Falls.

Each of these three falls is different but all are stunningly beautiful and great for swimming. Camping is provided at Eliot Falls along with nearby toilets.

Other tricky areas on the OTT include Cockatoo Creek, Canal Creek, Mistake Creek and Nolan’s. All involve erosion, big holes, washed out gullies, deep water, hidden rocks and steep, slippery river banks. In some cases, it can take hours to do just a few kilometres because of the difficult terrain.

Bush camping is permitted at Canal Creek, Sam Creek, Mistake Creek, Cannibal Creek, Cypress Creek and Nolan’s, although camping in the Jardine River National Park and at Eliot Falls both require a permit that must be booked online prior to your visit.

The Bamaga Development Road

From Bramwell Junction Roadhouse, the Bamaga Development Road deviates to the east of the OTT for around half of its distance before crossing the track again and heading west and north through to the Jardine River Crossing and on to the Aboriginal settlement of Injinoo.

There are plenty of side tracks that aren’t too difficult to traverse from the Bamaga Development Road that lead in to various spots on the OTT and many visitors use these to view the 4WD action.

Much of the Bamaga Development Road involves serious corrugations, hidden bull dust holes and steep dips with loose gravel making them quite dangerous. While we were in the region, we heard that a family had rolled their vehicle after they went into a dip too fast. Fortunately, they were not seriously injured but the vehicle was a write-off.

We also heard on the news that a man had died following a head-on crash on the road

A vehicle getting ready to snatch another vehicle on the OTT near Eliot Falls.

Our vehicle going through a creek crossing on the OTT near Eliot Falls.

and in another incident an older man survived after his 4WD and camper trailer plunged 18m off a narrow bridge near Laura to avoid a head-on collision. We also saw several 4WD vehicles and even a small power boat lying wrecked on the side of the road following crashes. The choking dust makes overtaking or passing oncoming vehicles very difficult. Road signage recommends that drivers slow down when a vehicle is approaching but many drivers ignore this advice and speed by, showering the oncoming vehicle in dust and windscreen-shattering rocks.

The Queensland Government has been undertaking major road works to bituminise short sections of the Bamaga Development Road. When we came through, major earthworks were underway on yet another 10km section south of Archer River Roadhouse. While the work is being done to better service the many communities on the Cape, it is a shame for 4W drivers who love the challenges of the old road.

We finally came to the 150m wide, fastflowing Jardine River and what a wonderful sight it was to see. The Injinoo Aboriginal community operates the Jardine River Vehicle Ferry service and petrol station at the crossing. The ferry has a drive on, drive off ramp and the staff on-board expertly loaded our 4WDs and camper trailers sideby-side for the two-minute journey across.

A section of the major roadworks on the Bamaga Development Road.

A wrecked boat on the Bamaga Development Road.

A vehicle with a smashed back window and trailer damage after the OTT.

Western 4W

It cost us $130 for a return ticket for our 4WD vehicle and camper trailer, and the ticket also served as a permit to access and camp on Injinoo land. Once across, it was an easy drive through to the towns of Bamaga and Seisia. We chose to camp at Loyalty Beach Caravan Park just north of Seisia, but there is camping and other accommodation available at Seisia and further north again at Pusund Bay.

Next morning, with great excitement we set off to do the final 30kms to the tip of Cape York. It’s a beautiful, narrow track through the tropical bush with several easy creek crossings before arriving at the car park area at the tip. We parked our 4WDs and began our walk via the mud flats at low tide up to the bluff and the famous sign. For us, the trip had involved a lot of driving but such a fun adventure to get this far.

Preparing to drive on board the Jardine River Ferry.

One of the creek crossings on the final section to the tip.

Ron and Lyn Mitchell with one of the huge cathedral termite mounds on Cape York.

We were exhilarated to stand at the most northern point on mainland Australia and soak up that wonderful sense of achievement. The camaraderie we felt with the other like-minded 4W drivers at the tip that day was extraordinary and will remain one of our fondest memories of the Cape.

With that lifelong goal now successfully ticked off our bucket list we set out to discover what else this amazing region might have to offer. A kilometre back from the tip, almost hidden from sight in the tropical undergrowth, we came across an array of disused buildings. In our haste to get to the tip we had missed it on the way in. Curious to explore these

ruins and learn more about them, we found a place to park and had a wander through the remains of the complex.

It turned out to be the former five-star, eco tourist resort called Cape York Wilderness Lodge. It was opened in 1986 by Bush Pilot Airways (now Air Queensland) and used to feature a well-stocked bar, swimming pool, restaurant and more than 20 accommodation bungalows.

It closed in 2003 for renovations after a fire caused major problems but sadly it never reopened. Now dilapidated and well and truly being taken back by nature, we could only wonder at how magnificent it must have been in its heyday.

Some of the crowd at the sign at the tip of Cape York.

Lyn Mitchell walking on the mud flats to the sign at the tip of Cape York.

About 10km further east, we visited the famous settlement of Somerset, which had been established in 1863.

Somerset is the start of the Five Beaches Loop Track, a scenic sand, gravel and limestone 4WD track that loops around the coastline, providing spectacular ocean views and great beach campsites, before rejoining the main track back to Seisia.

Somerset was the first administrative centre for Cape York and the Torres Strait area, and featured a harbour and settlement buildings along with an intriguing and quirky history. John Jardine was appointed the police magistrate there and the settlement went on to become the Jardine family home.

In 1864, his eldest son Frank and his younger brother Alexander left Rockhampton, Queensland to take more than 40 horses and 250 head of cattle overland to Somerset.

Exploring one of the beaches along the Five Beaches Loop Track.

The arduous journey took 10 months and involved crossing at least six large rivers, including the Jardine River, which was later named after the brothers.

A decade later, Frank Jardine married Sana Solia, the niece of the King of Samoa. When the government station administration was moved from Somerset to nearby Thursday Island in 1877, Frank and Sana’s home at Somerset became the centre of society on Cape York.

The power couple held elaborate dinners for visiting dignitaries with the food served on silver plates made from Spanish dollars that Frank Jardine had found on a ship wreck on a nearby reef.

Today, there are bits and pieces of the settlement’s ruins still in the bush, including several old canons lined up near the old cemetery, which includes Frank Jardine’s grave after he died of leprosy in 1919.

Getting to the tip had been our main goal but experiencing the wonders of Cape York proved to be just as big a buzz. While it may be located about as far away from Perth as you can get in Australia, as a destination there is something very special and unique about its people, its scenery, its history and its iconic tracks.

Ron Mitchell at the old bar at the former Cape York Wilderness Resort.

Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park permits to travel through or camp (fees apply) must be obtained online prior to your visit: www.parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/ rinyirru-lakefield/

Jardine River Vehicle Ferry operates 8am – 12noon, closes for lunch, reopening from 1pm – 5pm seven days a week. Tickets can be purchased from the Ferry Roadhouse at the crossing itself. Phone 07 4090 4100 or email: jardineferry@nparc.qld.gov.au

For information about road conditions call Queensland Government’s traffic and travel information service on 13 19 40 or if you have coverage, log in to: https://qldtraffic.qld.gov.au/ for the latest reports.

A very handy resource for planning a visit is Destination Cape York, An Insider Guide to Australia’s Cape York by Bamaga resident Katrin Holmsten, which can be purchased for $29 in hard copy or e-book format. Email: contact@capeyorkaustralia.com or check out the website: www.capeyorkaustralia.com

Excerpt from Hema’s Qld State map.

Sometimes an

When the

By Lyn Mitchell WHEELS FALL OFF

One minute they were enjoying the many corrugations of the Bamaga Development Road and the next their vehicle pitched wildly when the whole left-hand wheel and hub assembly had come off their camper trailer bringing their holiday to a grinding halt.

By the time we arrived the young couple had found their wheel in the bush. They had also had a rock hit their back window and crack it around the same time the wheel came off so they were feeling a bit overwhelmed with what had happened and how to resolve it.

In an ironic twist, the young couple were from NSW, we were from WA, our travel friends were from South Australia, and within minutes a couple from Queensland and a couple from Tasmania also stopped to help. Between everyone, we formed an interstate rescue group with each vehicle providing different components to help fix their problems.

The couple told us they had paid $500 to have their

The trailer hub lying in the dirt.

Many hands make light work.

camper trailer serviced before the trip. Given what had happened, they wondered whether the wheel may not have been put back on properly when the work was completed.

Generally speaking, a trailer wheel is held on to the axle hub by four, five or six studs, depending on the make of your wheel, and a castellated axle nut with a split pin through it holds the wheel hub and bearings in place.

A castellated axle nut has slots cut into it on one side that look a bit like the parapet of a medieval castle, hence the name castellated. These slots allow a split pin to be fitted to prevent the nut from coming off. With the castellated axle nut unable to be found, we knew from previous experience

that pieces of a lost wheel are often still lying back on the track so hubby Ron and I walked about 300m up the road to search. Sure enough, we found the castellated axle nut, pieces of the camper trailer’s braking system, a wheel nut and a few other bits lying on the road.

Their camper trailer was fitted with Ford wheels and we only had spare Holden trailer hub and bearing kits on board but fortunately the Queensland couple had the required Ford trailer bearings available.

With everyone working together as a team, the trailer was jacked up with a high lift jack so they could get the axle out of the dirt. The old bearings had to be replaced as they were totally destroyed when the wheel came off. New bearings were greased up and placed in the hub, and the hub was pushed back on to the axle.

Unfortunately, the castellated axle nut would not go back on as some of the castellations had been damaged in the incident.

After another rummage around the equipment in the various rescuers’ vehicles, a small portable vice was fitted to the rear of their trailer to hold the axle nut in place. Hubby Ron used his battery-powered grinder to grind some of the damaged castellations off, leaving sufficient thread to be able to hold the hub in place.

One of the rescuers greasing up a new set of bearings.

Trying to get the axle hub back on the wheel.

Ron Mitchell grinding off the castellations on the axle nut to get it to fit.

A spare split pin was fitted and the modified castellated nut was done up until it was firm enough so there was no lateral play in the hub but not so tight that the wheel couldn’t turn.

The top of an empty plastic water bottle was cut off and fitted over the assembly to act as a bearing cap to keep the dust out. It was held in place with cable ties through the spokes of the wheel rim. With the wheel temporarily fixed, we also helped them to tape their back window up with ‘hundred mile an hour’ tape so it wouldn’t shatter any further.

We explained to the young couple that the work we had all done on the wheel was only a temporary repair to allow them to slowly limp their vehicle into Coen less than 50km away where they could seek professional help.

The wheel back on with its cable ties and plastic bottle dust cover.

Taping up their cracked back window and fixing the tyre.

We also recommended that they let their tyre pressures down as they still had them at 55psi and that they lower their overall speed on the treacherous corrugated gravel road. We pointed out that we were running our trailer tyres at 25psi and that the lower pressures provide a smoother ride over the corrugations and do less damage to the track.

The young couple were extremely grateful for everyone’s efforts and offered to pay us all for our time and the use of our parts and equipment. None of us would hear of it and instead, we asked them to simply pay the favour forward – in other words, if they came across anyone in the future who needed assistance, to stop and see if they could help them in any way.

LAUGHING ALL THE WAY with LITHIUM

By Nick Underwood

It was blowing like a bastard when we pulled into our campsite at Cape Range NP and the driving wind kept up for four days before we could venture out without getting our southern white legs sand blasted to the bone.

At least the sun shone throughout our 10 day stay which was crucial to the testing of our new Lithium iron battery set-up.

Easter of 2018 had seen us in the same area under hot conditions and struggling

to keep fridges and lights going with our previous wet cell dual battery system.

Typically the winds nudged gale force and the thermometer hovered in the high 30s to early 40s - conditions which showed up the inability of a 130 watt solar panel and occasional engine running to keep us in coastal camping comfort.

In the end following a cloudy day and a few warm beers we broke a life-long resolve and bought a generator to prop up the system.

Since then and with retirement (and longer duration campsites) a reality, we've re-built our camping set-up and at great expense to management, installed a state-of-the-art lithium ion battery system that is dedicated to all electrics in the canopy - two fridges, numerous lights, water pump, inverter and power points.

The battery is a 200 amp/hr eight cell Lithium iron controlled by a Redarc Manager30.

So there we were propped for 10 days (the longest we've spent in one spot for 30 years) and ready to put the system to the test.

Our vehicle was facing roughly north and our struggling 130 watt solar panel was combined with a 200 watt blanket on the bonnet to capture solar and re-invigorate the system.

In those 10 days neither the vehicle nor generator were started and the panels remained fixed in one position. We left the Manager30 on touring mode and recorded read-outs three times daily.

Apart from the aforementioned electrical devices we used the inverter daily and for extended periods running a Dremmel craft tool and from the fourth day on, an extra LED light to illuminate a section of the annex.

Check out the stats (not including arrival day or departure afternoon).

Day Time

1 7.00am 89 13.3 17 21

Noon 100 13.6 19.5 25 Dusk 98 13.3 26

2 7.00am 87 13.3 15.5 22 Noon 100 13.6 19 27 Dusk 96 13.3 23

3 7.00am 84 13.3 17.5 21 Noon 100 13.6 18.5 26 Dusk 98 13.3 16.1 23

4 7.00am 86 13.3 16.8 22 Noon 100 13.6 19.3 25 Dusk 98 13.3 25

* On this day Robert Mugabe did the world a favour and shuffled off this mortal coil.

5 7.00am 82 13.3 17.3 23 Noon 100 13.6 18.9 30 Dusk 98 13.3 15.7 26

6 7.00am 80 13.3 17.5 21 Noon 100 13.6 19.5 27 Dusk 98 13.3 28

7 7.00am 80 13.3 17 24 Noon 99 14.4 18.5 30 Dusk 97 13.3 31

8 7.00am 84 13.3 17 24 Noon 100 13.6 18.5 30 Dusk 97 13.3 29

9 7.00am 82 13.3 14.3 25 Noon 100 13.6 18 31

As you can see, the battery never dropped below 80% capacity over the 10 days. Voltage and solar input were consistent throughout the test as was battery temps.

To combat heat build-up in the area behind the Engel where the battery resides, an extractor fan is fitted and before any more trips we will insulate the gull wing doors to keep the interior cooler in hot conditions.

To say we are chuffed with the combination of RV Lithium's custom-built battery and Redarc's Manager30 is an understatement.

As leading edge technology the system is not cheap but every day without the worry of whether your power supply will die or survive confirms we made the right decision.

The weight is far less than a wet cell battery of similar output and for anyone contemplating the move to Lithium, as the market matures prices will drop to more affordable levels. Just research the product well before you commit.

We reckon ...

From our experience so far, we say "Go for Lithium iron, put your mind at ease and leave the generator in the shed. You and your camping neighbours will appreciate the serenity."

Thanks to Paul Kearns of RV Lithium systems and Scott Montgomery of Redarc for their considerable input.

MINGENEW

After seeing reports of how good the wildflowers were this year, plans were made to have a long weekend checking out the Mingenew, Morowa and Perenjori areas. More importantly getting to the Karara Rangelands Park.

TO MOROWA Meanderings

By Ashley & Debbie Pearce

Sadly the Pom Pom flowers lacked a little zest. Would be magnificent in full bloom.

Afterleaving work Thursday night we camped at the Gillingarra Sporting Oval. For $10/night you get to use the campgrounds, flushing toilets and their communal fire pit. There were other facilities such as showers etc. for $15/night, but these were locked on our visit. Perhaps a phone call to one of the committee people as recommended by WikiCamps would have seen us having access. We pulled in at 8.45pm and were in bed by 9.00pm. That is the beauty of the quick set up in our Kimberley Kamper.

