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Happiness Is The Road
No storm had brewed overnight and although it was cloudy when we got up it was dry. We had an audience of peacocks and the strutting cockerel for brekky. We hit the road just before 10 with the intention of driving at least as far as Port Hedland which was about 250 kilometres away. About 50 kilometres into the journey it started to spit. In the space of a few minutes the spitting had turned into a fierce and intense torrential downpour. Even with the wipers on full throttle the visibility had become atrocious and our speed was down from 100kph to only about 15kph. The rain was sweeping across the bush in huge swathes. It was quite dramatic stuff. The intensity did ease somewhat after a while and we got back up to a decent speed. We did though have to slow down every now again to go around flooded parts of the road. There was a lot of water gathering alongside some sections of the road and the rivers and creeks that we were going over were flowing with a hell of a lot of force and were fit to bursting. We were about 20 kilometres away from Port Hedland when we saw a caravan stopped at the side of the road ahead. Just beyond this we saw that the highway was completely flooded all the way across. There were two huge sections of the road that were flooded and it looked very deep. A creek had burst and there was fast flowing water going across the highway. It had stopped raining now but the water was still flowing with some force. We pulled over behind the caravan to assess the situation. We sat there for about half an hour and watched what was going on. There were vehicles going through the flood but they were all four wheel drives some pulling caravans with high clearance and the road trains. They were all getting through okay but we didn't fancy our chances much. A guy in a four wheel drive came through from the other direction and stopped to say something to the people in the caravan in front of us. He then pulled up to us. He was a typical Australian blokey bloke and he told us that we'd make it through. I asked him how deep it was and he said that it was only half a wheel deep. His wheels were much bigger than ours though so I just said 'thanks mate' and off he went. The caravan in front of us then decided to go for it. They were in a four wheel drive towing a big off roading caravan but they appeared to bottle it as he stopped when he got right up close to the water. He then decided to go and we watched him successfully emerge at the other side. During all the time we had been watching absolutely no two wheel drive vehicles had gone through. We made the sensible decision to turn round and go back. It was too much of a risk to go through as there was a high chance that we could flood the engine. It was a risk that we couldn't afford to take. A few kilometres away from the flood we noticed a road train pulled up in a lay by with his bonnet open. It was a road train that we had seen drive through the flood earlier. Was he suffering the consequences of the flood? We figured that if one of these beasts could have problems we definitely would have done. Our initial plan was to go back about 50 kilometres to a rest area with toilets we had passed earlier and then come back tomorrow and try again when the waters had hopefully subsided. When we got to the rest area the ground there was like a mud bath and through fear of getting stuck here we decided to go even further back to the Pardoo Roadhouse where there was a proper caravan park. By the time we got to Pardoo we had travelled about 100 kilometres back in the direction we had come from. We would have wasted 200 kilometres worth of petrol but we figured that this was a lot cheaper than ******* over the camper vans engine! We managed to get a space on the caravan park at Pardoo Roadhouse but only just as about an hour after we got there it completely filled up. The guy at the Roadhouse told me that the highway had now been officially closed to anything but four wheel drives and that it could be a couple of days before it was reopened to conventional vehicles. He told me to check back in the morning for the latest roads report. An unseasonal tropical low had hit the area and had dumped as much rain on the region as a tropical cyclone normally does. Apparently a lot of raods in the area had been submerged. We just resigned ourselves to waiting it out here. It was a nice enough place and we were in absolutely no hurry whatsoever. Soon after we got there a couple in a massive caravan, who we later found out were Paul and Ruth, rocked up next to us. When they got out Jay commented about what a great job he'd done in reversing such a big caravan into a pretty tight space. We had a little chat with him and his wife and they seemed really nice. They were travelling round with their friends, Paul and Anthea, who were in a camper trailer just behind us. About an hour or so later Paul came round and asked us if we'd like to join them all for drinks. We accepted this kind offer and went round with our chairs and some beers. It was chucking it down with rain again now and we all sat under the caravan's awning. They were in their late fifties/early sixties and were very friendly and extremely easy to talk to. They were all from the Adelaide Hills and we talked about Australia, the UK, the floods, alcohol and loads of stuff. They were pretty big drinkers. I had some beers and Jay got stuck into their red wine. We were having such a good time that when they had their meal they suggested that we went back to the camper to prepare our food and bring it back to eat with them and carry on chatting. The rain was pelting it down but it didn't matter as we were having a great evening. Just before ten they called it a night and we wobbled back next door to our camper. They were both heading south tomorrow and to the flood. They were leaving early and big Paul took our phone number and said that he'd call us once they were through the flooded area to let us know whether our little camper would make it. That was really good of him. We went to sleep with the warm fuzzies and to the sound of the rain belting down on the roof. We hoped that the rain would stop soon and that maybe we could sail through tomorrow, but hopefully not literally!
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