SYDNEY - HALLS CREEK TRIP 2007

SYDNEY - HALLS CREEK TRIP 2007

Tuesday 12 June to Monday 9 July

Halls Creek to Sydney

Blog 5

We spent 20 days in Halls Creek waiting for the new axle and A frames to arrive from Melbourne. There were lots of phone calls to car insurance, caravan insurance, caravan people and suspension people and we even washed the caravan to get rid of the worst of the red dust. We basically became one of the locals and watched each afternoon as new travellers arrived at the caravan park for the night. Our caravan sitting on a tilt with a broken axle and missing wheel always was the centre of lots of questions to the point where Mike was tempted to put the story on tape and just press play as the questions started. By 9am the next morning the caravan park was empty again except for us and the locals.

We did meet lots of lovely people and hear their great stories. We did enjoy the red of the Kimberleys and fantastic weather.

Small communities are very welcoming and the shop owners, the people from the garage who were going to repair the suspension, the people in the library, the lady in the information centre and the locals at the pub all made us feel at home.

Mike enjoyed chatting with the local aborigines and loved their faces.

Jack and Steve the truck drivers finally delivered the parts which had come up from Melbourne via Perth at 6am on Thursday 28 June and Steve from the workshop was able to start replacing the broken axle at the caravan park. Friday we could drive the caravan to the workshop where he could replace all the other A frames more easily. Saturday he finished off the last things on the van and by lunch time we said our goodbye to Halls Creek and the people and started our 10 day drive home.

We took the shortest route and headed east to Kununurra, south to Katherine, across to Camooweal, Mt Isa, Longreach, Bourke, the Blue Mountains and home. It was great to see water in the Darling River at Bourke again.