A cold and early start the next morning had us heading north, but not before stopping in Moora to pick up two geocaches and check out the town we lived in from 19971999. It was good to see it is becoming RV friendly with a 72-hour park up facility and dump point now provided by the shire.

Heading along the Midlands Road we also called through Coorow and Carnamah, refreshing our memories of time spent there in a previous work career.

We thought that the Miners Camp in the Coalseam Reserve would be full so we decided to get there first. Apparently, we were two weeks late for the best of the flowers and the rush to get there early was

Podolepis canescens (Bright Podolepis) were still very vibrant in the Coalseam Conservation Park and Karara Rangelands Park.

not needed. We parked up after paying our camp hosts and set about exploring the park. Another two geocaches were picked up in quick succession. The Pom Pom flowers were still out, however not as vibrant as what they were a couple of weeks earlier. We then drove back to Mingenew

Irwin River flows through the Coalseam Conservation Park.

to be tempted by the bakery only to find it had already closed for the day. It was a Friday afternoon and they were probably at the newly reopened Mingenew Pub. The Shire of Mingenew have worked really hard to promote themselves as a tourist destination and it was clearly evident that it was working when we saw how full the caravan park was.

The DPaW facilities at Miners Camp are relatively new with good drop dunnies and a communal fire pit which our host kindly lit on another cool night. Birds and wildlife were prolific with a couple of red-tailed cockatoos perching themselves in the tree near our campsite, along with kangaroos and their joeys moving through the park.

We can only imagine how vibrant the flowers were in the weeks leading up to our visit, but it gave us a good idea of what to expect in future. We had visited in 2017 on our way to Wooleen Station and the flowers whilst vibrant that year, weren’t as thick. 2019 has certainly been a good season. After another cool night under a million stars (gladly warmed by the amber fluid

and camp fire) we left Saturday morning for what was to be our eventual destination.

Calling into the Morowa Visitors Centre we spoke to Jim and Glenda, the very helpful volunteers who used to live out on Karara Station. Taking an indirect route as we wanted to see the last of the Wreath flowers we headed out on the Morowa/ Yalgoo Road then cut across back to Kadji Kadji Road.

Karara Rangelands Park is a 560,672 ha park consisting of six former pastoral stations

Bush TV or stars?

Leschenaultia macrantha (Leschenaultia Wreath) on the Morowa - Yalgoo Road.

which had all been established in the 1870s. Karara offers rugged and beautiful banded ironstone ridges, permanent watering holes, lots of Aboriginal heritage and outback camping opportunities.

Unfortunately, the introduction of non-native animals and plants has drastically changed the landscape and conservation areas are now established to remove these so native vegetation and wildlife can recover.

Karara is a biodiversity hot spot. Vegetation in the park is largely intact with 883 native plant species, fauna including 19 mammals, 122 birds, 53 reptiles, six amphibians and 104 invertebrates being recorded. The granite outcrops and basalt hills formed 3800 - 2500 years ago are home to many unique species.

Recent European history saw sandalwood cutters occupy the region from around 1845 before the first leases were taken up in the 1860s. Many Western Australian explorers passed through this area, in particular John Forrest’s 1869 expedition to find traces of Leichhardt’s exploration party. Gold prospectors followed as gold was discovered in Yalgoo in 1892.

Sections of the Rabbit Proof Fence can be seen in the south west part of the park. Constructed between 1901 and 1907, the fence is actually three fences intended to stop the rabbits migrating from east to west.

We decided to follow the Breakaway Loop as we knew Karara is renowned for wildflowers between July and September. The views from this Breakaway Loop extend over Burrilgably Lake. This was our lunch break spot on Saturday and we were lucky to have not been lifted and taken away by the bush flies. Once we were back on Kadji Road after completing the

Old Buildings on Kadji Kadji Station that is now part of the Karara Rangelands Park.

Rabbit Proof Fence within the Karara Rangelands Park.

Breakaway Loop we then followed the Lochada Track. The track follows old pastoral station fence lines linking former windmills and trap yards. Some of these are still in use today to manage feral goats. The 4WD tracks are not overly difficult but should be taken slowly to enjoy the views and landscape. However, in winter or after a decent amount of rain things could be vastly different.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the eastern side of the park and will do so in another visit.

Very informative signage in Karara Rangelands Park. Our standard overnight set up. No point putting the awning up unless it rains.

Camping fees are applicable for all overnight stays within Karara, however no camping fees applied to our overnight stop at the Shire of Perenjori managed Camel Soak campground. This site has numerous sites, fire pits and long drop toilets. Having got a small taste of the Karara Rangelands Park in the Murchison Region we are sure to be back.

For more information regarding other accommodation offerings see australiasgoldenoutback.com or enquire at the local Perenjori or Morowa Visitors Centres.

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

Image by Sabrina's Snapshots

A Confession ...

Words by Chris Morton

Photos by Christine Arnasiewicz

Atthe start of the year we bought a new car. We needed to upgrade our 150 series Prado to something with more towing grunt, so we chose a 200 series LandCruiser. We were fortunate that we could 'accessorise' it before delivery to ensure that we have a towing/touring vehicle that was setup the way we wanted. This isn’t a story about the merits of building your own 4WD or buying it ready to go. Both have their pros and cons and there is a multitude of reasons for one approach over the other. No this story is a confession of sorts and why we encourage our readers to research for themselves before committing to any course of action. With the unprecedented access we have today to knowledge (it is literally at our fingertips) I fear that as a society we are getting dumber. No longer do we challenge or ask questions. For the majority, we believe everything we read and take it as gospel.

What has this got to do with your new car Chris? Well, I have a confession. While researching brands and products to include in our build I got lazy. I didn’t dig very deep and I allowed social media to sway my decisions. I am not saying that I am unhappy with my choices of product. What I am saying is that I unfairly discounted manufacturers based on what I had read (mostly on social media) instead of doing more research myself. In this instance I discounted ARB as a viable contender, not because their products were inferior but because of what I had read online about their workmanship. The ironic thing is that our choice of company to do the work on our brand new

vehicle chose to ignore their own QA procedures requiring almost every nut and bolt they installed to be re-tightened. Don’t even get me started on their use of tech screws and my tow-pro unit.

During one of my site visits (we try and get out to see as many of our advertisers and book sellers as we can each quarter), I was shown a car that had just been finished at ARB Wangara. What immediately jumped out at me was the attention to detail that was obvious with the build.

I asked Sean Keating, manager of the ARB Wangara store, if this was a normal example of their build quality. Instead of answering the question he took me around to the workshop. With another five cars in various stages of build I was given free rein to look under the bonnets (literally) of every car and see for myself.

Sean then went on to show me the extra mile that his technicians and fitters go to, to ensure that every car meets their high standards. Every nut and bolt that is touched is marked with paint to show that it has been tightened to the correct torque setting. Everything is clearly labelled.

Clear labelling and tidy wiring is essential when working on a vehicle.

Once a car is finished and the workshop manager checks the vehicle, one of the sales team then checks it again (following a checklist) to ensure it meets muster.

Young fitter Loudon Edwards (Louie to his mates), is very passionate about what he does.

“I treat every vehicle like it’s my own. I don’t want the vehicles to come back because I didn’t do my job. I want them to come back because I did do my job and they know they can rely on us.”

His enthusiasm is clear, and he loves what he does. Every vehicle gets the same treatment.

While I was looking through the workshop Sean showed me a 79 series Cruiser that was in its final stages of work before being handed over to the customer.

“This one is going to Africa. Even though they can get the parts and labour cheaper in Africa the workmanship is not up to scratch so they get us to supply the parts and install everything for them.”

The 79 is a beast. It has been built to deal with the harsh realities of life in the South African bush, although it would be just as at home here roaming around Western Australia.

I had the opportunity to speak with Matt Edgar, ARB Sales Manager for WA, further on the topic of social media perception versus reality.

“Take our BP51 shocks as an example,” Matt said. “We used to see posts on social media about how unreliable they are. Yes we had issues with some units in the first batches, however they were quickly identified and replaced. That is normal with any new product to market, yet echoes of these social media posts still linger. People still refer back to old posts and think that what they read online

is gospel.” Matt went on to say, “Our sales figures versus failures tell a different story. ARB has sold approximately 70,000 units of BP51s since their release and yet the total failure rate is measured in the 0.00X%.

Working on this article has highlighted quite a few important points for me.

• Things fail and people make mistakes. That is a fact of life. Judge a business on how they respond not because something broke.

• Be realistic. For example, the number of vehicles on the road that are exceeding their GVM is unbelievable. It’s not a matter of IF something is going break but WHEN.

• Social media is like a squeaky wheel. The noisier you are the more attention you attract. If you have an issue with a product contact the business first and give them the opportunity to resolve it.

• Tall Poppy syndrome is alive and well. Here at Western 4W Driver we pride ourselves on ensuring that we provide balanced and accurate information that allows our readers to make informed decisions. Yes our advertisers' contributions allow us to continue to produce the magazine, however they do not dictate what we write about. Dig a little deeper before your next purchase and if need be, ask to see some examples of a company's work before you commit.

Paint markers indicate that nuts have been tightened.

We’ve all experienced it, haven’t we? That somewhat nervous feeling when we see a huge truck looming behind in the rear-view mirror, or bearing down towards you on a thin, narrow road, and that immediate ‘white knuckle’ grip that sees both of your hands solidly welded to the steering wheel!

A road train coming down Munjina Gorge - Pilbara, WA.

SHARING THE ROAD WITH TRUCKS

By Colin Kerr

Yes,it can be quite an unsettling and potentially dangerous situation unless you follow a few simple rules. For this feature we have spoken to several current and extruckies on what should and shouldn’t be done to ensure that sharing the roads with rigs of any size is an easy and comfortable experience without stress.

Throughout country Australia and on the fringe of metropolitan areas, huge semitrailers and road trains are being seen more and more. With high fuel prices and the need to move large loads fast, these giants with 2, 3 and 4 trailers (also known as 'dogs') connected to the prime mover, are quick and efficient and have a big job to do.

Extensively used in the mining industry to transport ore, gas, equipment and fuel, and in rural areas for the movement of large quantities of stock, produce and all sorts of goods, these huge giants on wheels must be treated with caution and respect whenever they are encountered. Some of these big rigs measure over 50 metres in length, can vary in overwidth loads from 2.5 metres wide and upwards, weigh well over 100 tonnes, and are capable of high speeds in flat open countryside. These days there are strict regulations governing speeds, travel permits and the necessity for escort

vehicles accompanying unusually high and wide loads, but most road trains we seem to encounter are travelling at up to 90 or 100km/h on the open road.

Looking firstly at gravel roads, whether they are travelling in the opposite direction to you or coming up from behind to pass, the only safe move in these dusty conditions is to get right over to the side of the road. Giving plenty of notice with your blinkers, simply pull over, slow right down and if necessary, stop. Driving blind in a huge storm of dust with gravel and larger stones flying everywhere does little for the driver's blood pressure or nerves, and can be just plain dangerous. Turn your lights on (so you can be seen by any other traffic which might be around), wait for the dust cloud to settle and once again when you're able to see, you can safely continue your travels. In flat open country on a gravel road, you can see the dust coming for many kilometres as it

Keep well to the left when road trains overtake you.

A real hazard - road train and dust - on the Gibb River Road, WA.

billows into the air, and there's plenty of time to pull over out of danger - but be wary of those coming up from behind in your dust - you can get quite a fright if you're not alert. Remember, only slow down on these occasions once the truck has pulled out to overtake, as the last thing you want is for it to end up in the back of your vehicle, caravan or camper trailer.

Another aspect of road trains that most of us have experienced is the huge force of air turbulence (wind buffeting) against our vehicle as road trains thunder past in the opposite direction. This air pressure can be particularly dangerous if you are towing a trailer or caravan. Over the years many travellers have come to grief not being able to control the sway created by the force of air and suction created. In these situations, keep to the left (still on the bitumen) and slow down a little before the road train reaches you and then maintain your acceleration and keep a firm grip on

We pulled over to allow a convoy of trucks to go past - north of Carnarvon, WA.

your steering wheel as it goes past. When meeting a road train coming towards you on a narrow single-lane bitumen road, your best option here is generally to slow right down and pull off the bitumen (watch the sharp drop-off edges which can damage tyres at speed) and leave the sealed section for the larger vehicle. That’s not only showing great courtesy to someone who is working, but it will also be less likely that he will spray you with dust and gravel, possibly causing windscreen or other stone chip damage.

If you are travelling slowly on the open road and being followed by a semi-trailer/ road train that obviously wants to go faster than you do, simply maintain a constant speed, keep well to the left (without leaving the bitumen) and the truck driver will select a safe stretch of road to pass. Don’t be tempted to pull your left wheels off into the gravel at highway speeds as all this does is throw up dust and gravel into the truckie’s face making things even more difficult for him. Again, slowing down with the truck behind you is also not generally desirable as this causes the truck to lose the momentum that he needs to safely overtake. When the truck is actually passing keep a firm grip on the steering wheel to

counter any air turbulence/suction and maintain your speed until he is alongside and only then, very gradually slow down and ease further over to the left (still on the bitumen) if you need to.

However, if the truck is finding it difficult to pass (windy roads, double lines, etc) be courteous, look ahead for a safe spot to pull over (giving plenty of notice with your indicators) and allow him to safely get past. This action will no doubt take a lot of pressure off you and will also help to make life out there a little easier for the hard working truckie. Once safely past, appreciative truckies will often flick their indicators (right and left) as a small but visible ‘thank you’ for helping them safely continue on their way. Also, remember that if you have a truck, road train (or any vehicle really) close behind you, give plenty of notice if you are going to turn off (either left or right) or are about to pull over so that they can adjust their speed or line so that they can safely pass and not run into the back of your vehicle, van or trailer.

It seems this damage done to a caravan turning off Eyre Highway was caused by a following road train.

If you are travelling in convoy with other caravanners or another RV, please leave at least 200 to 300 metres between each vehicle.

A road train overtaking us - between Sandstone and Mount Magnet, WA.

This will enable other vehicles (including trucks) travelling faster than you to overtake one vehicle at a time, rather than forcing them to (often dangerously) try to overtake two or three vehicles at a time.

When you are following one of these big rigs and they are doing 85-95 kph, ask yourself if you really need to overtake? Are you in that much of a hurry? If you do decide to overtake, always remember you’ll need a very long clear stretch (up to 2km) of wide sealed road to do so – do not try to overtake on narrow bitumen roads. If you go off the seal at speed it is a real recipe for disaster. When you can, try to overtake on flat ground or even uphill as the force of gravity will help to keep trailer/s steady. Trying to pass downhill can be more troublesome, as if you are towing a heavy caravan, it might push your vehicle and you won’t have as much control. Also the truck you are trying to pass will often want to use the downhill section to gain more momentum for the next hill, requiring you to travel even faster to get past him. When you are overtaking, use your indicators and put your lights on to help ensure the truckie is aware of your presence, keep a firm grip on the steering wheel, watch carefully for any slight tail-swing from the rear trailer and be aware that you might experience some slight wind buffeting as you progress.

Also, keep in mind a plan to safely abort your passing attempt if you suddenly realise you can’t do it safely. Once well past, use your left blinker to indicate when you are coming back to the LHS of the road. In this manoeuvre don’t cut back too quickly (effectively cutting him off, sometimes even requiring him to lose momentum) unless you absolutely have to. When you have overtaken the truck remember also not to just sit in front of him or slow down (unnecessarily). Keep moving away from him or it just defeats the purpose of overtaking in the first place and will annoy the hell out of the truckies.

