You have heard of the novel "A Tale of Two Cities", well today was " a day of 6 tales".

Tale 1. Before getting underway from Hells Gate Roadhouse Nina did a bit more exploring. What she found is recorded in the first few photos below.

  • a water hole just out the back of the camping ground

  • me waiting around for her explorations to finish

  • a dog that brought its own stick for a game and apparently was very insistent that Nina play

  • an interesting historical tidbit about why the Gulf Savannah Region was openned up in the 1800s

The first leg of the road west, the section from Hells Gate to the NT Border. This was mostly reasonable quality dirt road (with patches of paved single lane). The border is marked by a plethora of signs. A photo is almost manditory. Please note the section of pavement with all the white marks indicating areas that require repair. These are abundant.

Tale 2. Throughout the day we passed or crossed a number of rivers/creeks. To us it was surprising how much water was around as we are conditioned by our experiences in Northern SA, the NT and central WA. These crossings are really very pretty and uplifing places to take a little break. Except for the disposable diapers that one finds lying around. Some people really are pigs.

Tale 3. Lost property. Brendon communicated to us a few days back that they had left behind a small bag of pegs in a little green bag at one of their campsites. Could we look to see if we could find it. It was on the West side of the crossing of the Calvert River at the top of the rise after exiting the creek and gave us approximate GPS coordinates. Well contrary to expectations we found it. F..king amazing.

Tale 4. Things went downhill after that. From the Calvert River onwards the road deteriorated; vast fields of heavy corrugations, loose deep gravel, patches of bull dust and mile after mile of this ribbon of red dirt off into the distance between never ending trees.

I can certainly understand why Brendon could not find any more elaborate words than "this was hard" to describe riding this section of road. I would have found it hard work on a motor cycle and was about to find it hard work even in a car.

Tale 5. Shit, tyre change time. The vehicle wobbled a bit. That's not right I thought; let's stop and look. As you have already guessed what I found was a tyre going flat. At this point I was thinking.

  • Thank someone (not god he does not exist) I checked before leaving home that I had all the jack and tyre changing gear.

  • Very pleased that I bought that second spare tyre and wheel just before we left home.

  • Shit the vehicle is sitting very low; how will I get the jack under the axle.

  • Even before I started doing anything; I am too old for this shit.

So, find a big rock. Bring the flat wheel up onto the rock (only low range and diff lockers made this possible). Get out the little digging tool we bought in Cairns and dig a hole under the axle.

Now the jack fits. Soon the jack is up, the wheel is changed and we are ready to move again.

I am covered in dirt and feeling like I have just run a marathon. I am right, I really am too old for this shit.

Our destination Borroloola has a tyre repair shop and it's still open when we get there. They will even look at the tyre now (4:35). But its beyond repair - RIP poor tyre.

Tale 6. More breakage. In the Borroloola Campground as we are setting up camp we notice that one of the latches on the poptop tent has broken. Just a clean fracture. I cannot cope so Nina gets the job of finding some dinner in town and putting me to bed.

At this point it is obvious to both of us that we have to abort this part of the trip on dirt roads, until we have a second spare tyre and have repaired the poptop tent.