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Thanks for all of the comments, good to hear from the Alders, Stouts, Gormans and Evers. You may think you missed these blogs but I am backdating them to the dates when we were at the location being written about for the sake of our journal which will eventually be printed. Currently we are in Alice Springs. Read and enjoy.
If you read the blog about Fred you would agree that he showed some typical behaviour patterns of the 60+ tourist. And there are numerous other examples of this, just today we overtook a large rig parked up on the side of the road. When we looked out to see why they had stopped a grey haired lady waited patiently while her chihuahua did its business in the bushes. Garry and I exchanged a knowing glance.
There is also the tourist that has spacial awareness issues. As we pulled into Windjana Gorge bush camp for our first night on the Gibb we were thinking of what a ripper fire we might have. The National Parks on the west coast had a lot of fire restrictions so we hadn't had many until now and we were looking forward to a really big one. So we were wrapped when we found a beautiful shady spot with a big fire pitt in front. We pulled up about 6 or 7 metres from the fire pitt and whipped the Jayco up in record time. Garry hauled over his stash of wood to the fire pit and we decided to go and have a look at the Gorge since it was still early afternoon.
Windjana Gorge is fairly spectacular gorge with a water hole surrounded by sandy banks. As you walk into the gorge there are a large number of fresh water crocadiles laying around. This was our first encounter with crocadiles in the wild so we were gone from our camp for several hours.
When we returned to our camp Garry and I stopped dead for someone had set up their canvas camper trailer about a metre and a half in front of the fire but with the camper facing away from the fire. Our hopes of a really huge fire diminished a little. Garry shook his head and went about setting up the fire anyway mumbling 'too bad we're still having the fire' and 'its gonna get really smokey in there tonight.'
When the people returned there were two guys and a girl with a young baby. They sort of looked at us as if they hadn't seen the fire pit or the wood and said 'Oh your having a fire.'
'Feel free to join us anytime' Garry said to them and they smiledhalf heartedly and nodded.
So we carried on with our fire, making dinner, roasting marshmallows and having a few drinks. We did our best to shuffle around the fire without hitting their camper with our chairs and we tried to keep the chatter down while they put their baby to sleep and we discouraged Heath from swinging his fire stick around with as much gusto as usual. By about 9pm we crawled into bed.
Within about 15 minutes a huge blaze appeared through the window and Garry jumped up. This made me jump and initially I thought the fire had restarted by itself.
"Hows their form" Garry said peering out of the window.
Our space challenged campers had decided to join the fire and help themselves to the rest of our wood.
Next morning Garry stepped out of the camper and hollered in the directiion of our neighbours "hey kids get the wood on the fire and start it up for breakfast" and then in a lower mumble "oh look, no wood, I could have sworn."
Shortly after this we met Emma and Justin who carried with them a chainsaw. Every fire from then on was a ripper. In fact Justin was somewhat obsessed and added stump apon stump until we were sitting around a massive blaze, beaded with sweat, potatoes on the coles beyond an edible state and the billie dried up. We moved our chairs back to stop the same from happening to us and when we could no longer hear or see each other over the crackle of the fire or the smoke we went to bed with melted boots and the thick smell of smoke burned deep into our nostrils, hair and clothing. Aaaaaaah memories of nights on the Gibb.
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