On gravel roads trying to pass a road train through a cloud of dust is just plain dangerous. If the driver is aware of your presence behind him (have your lights on), he’ll often move over and let you pass (don’t forget to give him a wave), but otherwise pull over yourself and take a five minute break to stretch your legs and let him get well ahead and you’ll enjoy your trip a lot better. With this and all other situations involving large vehicles, always err on the side of safety.

If you have a UHF radio you can communicate with the truck driver (usually channel 40) in any of these passing situations and determine when it is safe to overtake. When talking to truckies, make

Road train at Munjina (Auski) Roadhouse - Pilbara, WA

Ask yourself if you really need to overtake? Are you in that much of a hurry?

sure you establish that you are talking to the one in front of you, not another truck further up or down the road in totally different circumstances.

In other circumstances, if the truckie is trying to overtake you, let him know that you’re looking for a convenient spot to pull over and let him pass. On the back of your caravan or camper it is also a good idea to have a sign such as 'UHF Channel 18' to show truckies or other travellers that you can be contacted on that channel, and if you do have a sign, make sure you actually keep your radio on so that you can receive the calls! Remember not to use channel 40 for general chatter between you and other RV travellers – use channel 18 and leave channel 40 for the trucks. You could even leave your radio on dual watch (scan) so you can pick up any communication on channel 40 or elsewhere.

When encountering an escort vehicle coming towards you with a wide load following behind, slow right down, keep well over to the left and follow any hand signal instructions of the escort. Be prepared to get right off the road and stop if necessary and also be aware that there may be more than one wide load being escorted. In fact, escort vehicles will often call you on their radio (UHF channel 40) when they see you approaching, verbally warning you of the wide load, sometimes even telling you the width of the load and whether you’ll need to get right off the road or just keep to the left. If you are following behind an escort vehicle with a wide load ahead of him, stay behind, be patient and when it

is safe to pass the pilot vehicle will wave you around. UHF radio communication is also worthwhile in these situations … and always remember to thank them when you are safely past. Just as a matter of interest, road train drivers (and escorts) often refer to caravans as ‘wobblies’! So if you hear someone calling ‘the wobbly’, chances are they’ll be referring to you if you have a van in tow!

Caravanners should also be conscious of the fact that road trains are not as nimble and manoeuvrable as other vehicles and so reaction time for braking and cornering, for instance, is longer than it is for your vehicle. Try to make allowances for these limitations both out there on the open road as well as when these large vehicles come into towns and cities. In particular, if you find yourself in front of one, try not to brake heavily at intersections or traffic lights - they need quite a lot of time and distance to stop, and being hit from behind with one of their solid bull bars and 100 tonnes of weight is not a pleasant experience! On the other hand, don’t travel too close behind them either, as the driver may not be able to see you in his mirrors if you are up too close. Remember, if you can’t see his mirrors, he can’t see you! Another thing, particularly in towns and cities, don’t try to overtake them if they are turning a corner – either left or right – as they need plenty of room (and have restricted vision) when making these tight manoeuvres. Yes, we have all seen on large/long vehicles the warning signs 'Do Not Overtake Turning Vehicle' – they are there for a very good reason! If you do try

A wide load with its escort vehicle - Great Northern Highway near Kumarina Roadhouse, WA

to squeeze past in these situations, there’s every possibility you’ll get squashed against the curb or sent bush, and it’ll be your fault! … and it’s the same on dual lane roundabouts!

Out there on the road where an overtaking lane is provided and there is traffic behind you, keep left and let as many as possible (including trucks) safely pass you. Too often we see slow vehicles quite noticeably accelerate in these situationsvery frustrating for those behind (grrrr) and obviously defeating the whole point of an overtaking lane.

When out in the country another thing to keep in mind is to avoid parking in a truck rest stop unless it is an emergency (and even then, way up the end and well over to the side). These areas are for truckies who must take obligatory rest breaks. They are big, often very long vehicles and a tired truckie certainly doesn’t want to have to manoeuvre around you and your vehicle/caravan/trailer in a truck bay,

particularly late at night, or be forced to illegally continue on to the next truck stop because holiday makers have cluttered up his original parking spot. Just keep out of these truckie stops and head to the next proper travellers’ rest area.

Overall, remember, trucks and road trains play an important role in the economic development of the country and are a vital force in spanning the vast outback distances throughout the nation. They are Big Rigs for a Big Country, and if other drivers show them courtesy on the road and are aware of the dangers when encountering them, they are most unlikely to come to any grief. Remember, these guys (and some girls) are out there doing a job and are not on holidays like most of us are when we encounter them! Be courteous and work together with them –let them safely get on with their job and we can safely get on with enjoying our holiday or weekend break.

Scribe The Retires

By Phil Bianchi

For the last 30 years Nick Underwood has been the driving force behind Western 4W Driver. A driving force behind better 4WD education and making this popular pastime sustainable. Inevitably, the time has come to pass on the reins and to pursue the retirement lifestyle.

Without fanfare Nick has quietly plugged away on various fronts and over some 30 years:

• Brought us WA’s first and only 4WD magazine

• Produced the first ‘How to 4WD' guide.

• Was heavily involved in setting up Track Care WA.

• Successfully developed a series of 4WD destination-based travel guides.

• In partnership, set up the very successful and acclaimed Campfire Escapes tag-along touring company

Born in New Zealand, Nick came to Australia in 1979 seeking fame and fortune. Doing various labouring jobs, his first experience with 4W driving was at Charters Towers driving an old WWII Blitz with a crash box. It was unstoppable, hauling an 8 tonne Hino up some fairly steep hills. His first foray into 4W driving in WA was in the early 1980s. He was driving a 60 series LandCruiser on a beach at Cervantes. Not knowing anything about letting tyres down, he drove on to the beach and was soon bogged. The tide was coming in.

Always the joker.

"I had no idea, apart from the gearstick, of really what to do, so I had some hectic moments out there trying to get sand out from underneath the back of the tyres.

I knew nothing about letting air out and had water slapping me on the backside as I was digging the sand out."

He backed half a kilometre up the beach before he was game to turn around and drive out. When the dust had settled he thought:

"There must be something around that tells you how to do this. I couldn’t find anything; no manuals, nothing.

Thinking that other people would be in the same boat as me, I produced a book called The WA 4WDriver's Guide, which essentially started off as a manual on how to."

That was in 1989. The manual was eagerly received; but people wanted more, so the guide book kick-started the development of the Western 4W Driver magazine. The early editions included developing 4W driving skills, destinations and the things that go with it - photography, metal detecting and camping. The magazine went from strength to strength and grew into what it is today.

Nick attributes the success of Western 4W Driver in getting writers together who have passion and having them share that passion with readers. Nick wouldn’t accept me saying that he was the catalyst for the success of Western 4W Driver; he said he was the organiser:

"Without the writers and their passion, the magazine wouldn’t work. You might as well buy a national magazine and read the same stuff they put in each time."

Nick and Susie on a Campfire Escapes trip.

Back in 1997 a complaint came through to Nick about the rubbish and general mess on the Canning Stock Route. This led to a team including Eric and Ronele Gard, Ian Elliot, Doug McKenzie, Jan Scudamore from Tread Lightly Australia and others getting together and planning a clean-up. Teams, including one led by Ron Moon, came from all over Australia to help with the clean-up. Around a dozen teams were involved, with each cleaning up a sector. They also got funding for, and installed a self-composting toilet at Durba Springs during the clean-up.

The CSR clean-up was the start of Track Care WA. Since then Nick served as chair, secretary and in other roles at TCWA. He is delighted with the success of TCWA and its mission of Access for the Future, saying: "TCWA has become the go-to body for government agencies, environmental and Aboriginal groups for Track Adoptions, CSR projects and rangelands projects."

Campfire Escapes was born from a discussion around a campfire in 2000, between Nick and Ray Harris. They wanted to share the bush with people who didn’t have the experience or confidence to 4WD. Since then, hundreds of trips have been run, including coastal trips, beach driving, the south coast, photography, Pilbara and the Great Victoria and Gibson deserts.

Also very popular are ‘Dads and Lads’ and ‘Dads and Daughters’ trips. These trips have enabled many children to spend oneon-one quality time with their father who due to work and other factors didn’t have exclusive time with them. He recalls being gobsmacked at the success of the first ‘Dads and Lads’ trip, as it was the first time for some of the fathers to spend one-onone time with their kids. Nick said he wasn’t disrespecting the mothers; many were delighted with the concept. He saw many a child blossom and revel in the dedicated attention from their father.

Nick and Ray Harris started Campfire Escapes together.

"He was there, he wasn’t going off to do anything else, he wasn’t working, and he’s here with me."

The concept of Campfire Escapes is more than a business to Nick. He has gained much satisfaction in seeing people achieve 4W driving confidence. Campfire must be doing something right, they have many repeat customers, with one family having done something like 28 trips. Their daughter was in nappies when they started and now she is in early teens.

"It’s like a mobile party," he said.

"Whether it’s a weekend or two week trip, you take off with a bunch of people - some you know, some you don’t and you bond. You are actually out there days and nights,

around the campfire, travelling together, stopping for lunches, looking at sights; you’re bonding all the way through. By the time you come back, you are giving people you didn’t know from a bar of soap a hug and a kiss on the cheek, thanking them for their company. You are developing relationships as you go."

Nick will still continue with Campfire Escapes - only the Western 4W Driver magazine has been sold.

Nick, in partnership with historian Ian Elliot, has also developed a series of 4WD Travel Guides, which he called The Explorer Series Trip Books covering: 4WD Days out of Perth, 4WD Weekends out of Perth, 4WD Days on the South Coast of WA, 4WD Days in the Goldfields of WA, Explore the Pilbara in your 4WD, Hanns Track, Explore the Holland Track and Cave Hill Woodlines and 4WD Days out of Melbourne. Many of these have been reprinted after being sold out. 4WD Days out of Perth has been the most popular with over 50,000 copies being sold. These guides are more than track notes saying turn left at 10.3 kilometres; they include the history of the area and/ or the explorer who blazed the trail. The area’s history adds an additional dimension to the 4WD guides and this has resulted in many people become avid readers of WA history.

Nick has owned a number of 4WD vehicles including a Land Cruiser petrol 60 series, FJ62 1989, petrol 80 series 1996, diesel 100 series 2003 and his beloved 79 series ute. Nick’s ideal 4WD is one with the second/stubby gear stick, with true 4WD capabilities.

Lying down on the job!

"There are not that many around anymore," he said. Up until recently his 79 series had a custom-built canopy on the back. This has been replaced with another custom-built unit which is a hard-floor foldout camper. "We plan to travel a lot more and see our country."

Nick Underwood, the Ed, I thank you on behalf of all 4W drivers in Western Australia for your contribution to 4W driving. You not only wrote a 4WD guide, Western 4W Driver is now an iconic magazine that delivers real information, but you also had a significant role in the creation and management of Track Care. Through the Western 4W Driver magazine you have produced 4WD travel destination books that are used and treasured by many and through Campfire Escapes you have introduced thousands of people to the joys of recreational 4W driving. Well done Nick, from all of us we wish you and Sue an enjoyable and long retirement.

wild trax

with IAN ELLIOT

Droopy Troopie

Gallivanting around the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land mid-year, I managed to break a front coil on the old Troopie. Some of the potholes and gutters on the road to Nhulunbuy after the cyclone had to be seen to be believed, so perhaps it's no wonder this breakage occurred. However, I can't say I noticed it at the time and it wasn't until much later that the increased visibility at one side of the bonnet made me suspect that something was amiss. A close inspection showed that one part of the broken coil was gradually screwing itself up inside the other part. I'm not at all sure that this is what happens whenever coil springs break, but the interesting part to me is that there was no discernible change in the ride (not that the Troopie is particularly noted for its ride), nor any bias in the steering. Increased driver visibility.

With some 5,000km to go to reach home, it had shown no signs of collapsing completely so I decided to chance it. The old girl was still steering straight, despite the droop, when I got to Murphy's Tyrepower Mechanical in Bellevue to replace my screwed-up spring with a new set at the end of the trip.

The double helix effect.

Menzies Cemeteries

Phil Bianchi's piece on the tin tombstones of Menzies in our 111th edition brought back many memories of my past association with that town and its historic buildings and cemeteries. I recall moments of macabre mirth as I flipped through the Lands Department file dealing with the local cemetery reserve. It contained pleading letters from the Menzies Roads Board requesting a grant for the fencing of the reserve. It seems that dingos were digging up bodies and dragging bits and pieces of them out into the bush. The fight for fencing wasn't the only feature of that file. When their dipsomaniac gravedigger died, they found he'd kept no records. They had little idea of who was buried where which became a real issue when tombstones arrived to be placed on unmarked graves. There seems no doubt that some were positioned using a 'best guess' come 'pot luck' methodology. Who knows? The Roads Board certainly wasn't sure. No doubt about it, it's an interesting necropolis, and it's not even the only graveyard at Menzies. When I was researching the Menzies pubs and Shire Office for the Heritage Council in the 1990s, the Shire Clerk contacted me concerning several graves his workers had found in the bush on the West side of town. Seeking advice on what the Shire should do about this find, he took me out for a look. From memory, there weren't many graves there, but one imposing marble tombstone actually post-dated the gazettal of the town's cemetery reserve. I never managed to find out why these particular graves were dug such a distance from the official cemetery and, so far as I'm aware, this is still something of a mystery.

Cliff Top Cache

There's something about spending time near a desert watering place that has drawn human inhabitants to its life-giving

supplies for thousands of years. It's a satisfying timelessness that provides, at least to me, a sense of peace and contentment that can't be beat. July in the Pilbara saw us at several such spots where we were surrounded by reminders of the presence of ancient mankind. These took the form of scattered stone chips and toolmaking implements, the broken remains of stone grinders as well as the hundreds of engravings adorning the cliffs above us. While many of these were crude abstracts or depicted mythical beings, at least half were drawings of animals or the tracks they made. Amongst these were a few that were well-drawn and unmistakable in the creatures they portrayed. Obviously, at least one of these archaic humans was a talented artist. A particular petroglyph that fascinated me was plainly a ring-tailed possum, a marsupial that hasn't inhabited this region for maybe thousands of years.

It was while searching for such cliff-top art that an eagle-eyed member of our party spotted a prospector's cache secreted away in a crevice. Toni's find consisted of a dented metal bucket and a gold panning dish. With no distinguishing marks on these implements, there seems little chance that we will ever be able to establish the identity of this mystery prospector with any certainty. However, after thinking about it for a while, one likely candidate did occur to me –Alfred Oliver Cromwell Ives. A boundary rider on the Rabbit Proof Fence based at the Jigalong camel breeding station, Ives made several prospecting trips into the

Possum petroglyph. Photo courtesy of Russell Chrimes.

Rudall River region accompanied by local Aborigines during the late 1930s. His diary of those trips contained the Aboriginal names of many of the waterholes in the area, places identified with copper plaques by two of his sons during an expedition in 1970. Since our find was within easy reach of the general area known to have been prospected by Ives, the bucket and dish may well have been his which would mean that they could have lain in their cranny untouched for some 80 years.

Hamersley Gorge

It gave me something of a shock a little later in the July Pilbara trip when we visited Hamersley Gorge in Karijini National Park. A bitumen road down to a 15 bay car park, an ornate steel lookout platform and people everywhere; a far cry from my original visit nearly 60 years ago. Of course, this was the rocky defile that explorer Frank Gregory had to find a way around when he was following the South Branch of the Fortescue River upstream on 11 and 12 June 1861. Just over a century later, as a 19 year old, I was

visiting a mate of mine, Eric Wahl, who was working for Lang Hancock on Hamersley Station. Eric told me he had been exploring a fabulous, then unnamed, gorge near the eastern extremity of Lang's pastoral lease, a feature that had only just been examined by Wittenoom's indefatigable hiking physician, Dr Gordon Oxer, then the main champion for the creation of a national park in the Hamersley Range. Eric was bound and determined to get his International Scout 4WD ute down onto a ridge close to a narrow section of the gorge to roll a couple of petrol drums and a timber pallet down the cliff so that a raft could be lashed together to explore this mysterious watery passage. (He reckoned it was much too cold to swim.) We paddled our ungainly craft as far downstream as we could, then continued on foot before returning to park it on the shore of the pool below Eric's vehicle. I presume it was washed far downstream during the next wet. So I was a passenger in the first vehicle to ever bush bash down to where the present, very gentrified car park sits. Believe me, it looks a lot different now.

