Tennant Creek and Warrego ( 12th- 21st June)

We arrived in Tennant Creek and headed towards the information centre. Sadly, the old Battery mine, also the information centre, has mainly closed now and only the museums are open. They did have a great rock and mineral and metal museum. You can get a lot of information about what to do and where to go. We picked up a card with Dale's name on it. He was a local police officer with a hobby as a gold fossicker and could lead us to where we could search for gold. We met him out near Warrego, an old town West of Tennant Creek, which was booming during the gold mining days but this has since been vandalised and closed down. We stayed on site and tried out a metal detector that Dale was happy to sell. The morning that we met him we also met a guy called Jerry which was the start of a new friendship and another chapter in our journey.

While Luuk tried out the metal detector Dale was selling, Jerry allowed me to use his spare Minelab 4500, a really good detector in gold fossicking terms. We were out with a group of about 12 people and I was the first to find a piece, although small, extremely exciting as it was my first ever piece of gold. Jerry helped me find the small piece amongst the dirt as there is a real technique to sifting through to find your prize. He was just as excited as I was. In comparing the metal detector from Jerry and that of Dale we decided against buying Dale's as it was more temperamental and difficult to tune. Over the next few days we stayed at Warrego and Luuk and I shared the Minelab 4500, I going out for a 'swing' with Jerry in the morning and Luuk did a 'patch' in the afternoon. The kids came out every now and then but weren't able to hold the detector as it was too big.

In return for Jerry's kindness we invited him over for dinner in the evenings and we heard all his life stories which were amazing, fascinating and heartbreaking at times. Jerry had been a miner and driller in his working years and had worked on amazing projects all throughout Australia. One of the most interesting being the Alice Springs water project. This project involved drilling down 80, 150, 230, and 500 metres respectively, in stages, until he hit sand, a valley and a water source that has ensured Alice will never be without water again. The source travels from Tennant Creek to Alice and to Derby. As this blog is public I won't go into Jerry's life, full of challenges and obstacles that he seems to have managed to overcome, but needless to say this man has risen above what no ordinary man could and still remain the man he is today.

Jerry reminded me of my deceased grandfather 'poppa dad' as we called him. Jerry was only 74 and my pop died in his 90's but the way he spoke, his tone and his manner felt like my pop was with me. His love for fossicking and finding treasures, gold in this case, also reminded me of my pop always having loved Ballarat, a gold mining town, always interested in antiques but also the way he fossicked/collected cans and other treasures on the beach late in retirement as a hobby. When pop passed away, when cleaning his garage, we found, wrapped in dirty old tea towels a heap of rocks with different sorts of opals on them. Jerry, like my pop, who lost his right arm from a grenade in the war, was a battler. He persevered day in and day out looking for gold, clearing patches of spinifex with his purpose built 'Mad Max' spinifex clearer. Being such a selfless man he cleared patches for everyone else first and then himself. Luuk got tired of swinging and asked Jerry if he could clear some spinifex which would make his day. Luuk had more fun driving the Mad Max machine and came home pretty pleased with himself.

Despite Jerry not finding one piece of gold in the week that we were with him he still went out from dawn until dusk and then came back for some dinner around the campfire. Jerry had lived in the bush, when on site, when drilling or mining, and had mastered the art of damper and a good campfire oven meal. He helped us perfect ours as well, which was great. We have been eating like kings ever since.

The day we decided to leave Warrego Jerry surprised us with his generosity once more. He came over to make our three small bits of gold into five bits so we all had a piece. We knew he had thousands of dollars worth in his caravan but never expected him to give it away, and they were much bigger pieces than we had found. Jerry also used to sell small amounts to buy the supplies he needed to continue his fossicking trips. We thanked him and accepted as we could see how much joy this gave him as well. He had done nothing but give to us and the kids whilst at Warrego, also bringing lollipops to the kids daily and when out of these his diabetic jellybeans. We didn't need to ask for his forwarding details as he came prepared with some great outback recipes and all his contact details. He will be great to catch up with further down the track and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting him and learning all his stories and great wisdom.

We had packed up and we were on our way. Whilst driving over the rocks, to Jerry, to say our last goodbyes, we hit one and Luuk realised he had forgotten to raise the car with the airbag suspension. We didn't think anymore of it though, Luuk just raised the car as it didn't sound too serious. We drove a further 200 metres back, when we stopped to pick some bush leaves and spinifex seed to make a bunch of flowers for Sandra's 60th, also whom we had met that week with her husband Geoff. As we were collecting, Sandra and Geoff were driving towards us. We gave her her flowers and said our goodbyes. Just after this moment, we heard many swear words coming from Luuk as he walked back to the car. He quickly looked under the car and saw engine oil pouring out onto the road. On closer examination we realized the worst, the sump had a big crack in it. We quickly drove back to camp and Luuk looked closer at the damage. It wasn't good news! Sandra and I drove into reception range, on her birthday, to call RACV. They classed it as an accident, not road side assist, so I decided to discuss with Luuk first as we had a $550 excess and he had spoken of gluing the crack to get us back on the road. We stayed at Warrego one more night and decided to claim the accident as that would mean our road side assist would kick in for the accommodation, a hire car, whilst the car was repaired.

