Once on the track yet again the conditions were still favourable for us and we stuck to a fairly constant pace of 70 ish Kms per hour with some slower and a couple quicker sections when we came upon a stranded French backpacker in a vs commodore wagon with a flat tyre and seemingly no idea how to fix it, so I felt obliged to help the poor bugger and within half an hour we aired his tyres down a tad to lessen the shock on the car and fitted his spare tyre which was already plugged on the sidewall , thanks and a yak later we took off then 30 minutes later we took the side trip to check out the ruins at Mt Doreen station and the abandoned ruin .
Looks like the odd person camps here but mostly just rusty ruins of a few vehicles and a old pump station or generator housing and the half circle of a shelter of some sort .
A few happy snaps and a cold drink later we took a different track back out to the Tanami with a few more pics of the old mine site and the stone building still standing strong albeit without a roof .
As we entered the track proper a nomad was parked in a rest area with his roof up , as it was a Nissan I was a little concerned , lol.
But he was just having a cuppa for morning tea and we discussed the track ahead with some animated commentary on some wrecks in the middle of the road .
Then up the road again with quite a bit of mine traffic and yet another game of car and mouse with a mob of fellas heading north in a troopy.
We made lunch at the unusual hour of midday , yes strange for us !). Where we made hot dogs with home made sauce ( thanks aunty neena) and some good mustard as we sat we watched a fleet of four graders making the track a bit more hospitable for the travellers we packed up from the sticky north wind with fire in the distance that looked to be covering a massive area to the south west ( I'm afraid maybe towards our friend Willems famous gq patrol!).
As we slipped back onto the famous track we slipped in between two graders and gained a good lick of speed on the newly graded side of the road for quite a while then phone reception and quick check of emails on the fly past the granites where I was supposed to be working last year but gained good local employment in Darwin the day the job was offered .
The sealed section and mobile coverage petered out soon enough and of course a wee stop was needed for Shahla bear so we found a nice camp site and Shahla did her deed and I added a jerry to the car just in case .
As we entered the track again we got passed but some backpackers in a falcon wagon with a surfboard on top and what looked like very meagre supplies .
We managed to pass them fairly soon as we could handle the conditions better and their shackles sounded pretty shagged .
I decided to try and fuel up at Billuluna but man what a mistake that was , we just missed the shop and as we needed a fuel card not a credit card we had no option but to hotfoot it as this town was a real shocker and made all feel uncomfortable and we had been in plenty of outback communities before now.
6 cars of mostly aboriginals we had been passing on the Tanami pulled up behind but needed fuel more than us before heading Into the desert.
The store owner wasn't any help to all 7 cars wanting fuel as apparently it was empty .
Now the friggen car had no dash lights and wouldn't start , talk about a Wolfe creek moment or what and with the a few locals who wouldn't or couldn't talk and the travellers who were only keeping to themselves we got the tried to get hell out of dodge to no avail, after sorting out main fuses and neutral selector switches I eventually found a broken main fusible link had broken on the start battery I wasn't fixing it here so I jump started the connecting cable and cruised to Wolfe creek arriving at an early darkness of 6 pm , yes a few hours outside of our comfort zone as we tried to make the most of the time advantage over the W.A border .
Not long before the turnoff a black cat crossed in front of us , omfg what an ominous sign before heading into the crater site .
However this was forgotten as a brilliant dust red sun descended in the west .
Once here it was all good we quickly setup with 4 other campers around and made toasted wraps and weren't long out of bed all a bit weary from the longer day and time zone gain .
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