Bucket and gold panning dish.

What’s in a name?

Mount Celia

Myresearch seeking the origins of feature names when I was in the Geographic Names Section of the Lands Department has become an absorbing hobby since my retirement. It has always amazed me how sometimes, the most obscure origins can be revealed quite by accident. One case I recall from my working days was a mining claim (no longer shown on maps) situated about 10km northwards of Laverton. Originally taken up as the “British Admiral” claim, this mining lease changed hands in 1901 when it was renamed “Flintlock”. The new owners were Heffernan, Trim & party but their reason for changing the name was a mystery. Of course I knew that flintlocks were a type of early firearm but could think of no connection these weapons might have with a 1901 mine.

Copping a lecture from my boss for a late return from a liquid lunch one afternoon, I protested that although I had been boozing at the old Court Hotel with mates from the Art Gallery and the WA Museum, I'd actually been working for part of the time.

“How so?” growled my boss.

I explained to him that, on a wall in the Court's saloon bar hung a superb timber

with IAN ELLIOT

board that listed in gold leaf all the winners of the Perth Cup since its inception. The 1901 winner was a horse named Flintlock, son of Carbine, and I'd be willing to bet that Heffernan, Trim & Co. had won money on this popular galloper. My boss had to admit that this was likely more than coincidence, especially when subsequent research revealed that the former name of this claim, “British Admiral”, was also in all probability after a racehorse. Consequently, my tardiness was forgiven on this occasion.

Just recently, I've had a similar possible origin pop up out of nowhere when I was wondering about Mount Celia, a trig hill situated between lakes Raeside and Carey about 100km eastwards of Kookynie. All that Geonoma (Landgate's database) could tell me was that the name was first used in a field book of J.C. Watt in August 1897. Postal Directories confirmed that Joseph Crane Watt was a mining surveyor residing in Shaw Street, Coolgardie at that time and family notices in various newspapers revealed that his wife, Millie, died in March 1897 at just 28 years of age. He was remarried nine years later to Sara Blain, an Irish girl, and the couple had three daughters and a son. All very well, but it got me no closer to his reason for naming the hill Mount Celia.

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

Catastrophic and Crazy Canning Capers

Our five week Canning Stock Route trip had so far been terrific. We had visited all of the wells and other sites in between, met lots of people and talked about tyre pressures and shockies. Just awesome fun.

Ihad been planning this trip for two years.

To ensure a mechanically trouble free trip, I prepared my vehicle thoroughly; replacing CVs, front wheel bearings, suspension bushes, shock absorbers, hoses and belts, tyres, battery, oils and filters and so on. I even had the starter motor and alternator rebuilt. I was ready. We were in the fourth week of the trip and had camped near Well 23. Needing fuel (there no longer being the Well 23 fuel dump), we set off westward along the Talawanna Track to Parnngurr (Cotton Creek).

About 10kms short of Parnngurr there was a bang, followed by loud grinding and squealing noises coming from the engine bay. Mat was driving at the time and quickly turned off the engine. Both us had a ‘what the … has happened’ look on our faces.

Relaxing on the Canning.

Carefully I lifted the bonnet with no idea of the sort of carnage to expect. It didn’t look like much was amiss, then I saw the radiator fan and assembly jammed into the radiator. Without doubt this is the end of my trip I thought. We towed the ‘Old Girl’ into Parnngurr. What wonderful people the Parnngurrites were! They provided information of repair companies in Newman and rented out the old medical centre for eleven adults to stay in for the night.

Then the phone calls began. The first problem encountered was the RACWA emergency breakdown number, which

At Slate Range.

with (TRUTHFUL) PHIL BIANCHI

the things you see!

when rung from a sat phone you are initially sent to the NRMA call centre. After spending many frustrating minutes trying to get them to transfer me to RACWA and telling them the clock is ticking, they put me through. The first issue to be resolved was what level of breakdown cover did I have? I found I had cover up to $2000. Then Miss RAC asked, "Where is Parnngurr?" "Nearly 400kms east of Newman," was my reply. "I can’t find it on my map," she said. Eventually Parnngurr was discovered. "I’ll organise a tow truck for you, what is your contact number please?" I provided my satellite phone number. A couple of hours go by and no reply. I ring again and after another spat with the NRMA, was told she was glad I rang back because they aren’t allowed to ring sat phone numbers.

"You’re kidding," I said. No, she wasn’t. Good news; "I’ve got a tow for you, ring me back in a couple of hours and I’ll give you the details." I ring back, "Sorry," she said, "They now won’t do the job, they don’t do tracks." I explained that the name Talawanna Track was just a name, it wasn’t a track, and that it was a formed and graded road. "If a road was called Hellfire Road, it doesn’t mean it’s the road to Hell," I added. "Give me more time, I’ll hunt around," she said. Another sat phone call from me, elicited; "No one in Newman will do it, but one company from Port Hedland will do it for $7000 but they want more details."

Frustrated I started my own calling and spoke to five tow companies. Most weren’t interested. One from Port Hedland wanted an extortionate $8000 fee, but wanted more detail before confirming. Another said, "We knocked the job back, we don’t do tracks." "The Talawanna Track is a gazetted road," I replied. Still not interested. Another said they had heard of the job, but were not interested as they had wrecked their tow truck when out there last time, but he couldn’t tell me where 'out there' was!

Sensing my frustration and building anger, a mate Graham took on the challenge of getting it sorted. He rang many places, including mechanics in Newman in the hope they knew someone. He did get some interest but nothing firm. Thinking outside the square Graham wondered if there was a speedway in Newman. There was. He rang the president and was told a member had a tilt tray truck. Bernie was the owner and he agreed to do the job for

What a disgrace - being towed.

Kunawarritji fuel pricetowing might be cheaper.

$4000 and with the next day being his day off he could be there around 9.00am in the morning. Graham also rang Newman Toyota, they said provided it was just parts they would take two days from Perth or five days from the eastern states.

When I rang the RAC back it was night time and Miss RAC had finished her shift. Thankfully the chap who answered knew of my plight and said the RAC approved $2000 towards the tow, could I pay the whole amount and when home I could apply for a reimbursement. I agreed.

Bernie arrives at 9.30am. The ‘Old Girl’ was loaded and strapped down. Bernie set off while we finished packing up. He must have thought he was at the speedway because we didn’t catch him and he got into Newman 45 minutes before us. We dropped the cruiser off at the Toyota dealer. The next day they rang to say the water pump, fan and fan assembly, radiator, shroud and belts all needed replacing, the estimated cost $3600. I approved the work.

$4000 for a tow - the most expensive I've ever bought.

best to help me, there were a number of gaps in the service provided:

I was without the cruiser for six days, and having lost so much time it was impossible to complete the CSR as workers needed to get home.

Despite all of the expense in preparing my cruiser for the trip, Sod’s Law still got in the way. By the way, I didn’t replace my water pump before the trip because it was 18 months old, but not a genuine part. While I was happy with the overall result of getting a tow truck, being reimbursed $2000, and the RACWA staff doing their

• RACWA must have poor systems in place if staff can’t find a WA town on a map.

• Why do RACWA have their customers who are using satellite phones, fighting to get past the NRMA breakdown service?

• Why can’t RACWA staff ring a satellite phone to provide customer service, after all it is 2019?

• This resulted in me not being kept up to date. I had to ring them using my satellite phone.

Making the Old Girl safe.

BINDON’S LORE

Breakaways

They are found not only in Western Australia, but occur elsewhere in Australia and indeed in other arid lands wherever suitable geological conditions happen to be, but those in this huge state are certainly among the most picturesque and visually exciting that I have seen anywhere. I first encountered spectacular breakaways in the country out east of Payne’s Find, their orangered caps topping low chalk-white cliffs that had been hollowed out by ages of exposure to eroding forces. They are not the kind of landscape feature that can be enjoyed from afar but rather are best seen at a closer range of say a few kilometres at most because they do not form in tall cliffs. In fact, even closer examination often reveals surprising features known geologically as ‘fenestration’ in their walls - a term used to describe small hollows bounded by rounded walls which must have been visually reminiscent of stainedglass windows to whoever first named them ‘fenestra’, from which the geological use comes being the Latin word for a

window or loophole. When several larger caves or overhangs occur together along a breakaway cliff-face, the fenestra of one may encroach on the walls of the adjacent hollow and produce what appears as a series of little loopholes or even a gridlike openwork opening from one cave to the next.

Much of the Western Australian land surface has been exposed to the elements for untold eons. During that time soluble salts in the soils and sand covering the land have been leached out of the surface sediments by the intermittent rainfall and carried down deeper into the soil layers where they were again deposited around the upper level of the water table (which fluctuates according to the levels of soil water in the ‘dry’ or the ‘wet’) as the soils dried out again. Over time these salts crystallise and incorporate surrounding sediments to form deposits or rock-like materials known as ‘evaporites.’ The most spectacular of these are the reddened iron-rich ones hardened into layers that were more resistant to erosion

Breakaway on Melangata Station.

than the sediments above and below them, so that as softer layers eroded, the harder evaporite layers protected parts of the layers immediately below them causing erosion to occur unevenly. Sometimes the hard layers that were sufficiently resistant made up the top of an isolated mesa, but at other times huge areas of land could be protected so that only the edges of a low plateau were eroded and these edges with their interesting caves and overhangs became breakaways. When the underlying eroding sediments were pale coloured, then the features were at their most spectacular and form the subject of many interesting photographs taken by outback travellers.

The original land surface in which the breakaways occur may also have intriguing features in the form of deep pits or hollows that vary in size from tiny to huge. Many of these collect surface water running off the more-or-less impermeable surface of the land which then gathers in these hollows and provides life-giving water to the many animals that can access the water without falling in and drowning. Aboriginal people exploited these sparse water reservoirs which in much of arid Australia are known by one Aboriginal language name as ‘gnammas’. In former times, many of these were marked with their Aboriginal names on published maps and the maps and journal entries of several of our early explorers recorded them as life-saving even if somewhat unreliable water sources. Sadly, our newer maps often omit these, along with other fascinating landscape features of interest to travellers and anyone else interested in the landscape they are traversing. As an aside, I noticed recently with some alarm that the Commonwealth Department responsible for the production and sale of maps has decided, probably

as a cost-saving exercise, that they will no longer publish paper copies of Australian maps. Why Government Departments think that they must be money-making enterprises rather than providing a useful and even necessary service is beyond me, but then I suppose I’m getting into the ‘cranky-old-codgers’ stage of life and don’t understand modern economics.

The caves and hollows that develop below the hardened rocky caps representing former land surfaces and the upper margins of exposed ancient sub-surface watertables are also eroded in rather spectacular forms in breakaway country. My favourite form of this erosion mechanism, most often noticed by white powdery deposits on the cave walls, is known as ‘halo-clasticism.’ This is another specialised geological term whose ultimate derivation is from ancient Greek through Latin and refers to ‘salt,’ (Sodium chloride) but also includes other chemical compounds. When atmospheric water dissolves, some of the salts on the surface or near the surface of a porous rock is carried into the rock in solution (even apparently impermeable rocks like granite). When the water eventually evaporates again, the salt once more forms tiny crystals which, as they grow, exert enough pressure on the grains of mineral making up the rock that the grains are forced apart from one another and become

The cave at the top of this breakaway is a popular resting place for kangaroos.

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Cart your gear from job to job with ease and adapt the bike as you need it with clever accessory lugs located across the 2x2.

With its lightweight frame and powerful, near silent motors, the UBCO 2×2 gives you complete control for all your adventures, both on- and off-road. Whether you’re getting the cows in or commuting to work, the 2018 UBCO 2×2 is ready to take on whatever you throw at it.

terrain and all performance, the 2×2 gives you the power to go. The 48Ah Lithium-Ion power supply not only fuels the bike; it powers all your tools from your phone to your drill (at the same time).

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All terrain and all performance, the 2×2 gives you the power to go. The 48Ah Lithium-Ion power supply not only fuels the bike; it powers all your tools from your phone to your drill (at the same time).

Cart your gear from job to job with ease and adapt the bike as you need it with clever accessory lugs located across the 2x2.

The dual electric drive is smooth, ultra-quiet and low maintenance; it can go through trenches, up hills, over asphalt and down bush tracks without a second thought. And all of this with a running cost of under $1 per 120km.

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adventure awaits with the UBCO 2x2.

individual sand grains. They fall to the floor from where various mechanisms like wind takes them away from where they formed. Over enough time, the loss of millions of tiny sand grains forms a hollow in the rock or cliff and then gradually a cave forms and then comes a great feature to have in a photograph!

I have always found it interesting to know something about how the features in the landscape that lies before me were formed in past ages. Countless generations of Aboriginal people must have felt the same way about landscape features too because, as one might expect, everyone must have some explanation about why landscapes appear just as they are today.

I recall being on a bare and featureless plain in the Great Sandy Desert which was covered with an icing of tiny brown pebbles called pisolites by geologists, that had been eroded out of the former soils which previously had covered the plains before wind-erosion blew the loose sand away and sent it towards the Indian Ocean hundreds of thousands of years earlier. The Aboriginal explanation offered to me by my friends was that during the Dreaming, two huge emu ancestors had fought a long battle on that very plain using boomerangs. Their enthusiastic fight with these objects had cleared the land of all its vegetation and outcrops of rock leaving only the pebbles remaining. The exhausted bodies of these heroic ancestors lay at either end of the plain several kilometres apart. They could now be seen as piles of pale white rocks, all that remained of their dehydrated

bodies and broken bones. I was impressed with my friends’ story which like mine from another age and a different tradition, was an explanation of how landscapes got to be just how they are. As you might expect, on two sides of the pisolite plain there were long low breakaways and the easy way off the plain was through a small ‘jump-up’ that led on to the upper plateau.

Before working in remote Australia, my only perception of a ‘jump-up’ had to do with a small flower that my mother and several Aunts referred to as ‘Johnny Jumpups.’ Clearly, their shape relegated them to the pansy family and these flowers had little to do with landscape formations. While the story of these edible but small flowers is very interesting, it belongs in another article and it is the landscape feature with the same name that we are discussing here. One of the first sets of directions that I received concerning the best route to a coastal feature I had to visit in the North-west included the direction to ‘take the left-hand fork as soon as you get down off the jump-up.’ Not wanting to appear too ignorant, you can imagine me saying ‘Jump-up?’ The patient local gave me the look that you might expect before describing how the track was going to descend quickly for just a few metres and that anyway, “You can’t miss it!“ As we all know, the first thing that you can do when following an unfamiliar track is ‘miss it.’ And that may well be because you don’t completely understand what a ‘couple of miles’ means. This common distance given to travellers unfamiliar with the country

Another Melangata Station breakaway.

can be anything from just a few hundred metres to ten or twelve kilometres, the actual distance depending on how well the informant knows the road and how often it is travelled.