That night we decided to have a party for Sandra, so we made a chocolate cake from what we could find and we also had cream so it ended up pretty good. We had no candles, for on the cake, so we made paper candles which looked quite real when looking back at the photos. We had candles around the campsite and made decorations to make it really inviting. We had a mixed dinner of burritos and stew with fresh bread and then cake for dessert. Everyone just brought what they had, but it was great. We then watched a movie on the TV which Luuk brought outside for a movie night. Sandra chose Rango which was great but I think Jerry had worked too hard pushing spinifex and fell asleep. Great impromptu night and I think Sandra really enjoyed it.

The next day Sandra and I headed into town, she to stock up and do her washing and I to start organising the claim. It was hard work, as it always is dealing with big companies, but we got there in the end. The car was towed but they wouldn't tow the caravan unless we put in a separate claim. That wasn't even an issue when we were towed the last time, in Adelaide, but some people are kinder and more willing than others. As many have told us so many times NT means not today, not tomorrow, not anytime soon, so we were probably lucky we even got a tow. Luuk got to town with the kids and we met at Thrifty. They didn't have a car that could tow and pick up the caravan for weeks. We ended up with a car for the afternoon just to pick up some belongings from the caravan and Sandra and I had to beg and plead to get this one just for a few hours.

We stayed at the best hotel in Tennant Creek which had two great managers but pretty average rooms. We were put in the family room for $175/ night. Honestly, even the worst caravan site was better than this room with an incredibly loud fridge and expensive washing facilities and wi-fi. We had to do washing so we bit the bullet and did it and hung it all around the room instead of paying another $4 which didn't even fully dry the load. We pushed all the beds together and the kids had fun jumping from one to another. The calcium in the water has ruined all the tiles and silicon in the showers so there was a sign to say that 'even though it looks dirty it has been cleaned' . We had had a rough day so we decided to have dinner at the restaurant which was great and the wine helped settle our nerves.

Luckily, Thrifty came up with a car that could tow the caravan after two nights in the hotel, so we went to pick up our home. I thought two nights in an expensive hotel, what a luxury, but I was severely mistaken and I missed the caravan like crazy so was glad to have it back.

Fixing the sump was not as easy as we thought. I rang around to try and get one ordered and sent directly to Tennant Creek, as quickly as possible, as we had plans to meet up with Michelle, Hanut and kids on the 2nd in Kakadu and didn't want to miss this. I knew the mechanic was really busy and he was kind enough to say he would take the AUDI on, as the tow truck stopped at every other workshop and they just waved him on. Lanky, the mechanic, ended up being a great help to us, but also advised that sending anything by post to Tennant Creek is unwise as things go missing and often don't turn up. He suggested air mail and the courier. I decided to try and organize this for him. Another obstacle however arose. Was there a sump for an AUDI Allroad in Australia. NO!!!!!! Luuk and I had another, let's say, discussion about European cars and whether that is the car, of choice, to drive around Australia. I think not!! Anyway, we were unsure about having the sump sent to Tennant Creek, because of the dodgy postal situation, and did not want to spend weeks or months waiting around for it. Luuk decided to go with his original plan and glue the sump which he and Lanky did at the workshop, very successfully. Lanky hadn't seen or used this glue before so was hesitant. Welding wasn't an option as there were no welders in town so he agreed to try the glue. He was astounded that it could do such a good job and that it would last us out of town. Luuk, has cheekily texted him a few times to tell him where we are and how many kilometers we have done, not to mention off road km's.

We had moved to the Outback Caravan Park by this time and this was much better, although the swimming pool, once again, was so cold you didn't want to swim in it. I can't understand , why in peak season, all through Central Australia, the pools have no one swimming as they are stone cold. We did one last trip out to see Jerry, Sandra and Geoff, taking water and fresh bread. When we arrived Sandra and Geoff had already gone and we drove in to try and find Jerry but had no luck. Whilst filling Jerry's water tanks we saw him coming back with his Mad Max still rigged up. We hid behind our Thrifty Toyota!! Hilux and scared the living daylights out of Jerry, who thought we were mining inspectors coming to have a go at him for clearing so much spinifex. He was happily surprised when we jumped out. He was glad to have the extra water and bread as he was almost out of both. We said our final goodbyes, once more, but we are sure to catch up with Jerry in Jimboomba.

I have to say we were glad to leave and head to the beautiful thermal pools at Mataranka and Bitter Springs. The sump journey is put on hold and will recommence in Darwin, after the school holidays, where we will pick the new sump up.