Well, we drove towards the coast along the indicated track for several country miles until we came to a partially hidden drop in the landscape that was completely camouflaged by the long grass which had grown higher than the windscreen. As we broke through the vegetation at the edge of the drop, happily going not too fast, the front wheels of the 4WD had already begun to descend the ‘jump-up.’ We were on more of a ‘jump-down’ than a ‘jump-up’ and landed at the bottom of the three or four metre drop with a mighty crunch that confirmed that the 4WD was not fitted with wings and that take-off speed had not been reached. Apart from a couple of broken jars in the tucker box, there was no other visible damage and so we proceeded onwards to the coast, crossing dunes formed from the sand blown from the plain we had visited

a few days earlier. It was worth it. Just as we crossed the last dune before the water, a two-metre strongly banded brown and yellowish Woma welcomed us. Apart from being the biggest specimen of this nonvenomous snake that I had ever seen, it was apparently the furthest south that the species had ever been located. When we reported our find to the Vertebrate Department of the Western Australian Museum, they were delighted to hear about our find and even more pleased when we were able to give them a copy of the photograph that we took of it.

We found that we could do without the peanut butter for the rest of the trip and the jump-up had provided a good lesson in shopping for the clear plastic jars that liquids and semi runny stuff comes in and that they seem to be able to re-cycle into fluffy jumpers once the peanut butter is used up. Much as we dislike plastics, there is good reason to use the plastic jars for the stuff you want in the tucker box, and the unbreakable jars also find heaps of uses in the workshop

GO GEO-TOURING

THE

It's Just a Perfect Match

I would like to share a secret. Something I consider to be a perfect match. You see, whilst I travel about this great big sandpit they call WA quite a bit, I’m always on the lookout to extract more from it. Sure, I love nothing more than the adventure of exploring an undriven track, another night under the stars in the swag, discovering new places and revelling in the relics of yesteryear. But there is more to be had - Geo-touring. I’m sure you all know the latter (touring), but what is this geo bit?

Geocaching?

Never heard of it you say. Then you need to read on. It’s been described as using expensive technology to find Tupperware in the bush. You see, people go and hide containers all over the world, publish the coordinates on a website and then others download the data to go and find the hide. Geocaching came about after the US military decided in May of 2000 to switch off selective

Another cache, another mountain. Atop Mt Holland.

availability (SA). SA was an algorithm added to a GPS signal that would vary the actual ground position of a coordinate, making it quite inaccurate – the US being paranoid that consumer devices could be used to then target their military installations. With the removal of SA, GPS technology just had its accuracy increased tenfold. Only a day after SA was switched off, the first geocache in its primitive form was placed. The immediate improvement in GPS signal accuracy allowed this to happen. People could get to within meters of a marked coordinate now. Since then, over 3 million geocaches have been placed worldwide and that number increases daily. The aim of the game is to find the cache, sign a logbook (thus proving that you found it) and for each cache you find, your find tally increases. It is beyond this article to go into all the different types of geocaches that are available. I will stick within this article to the 'traditional cache' in its many

guises, the most common form of a cache hidden. In many caches, there is 'treasure' to be found. The aim of that is if you take something, you leave something in its place. I guess that’s where the 'cache' side of the equation comes from - to store or hide something for future use.

There are people out there with geo tallies (the number of caches found) in excess of 200,000. That just makes me tired trying to comprehend those sorts of numbers. There are cachers here in WA sporting finds in excess of 30,000. That in itself is something truly short of remarkable. With 10 years of caching under my belt, even I haven’t cracked the 500 mark yet - quality before quantity. Geocaching is what you make of it. For some, it’s about the numbers. For others, it’s about being the first to find. Some just enjoy the challenge of the activity. For me, it’s about picking off a cache or two on a trip away, the more remote, the better the value. That’s not to say I do not indulge in local caches when time permits, but generally, I go out of my way to find caches when I am on a trip away. Sometimes, it turns out to be an extraordinarily interesting one. And that’s why I say it’s a perfect match when touring. I often choose a destination just so I can knock off a cache. Case in point being my last trip away. Queen Victoria

Spring, in the south western corner of the Great Victoria Desert has been on my bucket list for years. The first European to discover it being Ernest Giles in 1875. It also just so happens that there are two caches nearby. For me, any excuse will do for a trip into the Great Victoria Desert. A seven day, 3000km round trip, just to knock off two caches. Go figure! For the record, I did pick up a total of eight caches on that trip which in itself is pretty sad in a geocache sense. But on the way home, we stopped to pay homage to the great man, Ernest Giles, who is buried in Coolgardie cemeterywith a cache also outside the cemetery fence. Unfortunately, a very large wildfire had taken hold in the vicinity of the spring and the two caches nearby were toast. But I provided photographic evidence of my visit and logged the find, thus increasing my score.

I love remote caches. Travelling down the Canning Stock Route in 2016, there was no way I was going to let any of the very remote caches I passed go by - not that there is many there - but who knows when I will be back again. Unfortunately, vehicle damage on that trip meant I had to bail out for Newman at Well 31, so I have some unfinished business - including some geocaches - on the southern side

My first cache heading for the CSRinside the Wolfe Creek crater.

Toasted cache at Queen Victoria Spring.

The Dingo Fence, Mable Creek Station. Eastern end of the Anne Beadell Highway.

to complete. For my 50th, I crossed the Anne Beadell Highway solo, so I could knock off a few more. Unfortunately, I logged the dreaded DNF (did not find) at Neale’s Junction. Lucky for me, that’s going to be easier to return to than the caches further east - at the aircraft wreck, Ilkurlka Roadhouse, Emu airfield or the Dingo Fence at Mabel Creek Station, all of which I have now found. I often travel with a mate whose philosophy is to never go to the same place twice. His reason: because he will miss out on other places to travel. Whilst I get his drift, I don’t subscribe to the theory myself. If a place is worth a visit, it’s worth visiting more than once. For this reason, unless a cache is remote and the chance of me revisiting is slim, then I will leave some for next time. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t need an excuse to get away again?

There are some pretty smart geocachers out there. A lot of caches I visit have either a wealth of historical information on the cache page or provide some sort of education regarding the geology/ecology of the area. The information one

can learn from a geocache page is staggering. Not to forget that some of the places I have visited would never have been on the radar and I would have missed out big time had I not gone there looking for the cache.

In the early days, geocaching was the domain of the handheld GPSr. Today, the majority of travellers are equipped with GPS enabled smartphones. A suitable app, either IOS or Android, will have your GPS enabled smart phone finding caches and taking you to some amazing sites you would never have considered to visit. Some apps have the ability to store caches offline so you can nail those remote ones when phone coverage is unavailable. For me, I still prefer the humble handheld GPSr, purely from an accuracy point of view. But it does come with extra work compared to the smartphone and a suitable app. That said, for convenience the smartphone is hard to beat and I’m finding the GPSr is getting less use as the years roll by. So with the winter rains now departed and the weather warming, for myself, the arid regions make way for the south west. There is a multitude of caches down there and I assure you of finding your own special places should you wish to look.

While Fergus gets his ear repaired, I find a clever little cache nearby.

Don’t forget getting the kids involved too, they love only too well finding treasure. Just be wary of those wriggly sticks, especially with kids involved.

The intent of this article is to whet your appetite for geo-touring. With a bit of googling, and looking at the FAQs on the cache websites, you’ll work out yourself how to go about it. It’s not hard to gain an understanding of what it’s all about and how to be involved. There are two main websites to scour for geocaches: Geocaching.com (the original) formed in the US after SA was removed, and we also now have geocaching.com.au, an Australian site. I am only a member of the US site. It’s free to join and use. There is a premium membership that you can purchase for a small fee should you wish to find some of the premium member-only caches, however, until you get bitten by the bug the free membership is all that is required. So why not join up, find a few caches and tell me how amazing your summer of geotouring ended up.

In the next issue I will tell you a story about an epic geo-touring adventure. Stay tuned for that one. Have a fantastic summer break, be safe out there and find some of those unknown places to explore with a bit of help from geocaching. Trust me, it is a perfect match.

Heading for a cache in Fitzgerald River National Park.

Tailgate Assist WHAT ,S NEW?

ARB has developed a Tailgate Assist system to make opening and closing ute tailgates a safer and less strenuous manoeuvre.

Designed for the Toyota Hilux - though other makes and models are availableis a combination of dampening strut and torsion springs to help control the opening speed of the tailgate and reduce the effort required to close it.

ARB said the effort to close the gate is reduced by over 50 per cent.

This is the second generation of the Tailgate Assist and improves on its predecessor by having a torsion spring to assist closing rather than spring assist struts. The torsion spring runs across the lower edge of the tailgate.

Factory tailgate limit straps are replaced with cables to allow sufficient clearance of moving parts with additional anti-wear pads included to avoid paint rub.

The unique ball and socket design of the dampening strut mounts is designed for a long service life.

The Tailgate Assist is made in Australia and uses two types of struts co-developed with world-leading gas strut manufacturer Stabilis. The passenger side damping strut helps to slowly lower the tailgate which, once opened, can be let go and continue to lower unassisted in a controlled manner.

On the driver’s side of the tailgate, a gasassisted traction strut helps to close the tailgate, making lifting easy and achievable with a simple one-handed motion.

The product comes in kit form and each kit has vehicle-specific hardware including mounting brackets and replacement tailgate cables and guide brackets where required.

ARB said its engineers designed and tested the product to over 40,000 cycles over 18 months, equating to around 20 years of service life to the average consumer.

Jumpstart

Projecta

has launched new jumpstarters to replace earlier models that were recalled. The new IS910E and IS1210E units (replacing IS900 and IS1200) now add improved safety and protection against power surges and short circuiting. The new Intelli-Start Lithium Emergency Jumpstarters are designed for the consumer market and suitable for batteries used by a majority of passenger cars, 4W drives, motorcycles and outboard motors.

They are compact and lightweight and claimed by Projecta to be more than 90 per cent lighter than equivalent lead acid jumpstarters.

Benefits of the new models include a twostage safety protection system that checks the health of both the Mosfet transistor switch and the unit’s Smart Module to protect against overcharge and voltage surges. If either fails, the jumpstarter will cut out, eliminating any safety risks.

They also have protections against surge, over voltage, battery and switch over temperature, reverse polarity, short circuit, over current, under voltage, plus battery cell balancing for optimum performance and safety.

Projecta said that some potentially dangerous situations - such as if the user tries to charge a battery that is hotter than 60°C - will also trigger an audible alarm to alert the user.

The IS910E boasts 900A peak amps and 240A clamp power, providing enough power to start most petrol engines up to 6.0-litres. The larger IS1210E has 1200A peak amps and 330A clamp power to easily start most petrol-powered vehicles

of up to 7.0-litres and most diesel engines with up to 3.2-litres.

Cranking power comes courtesy of Lithium Cobalt (LiCo) batteries with capacities of 6600 mAh (24.4 wHr) and 13,500 mAh (50.0 wHr) respectively, providing maximum power and efficiency.

Operating Intelli-Start jumpstarters is easy. Premium, spark-free clamps ensure a strong connection while a host of indicator lights provide the users with information including whether the unit is on/off, clamp connectivity, battery status and jump start status.

As well as being jumpstarters, the IS910E and IS1210E models also have the flexibility to be used as power banks, allowing the owner to charge mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices such as sat nav via the unit’s 2.1 Amp USB Accessory Ports (charging plug adaptor included).

Both models have two in-built 0.5-Watt LED flood lights with SOS function that can be used in emergency situations.

The jumpstarters come in a durable, padded carry case. They are available at all leading automotive and four-wheel drive outlets throughout Australia at prices of about $249.00 and $349.00 (inc. GST) respectively.

Digital Air

ARBhas a new digital tyre inflater on the market. Everyone who knows how to blow up a party balloon knows how air pressure works. But this device gives it a number!

The correct tyre pressure will make your tyres last longer, allow the tyre to maximise its grip on the road or track, maximise fuel economy and ensure ride quality is maintained.

Transitioning between bitumen and dirt, mud, snow or sand requires a change in air pressure and this tyre inflater makes checking and adjusting the vehicle tyre pressure a fast and simple operation.

It has an easy-to-read digital display, ergonomic thumb-operated inflater lever, bleed button and clip-on chuck. You can set the preferred unit of measurement too,

from psi to bar, kPa and kgF/cm2. ARB says it’s accurate to within 1 psi (measured at 25-75 psi) and can measure up to 350 psi (2400 kPa) which is a tad high for most onroad conditions.

The inflater operates on a pair of AA batteries (supplied) which will last up to 200 hours of run time. It also has a battery indicator. The clip-on type chuck with 600mm dual-swivel PVC-coated braided hose, makes connection to tyre valves easy.

Zero Fridge Freezer

The best of both worlds - fridge and freezer - in a unit that fits your camper or 4WD, is coming to an ARB store near you in late January. The ARB Zero Fridge Freezer, just shown at the SEMA event in the US, keeps the cans cold and your meals frozen. With both fridge and freezer in the same unit, campers can travel for longer periods without restocking. The Zero will be available in two sizes - 69 litres and 96 litres - and suits any car, camper trailer or caravan. It has a side-opening, quick-release lid to swap openings, and front and rear DC inlets. The fridge also features a front AC inlet for home or powered site connection and a handy USB outlet to charge other devices. Both sizes of the Zero Fridge Freezer have dual cooling zones independently controlled via the panel on the front or wirelessly via the app on compatible Bluetooth-enabled devices. The Zero Fridge Freezer has a boost

function for rapid cool downs and anticondensation technology to keep contents dry and at the desired temperature. The 69 litre model has one lid and an internal freezer compartment that can be removed to increase the space for the fridge. The 96 litre has two lids to keep compartments separate and individually chilled. The Zero Fridge Freezer 69 litre will go on sale for $1599 and the 96 litre from $1799. ARB said stock will be available in late January 2020 from ARB stores or stockists.

LED Light Bars

Lightspecialist Narva has added to its dual-cab ute market product range with the release of its 12-Volt multifunction auxiliary light bars.

These are new LED light bars that have a variety of colour combinations including amber/red/white (which are not actually ADR approved), and one in amber/white, and then a single amber version.

The light bars are designed to complement existing OEM stop, tail, indicator and reverse functions or to help accentuate oversize loads on commercial vehicles.

For added versatility, the amber and amber/ white combination light bars are included with a remote control which allows the user to switch between up to eight flash patterns and a variety of flashing speeds.

The units are 1200mm long and have a slim-line design of only 17mm wide and 9mm high. They are perfect for fitting under the tailgates and roll bars of most utes.

Narva said installing the light bars is easy using the included strong adhesive doublesided tape or metal clips. A wiring harness is also supplied to ensure that minimal additional wiring is required.

To provide reliable operation, the MultiFunction Auxiliary Light Bars are fully sealed and weatherproof to IP68 and are backed by a three-year warranty. A further benefit is an ultra-low current draw of just 0.6A at 12V.

Narva’s new range of LED Multi-Function Auxiliary Light Bars are available from leading automotive, 4WD and transport outlets nationwide.

Energy from Tyres

Electricitygenerated from a rolling tyre sounds a bit like Buzz Lightyear running for president of the US. It sounds implausible but crazier things have happened before.

Sumitomo Rubber Industries - makers of tyre brands including Falken, Ohtsu and Sumitomo - are working with Japan’s Kansai University to perfect a new technology to generate electric power from the rotation of a tyre.

Research has found that by installing an ‘energy harvester’ inside a tyre, static electricity can be converted to clean energy.

This energy harvester takes advantage of a type of static electricity called frictional charging, which is formed each time a tyre’s footprint deforms as it rotates along the road.

It is believed that this technology holds great potential for practical applications

such as a power source for many automotive digital tools.

The research by Sumitomo and the Kansai University aren’t expecting huge energy production from the harvester. They say the technology could lead to practical applications as a power source for sensors used in TPMS (Tyre Pressure Monitoring System) and other automotive devices, with the aim of replacing the need for batteries.

More Air

By Ron Moon

I'velong been a fan of the ARB compressor and have a single compressor unit fitted into my Patrol, which runs the front and rear lockers as well as providing air inflation for the tyres. Likewise, our Dodge RAM in the States also has an ARB unit, but it's packaged as a portable unit in a carry box.

When setting up our 79 Cruiser we fitted an ARB twin compressor over a year ago now, which we shoe-horned into one of the under-tray boxes of the alloy tray and canopy we've had fitted.

The ARB compressors have undergone serious changes and a whole raft of improvements since they first appeared on the market many years ago and are constructed of lightweight high grade materials which incorporate quality components for many years of quiet operation.

These units feature hard anodised cylinder bores for reduced friction and incorporate Teflon impregnated carbon fibre piston seals for a maximum trouble free life. Internal thermal protection and in-line heavy-duty fuses offer protection from extreme current draw. An Integrated pressure switch, relays and an IP55 (waterproof/dustproof) rated brushless fan cools electronics, the motors and cylinder heads, ensuring a long life and improved protection from the elements.

The twin motors of this high performance compressor unit delivers class-leading air flow for faster tyre inflation and I certainly notice the great difference over the other units I have.

However, these twin compressors draw up to 68 amps when at maximum pressure, so they require some heavy-duty wiring to cope with the current drain. On the plus side, they deliver up to 174L of air a minute at 0kPa and 131L/minute at 200kPa

(29psi), which is pretty bloody good and makes short work of re-inflating tyres when coming off the beach or even running some air tools, the latter requiring an air tank for optimum operation. In that regard we also fitted a 4-litre air tank into the under-tray box.

This set-up, ready at hand all the time makes it easy and quick to inflate tyres. For even better tyre inflation we went all out and got ourselves one of those fancy ARB digital tyre inflaters. These make obtaining the right tyre pressure that much easier with a stated accuracy of +/-1psi at 25 to 75psi.

In all it's a great set-up and worth the dollars you'll pay for it, especially if you do a lot of sand driving (you are in WA after all!) or are a tour operator or club trip leader.

Product Info

ARB: www.arb.com.au Twin Compressor (for vehicle mounted) - $650 4-litre Air Tank - $173 Pump kit (hoses, etc) - $150 Fitting time - 3-4 hours (approx)

with JOHN BORMOLINI

Tailor Time

The onset of summer heralds another surf fishing season where early morning starts and feeling the cool beach sand between the toes reminds us of how good it is to be alive along our beautiful West Aussie coastlines - and summer for shored-based fishos traditionally means tailor time.

Now,tailor is never going to be at the top of the preferred seafood list and although pretty good when eaten fresh they don’t freeze particularly well. None-the-less they’re a good fish to catch and there’s always the opportunity to scale down and target something else in the process whether that might be a herring, whiting or gardie. Although the bigger models are a lot less likely in summer, when they do appear they are great fun to tangle with.

With the long beach stretches there are plenty of options in regard to where to point the nose of your 4WD in search of some sandy territory to fish. Although less of an option these days due to restricted access and more built up areas, it's still possible to drive onto the beach in lots of places and get the surf casting gear into action. If the winter has been a long one with plenty of stormy weather, things are usually better

set along our beach lines for a good tailor season with deeper gutters and spots to target, especially if the weather warms up nicely and the sea breeze pattern kicks in. Around the city itself there are a number of old well-known haunts such as Swanbourne, Floreat and Trigg and these types of metro beaches that tend to have deeper inshore channels or gutters. Areas outside the city limits where it's easier to get away from the crowds and onto the beach itself are Whitehills, Tim’s Thicket, Preston Beach and Myalup to the south. North of Perth there's Pipidinny, Yanchep, Two Rocks, the three mile at Moore River, Lancelin and the beach stretches along the Cervantes area that all produce tailor. There are plenty of others too, some less well known but with particular significance

for the die-hard tailor purist that they’ve come to revere over many summers. For traditionalist tailor enthusiasts, the early stages of the warming months are looked forward to because they’re something of an indicator. It’s no guarantee but if the initial start is good, it’s often the sign of things to come throughout the longer summer months. The presence of good showings of smaller baitfish are important too and if there’s plenty of whitebait and mullet around, it tends to have a strong impact on our tailor numbers a season or two later.

There are plenty of dos and don’ts and best approaches to tailor fishing that work, but none of it is really rocket science. The best times to try when you have a spot targeted is very early morning in the first two hours of light or later afternoon, sunset and into the evening. If these periods coincide with the run up to the high tide (especially on spring tides) then things are aligned for the best chances of success.

Late afternoon and into evening are more consistent for tailor than early morning on our summer surf beaches, but there’s a lot to be said for having the sun on your back with a light easterly early on a summer’s morning.

A sturdy three metre plus surf rod that will launch a decent sinker and bait into the sea breeze is a must otherwise the afternoon sessions will be fruitless. Packed in your small backpack to lug down to the beach should be some pre-made tailor rigs in small press seal plastic bags, half a dozen star or grapple wire sinkers of different sizes, some spare swivels and clip swivels, a light gimbal belt (rod bucket) for standing for extended periods waiting for that first bite, and an 80 centimetre length of PVC tube or rod holder to stick in the sand and support your rod while rebaiting or unhooking a fish.

The critical part is the business end, the terminal tackle (or rig). If you’re not sure what you’re doing you can always buy tailor rigs pre-made but otherwise make them up in what’s called a Paternoster style. Essentially this means about a metre of heavier mono nylon line with a loop or clip at one end for attaching the sinker and at the other end a three-way swivel for attaching to the main line on one as well as the hook line on the other. This short 30 centimetre length of heavier mono (at least 60 pound) dropper loop or hook leader sits well above the sinker.

A gang of three or four tarpon style hooks connected or ganged together, in size 3/0 or 4/0, and designed to take a whole pilchard or mulie, is attached to this dropper. All up when baited there is a bit of weight to fling out and hence a decent sturdy action rod that can cast heavier weights becomes necessary. Many folk prefer a sliding variation of this rig with hook line able to slide freely up the line but stopping at the swivel.

The reason for the heavy mono to the hook is that tailor are aptly named in regard to their sharp chompers. Thin nylon

Marc Bormolini with an early summer tailor and the sign of things to come.

line invariably gets bitten through if it's anywhere near their mouths. Many of the old faithful would swear by having a short length of wire trace in years gone by but these days heavy monofilament or fluorocarbon leader is the go as it's less visible to the fish and still avoids most bite offs.

Strong rips and turbulent sea breeze-stirred waters make it hard to hold ground. A decent star or the newer 'wire anchor' style sinkers keep the bait in the strike zone. If the conditions are less rough though, the right sized rolling bell sinker or large ball sinker will work and allow the bait to be dragged enticingly and slowly through the gutter.

If you’re fishing a relatively lonely stretch without much competition I like to 'tail' the mulies I use before casting. That is, take off the very last tail section. It will naturally berley the section of water or beach you’re fishing and invariably, make cruising hungry tailor come back looking for more.

Don’t ever be fooled by thinking the biggest pilchards or bait are the best for our more southern surf tailor. For the bigger fish around the reef ledges and sections in the northern waters, gars are great. Particularly bait cast. However, I find the slightly undersized mulies that everyone complains about are actually an advantage.

They’re easier to cast and don’t create casting weight competition with the sinker that leads to reduced distance. Simply adjust with smaller sized hooks and cut back to gangs of three and the benefit is not having to use massively heavy 12 or 14 foot monster surf rods.

Metal slices and poppers do work but the conditions need to suit, including enough light. Dawn and dusk are not always the most effective times for these in the surf with tailor but again broken reef and sand sections are the place to work them.

So as the summer approaches, dust off the surf rod and get yourself sorted. There are tailor to be caught. With any luck, this summer will be made up of great sunsets, sea breezes that are not blowing at 30 knots and a productive tailor spot right next to the 4WD, the esky and a deck chair.Waiting for the tailor to bite.

Big greenback tailor. Although not common as part of our summer surf run tailor bigger ones do turn up at times.

GO CAMPING GEAR TO

BBQing Made Easy

Freeup space around your camp site and vehicle with this Australian designed and built portable swingarm plate for the barbecue.

The BBQARM, made by Tony and Kylie Fanning who live on the Gold Coast in Queensland, was designed expressly for camping and 4WD enthusiasts.

It uses a universal drawbar mount - also made by BBQARM - on which the arm and tray are placed to create a dedicated space for a Weber, Ziggy or other camping barbecue.

The drawbar mount and arm can be left on your frame and you only need to remove the top/tray when towing. The whole thing weighs only 7.5kg and is easily portable. The arm is available in 650mm and 850mm lengths in black or silver, with the aluminium tray in silver or black powdercoat.

There’s also a new mount that allows the BBQARM to be mated to a Hayman Reese style tow-hitch receiver.

The BBQARM kit for vehicles - including the galvanised, power coated steel arm, 2.5mm chequer-plate aluminium tray and tow-hitch mount - is priced from $290.

The tray is 560mm by 360mm but is available in the optional size of 700mm by 500mm.

There is also a BBQARM kit for caravan or trailer at $265 with similar features to the vehicle kit.

As an accessory, BBQARM has a premium accessory pack that includes Australianmade stainless-steel drink holder/utensil holder, Australian-made stainless steel towel rail and tea-towel plus utensil hook.

It's available from www.bbqarm.com.au

Handy Table

Therecan be times when you just want a stable platform to brew a cup of tea or prepare lunch.

If dragging out and assembling a table is too hard when you’re on the road, the Tailgater Tire Table is a quick way to get that stable platform in seconds. From the US (hence it is Tailgater Tire) and available from Go Camping and Overlanding in Balcatta for $249, the metal travel table simply hooks over the vehicle's tyre - or tailgate-mounted spare - for an instant flat-top platform.

The table is always horizontal because it can be turned around the tyre, and for extra stability, there is a retractable and adjustable leg that can be mounted directly to the ground or angled back to the wheel for extra security.

The makers say it fits most tyres 14-inch and above but warns that vehicles with a low fender - such as passenger cars - may not have clearance to fit the table. It cannot be used as a seat or step.

Its advantages include no need for tools to fit or assemble, no need for a tow hitch as a mounting point, installs in seconds and weighs less than 7kg. The size is 580mm wide, 730mm long and 35mm deep.

It is available from Go Camping and Overlanding in Balcatta and details are at www.campingoverlanding.com.au

Your New Best Buddy

Camping

and outdoor product manufacturer Navigator has introduced a range of practical accessories for the outback adventurer and even items for everyday use in the suburbs. Here’s some of the range available at camping stores and 4WD specialists.

The Outdoor Storage Buddy fits to the tent awning so items like shoes, toys, pantry items and any other camping gear, can be set up high within easy reach and away from critters on the ground.

It has corner eyelets to allow for fastening to camping ridge poles when used independently of other Navigator accessories. The Outdoor Storage Buddy features three mesh pockets, a large zip storage compartment with 10 sectioned shelves and eight large sleeve pockets on the reverse side. It has a maximum load rating of 7kg when used with 4WD awnings.

The Storage Buddy can be connected to the Navigator Kitchen Buddy, creating a complete Navigator storage system.

The Kitchen Buddy has eight sleeve pockets for utensils, four mesh pockets for cooking spices and condiments, a magnet to hold the Navigator Bottle Opener and two large sleeve pockets for chopping boards.

This camp kitchen essential can be folded in half for convenient storage. It also has a maximum of 7kg load rating when used with 4WD awnings.

The third Navigator Buddy system is the Pantry Wine Buddy that protects wine bottles when travelling.

It comes as a three-pack unit and is adjustable to fit most wine bottles. When not in use, it stores flat.

The Build It Seat Buddy is another practical solution to storing and organising items when on the move, especially helpful for securing children’s play equipment.

It has an iPad flat trap at the top to locate the tablet and three pockets in the centre.

It can be extended by adding the Build It Pocket Buddy and Kids Pocket Buddy.

Check out these systems and more at www.arb.com.au

Tingle Belles

Nestled in the valleys and slopes of Western Australia's southern high rainfall zone grow three remarkable species of eucalypts. Collectively known as Tingles, these large trees are unique to a strip that runs along the southern margins of the ancient granite block which forms much of Western Australia.

This very diverse landscape of steep sided valleys intermingled with shallow peaty swamps, dissected laterite plateaux and domed granite outcrops creates a complex ecological pattern known as the Tingle Mosaic. However, while the mosaic's communities spread over almost 4000 square kilometres, the trees for which it is named exist only in scattered pockets, hugging moisture and specific soil types.

The name 'tingle' is probably derived from Noongar: the term dingul dingul was given as the local name for yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) by botanist JH Maiden in 1911.

The best known is Red Tingle, the species to which the

popular tourist attraction the Giant Tingle belongs. Red tingle is one of the state's largest trees (outstripped only by karri) and old individuals are truly magnificentthey have an enormous, buttressed base, a single trunk and a dense, compact crown at a height of up to 70m. Early 20th century foresters recorded trees over 70m in height with 100ft (30+m) sections of unbranched trunk and nominated them "the finest tree in the state".

The Tree-Top Walk in Walpole protects the trees below.

Popular Botanics

The base of the trunk is commonly hollowed out by fire, creating a large internal cavity - so large, in fact, that photographs from earlier times show trees with a car parked inside! This width confers stability - in addition to being hollowed, the roots are not deep and the trees would otherwise topple over. Such shallow rootedness was one prompt for the construction of the Tree-Top Walk in the Valley of the Giants (Walpole). In the 1980s, it became clear that increasing foot traffic was causing significant damage to the trees and measures were needed to protect them. Red tingle wood is (unsurprisingly) dark pink to reddish-brown and was previously used in structural applications, railway sleepers and furniture. Its small flowers are white, and produced in late summer and early autumn.

Rates Tingle (Eucalyptus brevistylis) is externally similar to red tingle - the bark, leaves and flower colour are very much alike - but the trunk is shorter (25-30m), not buttressed at the base and has yellow wood. In this last respect, Rates tingle resembles Yellow tingle rather than red. Like the red tingle, both Rates and Yellow tingle produce white flowers in summer; however, Rates tingle can continue blossoming until April or May and flowers are collected into groups of 9 to 13, instead of the sevens found in other Tingles. The buds of Rates tingle are tiny - only 3 mm in both width and length. This species has the smallest distribution of all three tingles, occurring in only a few locations north-east of Walpole. The common name commemorates the first local Walpole forester John Rate, who discovered it in the 1950s.

Despite its common name, Yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) is not closely related

with DOCTOR KRIS

to the other tingle trees; in fact, among the more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, it seems to have few close relatives at all. Three features make it easy to separate from other tingles if you have the right materials: the leaves have few (or no) oil glands; the groups of flowers develop at the ends of leafy branchlets; and the fruits are barrel shaped rather than almost spherical. Tingle forests need the mild and wet climate of WA’s far south to flourish and create within themselves moist refuges for other organisms. These include barkinhabiting spiders and forest fungi that may be relics of a time when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. As such they are precious places to be celebrated and cherished.

Many of these giant trees have been hollowed out by fire.

Real Bush Tucker and Aussie Bush Sauce

Itseems almost impossible for me to think that in February 2020 Ken and I will be heading into our fifth year of station life.

Over the years there have been many things that have bought me great joy but the single thing that has bought me more wonder on a day to day basis are the plants.

Being able to learn about the environment I am living in by simply living in it has been the best way to understand how things grow and have adapted and manage to survive out here on a meagre average of 225mm of rain (that’s if we are lucky) and when the conditions are right thrive and produce the most stunning displays of wildflowers.

The wild flowers are of course just amazing, but as a cook, even more so in my mind are the edible plants that exist in our bush, the unusual seeds and fruits, leaves and tubers that helped to sustain life for thousands of years before colonisation.

Just a couple that have become family favourites are the two members of the Santalum family that grow readily in our area - Santalum acuminatum Quandong and Santalum spicatum Sandalwood.

Sandalwood Tree.

Quandong Tree.

Both have edible kernels inside a hard nut case. Quandong nuts are much harder to crack with a tougher ridged shell than Sandalwood nuts which have a thinner and smoother nut case.

The kernels of the Sandalwood and Quandong are high in oils and can both be eaten raw or are delicious lightly toasted with some olive oil and some salt bush sprinkle.

Both trees are parasitic and need a host to grow. Their favourite host plant is the acacia which is a good thing seeing most of our bush up here is acacia.

The fruit of the Quandong has long been used just as a fresh fruit, cooked or dried. I quite like it dried as the flavour is a bit more intense and tastes like peaches. When lightly poached with a little sugar and water it tastes a bit like rhubarb and is just delicious spooned over ice-cream or served with custard.

A delicious jam can be made from the fruit although I much prefer to make Quandong sauce which is an amazing accompaniment to just about anything you can apply sauce to but particularly good with flash-fried kangaroo steakettes.

Quandong harvesting season at Melangata is September, further south around the Carnamah, Perenjori and Midwest region is October and I have harvested them as far south as the Hyden-Norseman Road in mid to late November.

Sandalwood trees are a lot harder to find these days because they were pulled out and cut from the landscape to be sold off to the perfume and incense industry. As is often the case greed took over and as a result some areas that once had many sandalwood trees now have none. I am sure it would come as no surprise to learn that I am a bit protective of the ones that grow in my backyard. However, there are now large plantations of sandalwood popping up throughout the wheat belt and the sandalwood nuts are a bi-product of the timber production so with a bit of research it shouldn’t be too hard to find a supplier.

So the next time you are in the bush and happen to find yourself either a Sandalwood tree or a Quandong tree don’t be afraid to crack open a nut or pick a ripe fruit and have a taste.

Just remember to always leave some seeds for other animals and if you possibly can, take six seeds and find a nice young host tree nearby, dig three holes about one meter from the base at about 20cm deep, put two seeds in each hole and back fill.

If you are lucky some of the seeds just might grow to produce more trees for the future.

If you manage to stumble across a Quandong tree (the best places I have found are on road and rail verges in the wheat belt) with beautiful bright red fruit then be sure to pick a bag full so you can make some of your own Aussie Bush Sauce.

Sandalwood nuts.

Old fruit and nuts under the Quandong tree.

AUSSIE BUSH SAUCE

1 two litre ice-cream container of Quandong fruit, stones removed and thoroughly washed.

1 litre of water.

1 cup of vinegar.

2.5 cups of sugar.

2 teaspoons of salt or to taste.

2 teaspoons of Paprika.

2 teaspoons of minced garlic or equivalent dried or fresh.

Extra water and vinegar if the sauce becomes too thick.

Place cleaned and stoneless fruit into a saucepan with the water, bring to the boil and cook for 15 minutes.

Add all other ingredients and leave to slowly simmer until the fruit has disintegrated and started to thicken.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool then with a stick blender or a food processor blitz until you have a sauce-like consistency. If the sauce is still a little thin place back onto a very low heat until it has reduced a bit more and be sure to stir regularly as the sauce may stick.

If too thick just add a little more vinegar and water, replace on a very low heat and allow to come to the boil again then pour the sauce into glass bottles and screw on the lid straight away while very hot to create a vacuum. Enjoy.

Tip - Smoked Paprika and a little Tabasco are very nice additions.

Tip - Leave the Quandong seeds out in the sun to dry for a few months before cracking and storing the kernels.

Tip - Don’t eat Quandong or Sandlewood nuts if you find them in a little pile nowhere near a tree. These will have been through the intestines of an emu. Only do this in very desperate times.

Quandong fruit ready to be turned into Aussie Bush Sauce.

Melangata Station's Aussie Bush sauce.

A CLUB IS BORN

thing by the environment and so we have formed an alliance with Track Care WA Inc.

“The club is organised around promoting safe and sensible 4W driving and to look after the environment.”

Thefresh club, now supported by Western 4W Driver magazine, started in late September this year and already has 30 members and a Facebook page with almost 800 followers.

The popularity of the club didn’t surprise its founder, Jeff Trewick, who has been a long-time Isuzu owner and enthusiastic 4W driver with previous employment with dealership Wanneroo Isuzu Ute.

Jeff, now at 4WD accessory specialist TJM, said in his role with the dealership he worked with setting up events and collaborating with Isuzu’s ownership experience, the I-Venture Club.

“There are lots of Facebook sites but I saw a bigger opportunity to start a club with other enthusiasts,” he said.

“So with a group of people who think the same as me, we started the club.

“Most clubs are just about catching up and going for a 4WD trip. Ours is more holistic. We are heavily focused on doing the right

Jeff said the club has already been involved in joint projects with Tending the Tracks Alliance (TTTA) that is formed between the Conservation Council of WA, Track Care WA, 4WD Club of WA, WA4WDA and others.

The club was involved with the installations of fire pits at Wedge/Grey in the Wanagarren Nature Reserve near the Wedge Island settlement.

“This fire pit camp site is a trial of 12 months that will go into a new accessible area. After that we have a list of other projects with TTTA and with Track Care WA.”

Jeff is now planning a closer relationship with Isuzu Ute Australia and hopes that the club will be able to work with IAL’s I-Venture Club to help organise events for all new Isuzu owners in WA and to encourage and assist new owners to join up and experience the outdoors.

“We have honorary membership for people buying a new or used Isuzu from participating Isuzu Ute dealerships,” he said.

“That means there’s no charge for the first 12 months of membership with the club which is usually $100. The honorary membership program with dealerships is to help strengthen our working relationships with dealerships and to help grow more strength in the Isuzu brand in WA.

The inaugural executive committee addressing the crowd.

Booming Isuzu sales and a passionate band of owners has led to the opening of the state’s first Isuzu 4WD club, Isuzu 4x4 Club of WA Inc.

“The normal membership cost is to cover the hidden aspects of creating a club, such as the administration, the equipment and especially the insurance.

“The club is properly set up as a registered incorporated not-forprofit association.”

This means that the club is set up for the benefits of its members so all funds raised are used to assist the club with its running costs and activities.

Membership is encouraged for owners of Isuzu-built vehicles. Surprisingly, there’s more than just D-Max and MU-X models.

Jeff said it includes the first-generation Holden Colorado (built by Isuzu and with the Isuzu 3-litre engine), Holden Frontera, Holden Jackaroo, Holden Rodeo and some rarer imported Isuzu 4WDs such as the Isuzu Amigo, Trooper, Axiom and VehiCross.

Jeff has said there are members with varying experience from novice to very experienced.

“As the club has a safety focused approach to 4W driving, it’s a great club to be involved

with where you can make new friends with like-minded people in a family-friendly environment,” he said.

The club is already very active and is working towards having two events each month. As the club’s member base grows so will its activities.

The Isuzu 4x4 Club of WA Inc. said its growth has been attributed to its sponsors and supporters.

People interested in becoming a member of the Isuzu 4x4 Club of WA Inc. or would like to become a sponsor or supporter of the club please get in touch with the club at: info@isuzu4x4clubofwa.com.au; www. isuzu4x4clubofwa.com.au; or on Facebook.

Great turn-out at the opening night.

“The club is very passionate about the brand and we want to see it grow.

Richard from Adventure Offroad Training demonstrates safe recovery techniques.

BOTTOMS UP ON THE CANNING!

By Jan Barrie

Anyone who’s travelled on the Canning Stock Route will have fond memories of just about everything – except for the abundance of corrugations and the shortage of toilets! There are lots of different theories on how to minimize the impact of the bumps, but let’s not get bogged down in that … the toilet situation is far more pressing.

The good news is that volunteer organisation Track Care WA, who have ‘adopted’ the Stock Route, have been installing specially designed dunnies at a slashing rate for several years. However, in spite of their best efforts, until recently there were still only eleven sites along the Stock Route where bursting visitors could be invited to “Be seated, please!”. More cans on the Canning were obviously required.

For the past two decades, touring and training experts Global Gypsies have been escorting convoys of 4W drivers through the outback. One of the company’s

favourite destinations is the Canning with its remote area magic and challenging 4WD conditions. Company directors Jeremy Perks and Jan Barrie felt that as the CSR had given them and their clients so many wonderful experiences over the years that it was time to give something back. They decided they wanted to refurbish a well and build another much-needed loo to make up a ‘Dirty Dozen’. Their research indicated that the best location would be Well 46.

For those not familiar with the Stock Route, this may not sound like much of an aspiration. But folks who know and love the Canning will realise that it would be a massive undertaking involving complex logistics, purpose-built equipment, tricky transportation, extensive coordination and hours of manual labour.

There are 51 wells along the CSR between Halls Creek and Wiluna, stretched out over almost 2000kms of wild country. Well 46 is situated approximately 500 rough, bum-bashing kilometres from Halls Creek. It’s a favourite stop for travellers because it has good water, some lovely trees and a large, flat, open camping area. But because this majestic site had no throne, hundreds of campers each year were ‘doing their business’ in the nearby bush and some of them weren’t so tidy about it. Consequently this charming remote spot was not only unhygienic and lacking in creature comforts, but was often disgustingly decorated with toilet paper strung round like confetti and land mines dropped strategically near tents and campfires … not very respectful for the environment or for other travellers. A dunny was long overdue, not just for hygienic and aesthetic reasons, but also to improve the overall visitor experience for outdoor enthusiasts tackling one of the most challenging 4WD tracks in the world. Meanwhile, flushed with success from their 2017 Canning expedition, gypsy Jeremy was having a fireside chat with CSR-tragics, keen 4W drivers, loyal clients and retired entrepreneurs, Jim and Lisa Bond. Between them they hatched a cracking plan to resolve the dunny dilemma at Well 46. The Bonds would provide some seed capital to get things rolling, then Global Gypsies would design a ‘voluntour’ for previous CSR clients to supply a willing work force and attract additional funding to pay for the necessary building materials.

The Ngurrara Rangers, who are the custodians of the relevant section of the Canning, would be asked to give their support for the project to proceed on their country, to assist with construction and to share their cultural and local knowledge with the volunteers.

Track Care WA would be approached to provide their expertise and project management skills to source and transport the materials and coordinate and supervise the work. The project would be self-funding and Track Care would also receive a generous corporate donation.

It took over two years to bring the project to fruition, but with everyone behind it construction finally began in July 2019. The working group comprised of Des Bunter (Project Leader), Peter Cooper, Des DeGruchy, Brett O'Leary and Jan Bunter from Track Care WA; Elton and Edmond Smiler, Kevin Tromp, Lionel Catada, Jamin Bent and Damian Hastings-James from the Ngurrara Rangers and gypsy voluntourists

Jim and Lisa Bond, Norm and Marie Blackburn, Bill and Mas O’Neil, John and Joan Carn, Grahame Edgar, Ken McIntosh, Suzanne Gallagher, Kirsten Harris, Kayleigh Stoddart, Ross McGillivray, Gerhardt Strumpher, Klaus Vollrath, Chris Brandsch, Terry Brewin and Jeremy Perks.

The double-storey, self-composting loo and accessories specially designed by Des Bunter were flat-packed onto a trailer and towed on site. They arrived with every part precision-made and every nut and bolt supplied – the IKEA of the outback but no allen-key was required. It took 30 people a week to refurbish the well and assemble and erect the toilet. Then halle-loo-yah! The project was complete and Well 46 had a brand new dunny and a reliable, functioning well!

In addition to the tangible results, there were other invaluable outcomes as well. The camaraderie that was achieved and the group interaction that occurred – not just during construction but around the campfire where stories were shared and friendships were built – was treasured by everyone who participated. Jeremy said, “It was a most unusual and incredibly rewarding experience. It was a joy to spend relaxed, quality time with the Ngurrara Rangers on their beloved country. We learned a lot about indigenous culture and were humbled by the warm reception and welcome we received. It is important to remember that just over 100 years ago those same wells were constructed by Europeans with the enforced participation of

indigenous people under very different and quite shameful circumstances and conditions."

"Several members of the team had ancestors who were in Alfred Canning’s original working party.

How uplifting to realize that there we were, a century later, working together harmoniously to achieve shared objectives on a project which had so much significance for us all. We were in the same location with the same goals, even with descendants from the same families, but fortunately at a very different time in our nation’s history.”

Highlights included the dedication, enthusiasm and hard work of the participants; completing the project faster than anticipated due to the thought and precise workmanship of the dunny design which made installation so streamlined; the excellent bush mechanic skills required to make a couple of tricky vehicular repairs; collecting $1000 in ‘silly fines’ for Track Care for various client crimes and misdemeanours; the Welcome to Country by the Rangers which included a traditional ‘smoking’ and water-splashing ceremony; learning about the precious 20 year old Ngurrara Canvas which depicts the Canning from an Aboriginal perspective; and the festive “Completion of the Dunny” sit-down celebration which involved an official christening and a ‘white ribbon’ cutting event using Trump-illustrated toilet paper!

So if you’re travelling on the Canning, stop at Well 46, check out the new thunderbox and take a moment to appreciate how it got there. You might just be moved to say, “Thanks, folks! Well done and bottoms up to you all!”

Phytophthora Dieback HygieneDWG Green Card TrainingTM

Like many recreational vehicle users, Pat Jenkin (4WD Club of WA) said, "A lot of what I thought I knew was from general conversations with other 4W drivers and mainstream media.

To say I was misinformed is an understatement, I now realise just how potentially devastating this water based spore can be, it is easily transferred and as recreational bush users we need to be more aware of how to limit the spread so we can still enjoy what I have always just taken for granted."

To improve awareness, Track Care WA partnered with the Department of Biodiversity, Conservations and Attractions, Parks and Wildlife Service (DBCA) to develop a pilot project to train recreational 4WD and motorised recreational vehicle operators about Phytophthora

Dieback and other biosecurity issues. This training was designed for anyone who works (volunteers) and/or operates other motorised recreational vehicles in areas where there is a risk of spreading Phytophthora Dieback or other biosecurity risks.

Pat went on to say, "Now I was under the impression it was Jarrah dieback so when I found out Dieback is a symptom of a Phytophthora infection, and affects more

than 40 per cent of the native plant species and half of the endangered ones in the south west of Western Australia I was dumb founded. The fungus is spread through the movement of soil and mud, especially by vehicles and footwear. It also moves in free water and via root-to-root contact between plants. At the moment there is no known cure for the disease."

The program resulted in twenty two offroad vehicle user participants being trained by Bruno, a Dieback Working Group contractor, who delivered their DWG Green Card TrainingTM (Phytophthora Dieback Hygiene) that is recognised by WA government authorities as a prerequisite to gaining the skills and knowledge needed to manage your risk of spreading Phytophthora Dieback. David Charles (Department of Biodiversity, Conservations and Attractions, Swan Coastal District, Parks and Visitor Services Coordinator) said, "It was encouraging to see these numbers of 4W drivers attending the training and

that they will now be able to pass their knowledge on to other 4W drivers and help to prevent the spread of dieback through parks, reserves and native bush lands."

Track Care and DBCA partner in several track rationalisation and rehabilitation projects so having improved biosecurity knowledge to achieve best practice field hygiene will ensure that their good volunteer work won’t be undone by unknowingly spreading Phytophthora Dieback into susceptible areas.

Track Care WA Inc. would like to thank DBCA for funding support that made this project a success, David Charles and Yanchep National Park staff for their assistance preparing the training venue, Gloucester House. We also acknowledge the participants who gave up part of their weekend to travel from Esperance, Albany, Bunbury and many metropolitan locations to learn how to better manage risks associated with spreading Phytophthora Dieback. Well done all!

Time to spare

By Nick Underwood

Thatcommodity almost as precious as air dominated everything.

Deadlines, running late, an hour up the sleeve, take a rain check, clock onclock off, the ultimate excuse for things not happening - driven by the clock we crammed life in around the edges of a working day.

Old habits die hard. Rising (at an acceptable hour) we now ask, "What's on the agenda today?"

This remnant urge to fill in time lingers on but now it's gilded with pleasure and anticipation.

The latter was in abundance with our recent and inaugural adventure in retirement up the coast to Lingerloo and persisted through to the tail of the trip where we dropped in for a few day's 'work' with Track Care at Warriedar homestead.

Track Care WA, on behalf of all 4W drivers, has been going at it for well over 20 years now and projects like Warriedar lock in public access to vast tracts of land like the Karara block encompassing Thundelarra, Burnerbinmah, Warriedar and Karara right up to Kadji Kadji in the north - all exrangeland properties in the Midwest and now managed by Parks and Wildlife.

Warriedar Homestead and surrounds has been slowly restored by Track Care volunteers and as a result will be developed as a campsite in line with similar opportunities further north at Thundelarra. The scope of works this time included replacing verandah posts and beams,

replacing a section of collapsed ceiling and painting the outside of the buildinga workload we as newbies thought was a bit ambitious to be achieved in a couple of days but which the 15 or so projecthardened volunteers took in their stride.

With project leader Grant at the helm we all formed groups to tackle the various tasks and before long settled into a rhythm of cooperation. Susie found herself on the end of a roller in the painting team and

It's not until we pull out of the race at the end of a working life that we realise how much time we spent filling in time.

was impressed that they managed to paint almost the entire outside of the house while I jumped on the verandah post and beam team where I could play with saws, hammers and drills.

On the afternoon of day three with all jobs completed we bailed for home while the rest of the crew popped up to Thundelarra for a bit of R&R. What impressed us most about the experience was the indomitable spirit of the volunteers. From the happy banter and legpulling throughout the day to great chats around the campfire, we were made most welcome by this band of quiet achievers. Having had a taste we're bound to do more once our retirement wanderlust has abated and we encourage anyone who has the time to spare to jump on board a Track Care project. It's great fun and seriously rewarding. Hit the Track Care website for more details of up-coming projects and meeting dates. www.trackcare.com.au facebook.com/trackcare

Patrick & Magalia Oliver

Wemet Patrick and Magalia when we were camped next to them at Melangata Station. What immediately jumped out was that although the married couple were travelling together (nothing unusual there right?) they were travelling in separate vehicles. Passionate explorers of Western Australia, the couple like nothing better than jumping in their heavily modified (more about that later) 2011 LC200 Sahara and their as yet unmodified 90 Series SWB Defender and hitting the roads less travelled.

Immigrating to Western Australian in 2001 from Durban (South Africa) they immediately fell in love with WA. Their first impression was the distinct lack of hills and the lack of knowledge that Perth locals have about places to visit around the state.

Patrick, born in Mt Isa to French parents, spent most of his childhood in South Africa. Magalia, also with a French heritage was born in Madagascar and has lived all over Africa. As a result of her time there, she has spent a lot of time in Land Rovers.

THE PEOPLE WE MEET

By Chris Morton

She loves their simplicity and absolute reliability, although she concedes that the installation of a larger fuel tank and UHF radio will make their trips that little bit better.

When I asked them why they travel in two vehicles, Magalia’s response was “preference”. She loves driving her Land Rover and Patrick loves the LandCruiser. It also means that they can travel alone (together) and be completely selfsufficient. Two vehicles provide that extra level of security in the event of a break down or getting stuck somewhere and stops the arguments about who’s turn it is to drive.

The couple don’t really identify themselves as 4W drivers as such. They prefer to define themselves as 'overlanders', travelling light (albeit in two cars), their LandCruiser being their ultimate home away from home.

Patrick and Magalia with 'Helga'.

'Hilda'.

It is immediately apparent that many hours of thought have been invested into the layout and design of 'Helga' (2011 LandCruiser Sahara) as an overlanding vehicle. They have done all the obvious upgrades:

• ARB Loop Bar sporting Light Force spotlights

• Lovells 3800 GVM suspension upgrade

• Perth Diesel Performance chip

• Safari snorkel

• 2nd fuel filter

• Catch Can

• Taipan 3 ½" exhaust

• Outback Accessories long range fuel tank (270 litres)

• Outback Accessories dual wheel carrier

• 270 degree awning

• Separate shower awning

• Alucab rooftop tent

• Dual battery system

When you take a peek inside, things start to get a little more interesting:

• Quick Pitch campers rear drawer and storage build including slide out kitchen, 35 litre Dometic drawer fridge and 60 litre water tank.

• Gull Wing storage hatch on passenger side – complete with clip on platform, brew making facility and secret 'smuggler’s box'

• Integrated ARB compressor

• 60 litre National Lunar fridge

• Dedicated charging station

To ensure that they are travelling as light as possible they choose to use silicone based collapsible cookware (later identified as Sea to Summit’s X-Range), light weight crockery and cutlery. They employ a Coleman Gladiator gas stove (which fits neatly into the pull-out kitchen setup) and a small foldable grill for cooking over an open fire.

Patrick confessed that the LandCruiser is a work in progress with him always tinkering

and improving their setup. They both love sleeping in the roof top tent and highly rated it as being "worth every cent".

It was apparent that many hours of thought had gone into the design of the fit-out and the workmanship by Quick Pitch was clear. The fact that everything was in excellent condition and functioning the same as when the build was complete was further testament to this fact.

Magalia said that there were plans afoot to make some minor modifications to 'Hilda' with the installation of a UHF radio and long-range fuel tank however that was all she thought she needed. Keeping her as original as possible was a major part of the attraction for Magalia driving the stocky little 90 series Rover.

Patrick and Magalia, it was great to meet you both. Safe travels.

The Prospectors Pick

The Prospectors Pick™ is a Bunbury based

that strives on great service to

manufactures innovative products

a more enjoyable experience.

13

9791

www.prospectorspick.com.au

We sell metal detectors for the serious gold prospector or beach and treasure hunters alike. Minelab is our choice of detectors, as we feel they are the best metal detectors available in the world today. Along with an abundance of quality accessories we can also train you in the operation of your purchase.

We have recently released two brand new products that have been developed and manufactured in house by our team. Currently The Prospectors PickTM is the only detector shop stocking these products.

EASY ARM™ is what it suggests, a device that is spring loaded and takes a lot of weight off your arm and shoulder therefore allowing you more time out there looking for gold.

Both the EASY ARM™ and the Easy Swing™ can be used on good quality metal detectors with ease. You can visit our website www.prospectorspick.com.au and view videos on the performance.

EASY SWING™ is another innovative aid that was originally developed for the more serious prospector who is using bigger, heavier search coils on their detectors. The Easy Swing™ is now being used by a large cross section of prospectors who may be swinging bigger coils or the prospector who has shoulder or back problems.

CAPTURE THE

MENT

JamesElliot took this month’s winning picture at D’Entrecasteaux National Park. We’re very glad he did and that he sent it into us. It’s a beauty! James shows us in his picture that he is a careful and balanced person…there are a number of clues:

I. He’s gotten the horizon level. Even though we can’t see out to sea and see that the sea is flat, he’s made sure that the picture doesn’t tilt either way. He may have used the inbuilt artificial horizon in his digital camera, or he may have used a little line level from Bunnings. He might have gotten it slightly skewed while at the

shore but has sensibly corrected it all in his computer before finishing the image.

II. James is showing us four planes of scenery; the foreground rock, the rough water beyond, the intriguing second hole in the seaside cliff, and the rest of the coastline beyond that. That’s careful looking and clever illustration. We look deeper and deeper into the scene.

III. Rough and smooth - texture and rhythm. James has seen the rocks and the wild coastal water…and then given us a glimpse of the blue sky beyond. That’s artistry, folks. Music in a picture.

With Uncle Dick Stein

done

IV. Warm and cold. The foreground rocks have yellow and orange in them. The further ones hardly any. The sea beyond is misty and blue. That’s a clue to our inner brain that we’re seeing distance, even if it is really only on the plane of the picture.

Now James has had to cope with something that pesters all of us when we try to capture Western Australian scenery in the sunlight; the fact that our eyes can see more than our cameras can. We have strong sunlight and clear skies here - and harsh shadows as a result. Our camera’s sensors can only cope with so much of this before they start to give us whited-out skies or blackedout shadows.

Some cameras cope better than othersbut they all struggle. You can help with the fight by several means:

1. Use a small extra flash or the inbuilt flash on your camera to spritz a little light into the foreground. You might feel silly doing it in full sunlight, but the result can be better.

2. Take your photo on a tripod. Set the camera to do an HDR shot - many modern digitals can do this as a matter of course.

Or just take three shots in a short space of time, but turn the compensation dial from -1 to 0 to +1 as you do the three. Later, your computer’s picture editing program may be able to make a more evenly-toned image out of the three combined. This won’t work with moving subjects or moving cameras.

If you can only come home to your computer with one picture, you can still improve matters. Select the area that is too light or too dark in the picture and make a separate layer of it. Then make that layer brighter or darker, more or less contrast, or whatever you think it should be and flatten that into your final image.

Be careful with the selection of the area and no-one will think it unusual - their eyes are used to seeing better in contrast situations than their cameras. Beware of areas of unusual brightness that might give the effect away - but sea-mist or clouds can usually work out very well.

PS: If contrast differences are impossible to defeat in colour, consider changing your picture to a monochrome one. Black and white or toned images are not only fashionable, but beautiful as well.

SEALING BROOMECAPE LEVEQUE ROAD

By Melissa Connell

In the 70’s Joni Mitchell wrote the lyrics "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". Since then, the song has almost become an anthem against the developing of wild spaces in the name of progress. During a recent trip north of Broome I watched road workers toil away on widening and bituminising the iconic red dirt Broome - Cape Leveque Road. I also saw new campsites and tourism offerings popping up left, right and centre. There was a strong feeling of change in the air and I couldn’t help but reflect on Joni’s lyrics.

Known as Ardi to the indigenous Bardi people, the Dampier Peninsula is camping heaven with beachfront hideaways like Middle Lagoon and Gumbanan offering rustic campsites and great fishing. Many of the indigenous communities dotted around the peninsula offer tourists the opportunity to come and stay on their land and experience the Ardi traditional way of life. Go mud crabbing at Lombadina; discover 7,000 year old fish traps at Whalesong; learn about bushtucker from Brian Lee; or just string up a hammock and do nothing at all. Living’s easy up the Dampier Peninsula. Kooljaman, Beagle Bay, One Arm Point and the other peninsula communities are currently serviced by a 200km pindan

GOINGS ON

road that runs north from Broome up to Cape Leveque. This road is a true icon of the region, with the road itself being photographed almost as many times as the famous red cliffs of Western Beach at Cape Leveque. But time is running out for travellers who want to experience the peninsula before the pindan gets bituminised and the day trippers arrive. There are estimates of a 40% rise in travellers in the years following the completion of the $65m Broome - Cape Leveque Road Upgrade Project (2021).

By that stage the entire 200km road would have been sealed (at the moment, only 90km is sealed). The road is currently restricted to 4WDs only, minimising visitor numbers and environmental damage. Sure, this road can be a pain, with heavy corrugations and also floods cutting access during the Wet Season. But the bitumen will change all of that, allowing for year-round access and faster travel times. So, how will the peninsula and its local residents handle all of these extra travellers?

When I recently travelled through, I noticed that some of the campsites had fresh signs stuck to their front offices and entrances saying ‘$10 fee for day use’ or ‘no drones’. These requests seem fair enough, as people trying to get away from it all are increasingly feeling agitated by the buzzing noise of drones overhead. And a fee for land access also seems like a fair request when entering onto privately-owned land.

On our website www.thekimberleyaustralia. com we recently put a poll out to our readers, asking the question ‘Should there be a toll to pay on Cape Leveque Road?’ A local man named Steve responded:

"As a resident on the Peninsula

I believe tourists should be charged a toll. The funds raised will benefit the local communities to fund local projects, rangers and upkeep of the road. So many tourists come up for weeks at a time, they are self-sufficient and therefore contribute very little to the local community. Yet their presence has great impact on services, waste and land management. A toll will assist communities to deal with this impact."

Meanwhile, over on our Facebook page www. facebook.com/TheKimberley we had a mixed bag of responses including Tomasz who said: "Do they think people are so stupid?! (Or maybe they are?) The road wasn't upgraded for the tourists! It was upgraded for the heliport that supports oil and gas operations in the Browse Basin! Surely if they haven't already contributed in funding the project they surely bloody should! So don't give me the soapy story about preserving the environment and s**t! No one would build the road first and then think, "oh crap what have we done - there's too many tourists now! Let's start selling tickets to save the place!"

Broome-based environmental group Environs Kimberley suggested a full social impact assessment of the road upgrade. In an article published by the ABC, EK Director Martin Pritchard said that the road could become the "road to Paradise Lost" unless more was done to protect "this jewel of Aboriginal culture and nature-based tourism on Broome's doorstep". Without a doubt, this pristine region needs to be properly managed so that it can continue to be enjoyed for generations to come. In the wise words of Joni Mitchell, ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’.

Excerpt from Hema’s WA State map.

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Written by kids ... for kids

TREASURE ON THE BEACH

Have you ever wondered what the shells that wash up on the beach used to be? We have, and that is why we decided to find out more about a few of our favourites. Something that we always enjoy looking for on the beach are cowrie shells. Cowrie shells were once home to sea snails and what makes them special is that they are highly polished on the outside as well as on the inside.

We also love searching for scallop shells. They can be found in many different colours and sizes. Scallops can swim by clapping their shells together quickly and do this to escape predators. They have about 60 eyes! They line their mantle and can be a brilliant blue

Cowrie shells.

Scallops start out as two hinged shells.The cowrie in its former life as a sea snail.

One of the more interesting things we have found on the beach are sand dollars. They are the skeletons of a particular type of sea urchin. When they are alive they are covered in very fine hairs which help them move across the ocean floor and when they are dead they wash up on to the beach and are bleached white by the sun.

A live sand dollar uses its hairs to move along the sand.

There are so many things to explore and investigate on the beach.

We think that it is cool that the ocean can wash up all of these amazing and unusual treasures. So have a look - you never know what the next tide is going to bring.

The sand dollar skeletons have such a pretty pattern.

What interesting

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Taking life with a grain of salt

When I saw tyre tracks on a salt lake (Lake Cowan) just outside Norseman I figured it was drivable. Little did I know there had been 200ml of rain there over the last two weeks. I slowed down and hit it assuming it was hard. It wasn't. I sunk and was trapped there from 2pm to 10pm. The next morning we tried a tow truck but they too got stuck. We ended up getting a front loader to pull both of us out. It was not fun but a valuable lesson was learned that day!

Jamie Lee Dibble

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Hi Jamie, Whoever said that you should follow the path least travelled has obviously never attempted to drive on a salt lake. There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling and the realisation that you are indeed stuck, on a salt lake, in the middle of nowhere. To rub salt into the wound there is usually no mobile signal either. Well done for finally getting out of the mire Jamie. I am sure it would have been a stressful time, however looking back I am sure you can have a laugh about it now. Lesson learned. For taking the time to share your predicament with us you have won yourself a set of the world famous Maxtrax.

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