Robes, Volcanic lakes and catastrophic failures.

It's Friday afternoon and i've been looking forward to this night all week, not just because its Friday, because its not just any old Friday, It's Mik's birthday and she has planned an expedition for the weekend. So as i pull up in the driveway i am mentally preparing myself for the mission to get changed and get on the road. The troopy ws loaded up before we knew nd we were on the roa an sipping on bottles of V to get amped for the 4 hr drive ahead. As we leave Adelaide Heather spots a fight about to develop between a couple of outer suburb bogan women, She was correct the fight escalated into hair pulling and punch just as the light went green ( much to our voyeuristic disappointment.) The drive was fun Heff and i were holed up in the back, which resulted in typical childish back seat shenanigans, (ie i wrapped her in a doona and tied it up so she couldn't move. you know the usual stuff you do).

Eventually after a few driver changes and some retarded dancing to limp biscuit we arrived at our accommodation at around 10pm.

Messed up my room time to enjoy a hard earned juice.

We went to sleep after the stupid amount of V we drank wore off. And dreamt bout the glorious day of exploring to come. Once awake we clambered aboard the Bright yellow, off road bus of dreams and set destination for the beach and cliffs around Robe.

Adventure Man stride (Adventure Strides also pictured)

I'm stuck in a rutt and i want out!

After we soaked up this amazing view and scenery we headed off towards Mt Gambier to check out the Blue Lake and Sunken Garden. We had a nice vibe in the car, the trip was refueling our love for the road and each other. Many silly jokes and conversations, we were exploring again.
All this love and happiness was underpinned by a sinister suspicion i had,
Thinking to myself that there may be something going wrong with the brakes. I pulled over to check them but there weren't any signs of problem to my tyre kicking inspection. So we continued on.....
bout 5 klms later i was convinced i was feeling something so i puled over again,

It was just low on Brake Fluid

So we topped it up and i apparently took some imaginary notes on the situation.

With that problem well behind us i jumped back behind the helm and continued a merry journey towards the magical fabled blue lake of Mt Gambier.
About 5kms more down the road we approached a small settlement of houses and the speed limit dropped from 110 to 80, as i gently applied pressure to the brakes my foot was not granted the usual resistance expected of a correctly functioning brake pedal, it seems the pedal was just going straight to the floor, several pumps on the pedal did nothing to alleviate the problem that was now escalating becausue we were not slowing down. I felt slightly concerned by this because brakes are kind of fundamental to the whole driving experience.
The troopy weighs around 3 tonne and as such has a fair amount of momentum when traveling at speed, this is quite an issue when you are faced with no brakes to slow this momentum, luckily i have driven a car before and was aware that the compression braking in the bumblebitch slows the beast fairly well, i spotted a rest area and aimed to stop in there. Backing down through the gears slowed the burly bitch up and we eventually came to a stop.
At this point it was decided we should probably address the situation and see what this hic-cup was.

Removing the wheel, and the brake caliper came off with it, Landing with a thud on the ground

Brakefluid was everywhere, Nelson and i got to work licking it up.

The Brake line on the Calliper had failed somehow and spewed Brake fluid everywhere, some say that this is how both of the Calliper bolts came loose and the caliper detached itself, other speculated that Nelson had sabotaged the Brakes in an attempt to make my daily work commute more exciting.

Either way somthing had to be done to restore 75% of the braking power to the beehicle, we needed to block the Brake line, the first attempt failed, an aluminum roof rack bracket was not sufficient to stem the flow, Too much surface area.
We nutted it out with my dad on the phone and a friendly passer by who listened to us as we told him how we'd fix it, no doubtingly impressed he gave us some wet wipes and a spare wheel stud and continued on his fishing adventure. With New found determination and confidence we folded over the brake line kinking it and held it in place with zip ties until we could make our way to a servo and get a hose clamp. During this time the industrious girls used their charm and good looks to flag down a car heading for the nearest servo to get some brake fluid, they arrived triumphantly with said fluid and we completed our Bush Mechanic esq "repair".

Unphased by our new driving style that involved turning the steering wheel to the left, each time the brake was applied to counter-act the now right side heavy braking bias. We continued to Mt Gambier proud of our accomplishment and ability to maintain cool composure Nelso and I indulged ourselves in a had earned high five.

Go team wanker!

Weeeee Gambier and it was deliciously worth it.

Multi-Layered Awesome.

Pumphouse on the Lake

Gorgeous Mikki and her halo.

Lovers

This is how it looked through my new sunglasses that i haven't mentioned until now.

These re my new sunnies, much different to my old ones..... kinda.

Next Stop garden hole, it's right in the heart of Mt Gambier so we went there.

Bumble bee stopped for a drink at the pub while we had a look at the garden.

We all like a pretty hole don't we.

Can you see all the other members of the wolfpack?

If we had seen this cat earlier we may have had some warning about the bad luck with the brakes.

We made our way back to Robe, made an offering of our hopes and dreams to the universe in the form of burning handwritten notes on the beach, a little weird but it was quite a nice thing to do.

Some drink and sleep followed this amazing day, and we awoke in the morning to a brand new day, The sun was shinning and it was beautiful. We drove to the Naracoorte to check out the caves, the animal museum i thought was a bit lame, with fluffy animals that looked like kangaroos with koalas heads, weird but apparently some time in the past these Koalaroos roamed. After the museum of anamatronic abominations we continued to the Self guided cave tour.

The caves were very quiet and peaceful and i enjoyed fiddling around trying to get some photos. The above images were probably the result of that. After the caves we had a sammich each and hit the road, swapping drivers until we got home. When we got home we watched some Tv shows and went to bed.

I drove the troopy to work today and managed to track down the spares during my lunch break, though i had to inform the old guy working at the wreckers how to remove the brake line from the calliper. After work today i got home and fixed the troopy, took it for a test lap and all is again well in the Plight of the Bumblebee.

We were all winners this weekend, and as triumphant as i look in this image, i'm also filled with sadness that this may well be one of my last adventures with my best friends, i think i'm going to have a strong crack at my new job here in Adelaide and unfortunately that doesn't afford me the freedoms of a nomad that i have come to enjoy. All good things must come to an end, All that goes up must come down and no matter how much enlightenment and wisdom you think you've collected, turns out the "man" still offers financial security when you need it.
Love ya'll
Craig

Wicked Still in Adelaide

HAHAHAHAH Hello, how the hell are you?..... hmmm? can't hear you sorry, i trust you are well anyway and if you're not, well my condolences. I've been doing a bit of design work to pass the time of day and to earn some cash. It was going pretty good there for a week or two. Unfortunately it's a bit quiet this week but at least i have completed my website and ordered some business cards.

Pretty snazzy i think, i would hope you do too. Hmm what other news do i have to report to entire Internet. Our housemate has left us now, she was working on the musical "Wicked" we went and saw it a few weeks ago and i was quite impressed at the size of the production and the quality of it all. The set was awesome complete with a massive dragon puppet that sat above the stage and audience and flapped about whenever
there was a change in the timeline. Turns out he was the time dragon and it also turns out he was awesome. But that wasn't the only cool part of the show, the wicked witch decides to fly and that scene was cool because she actually flew above the stage. I was Shocked and amazed... well not really shocked because Jess our old housemate had told us about it, but i was definitely amazed. Similarly i was also impressed
when Bert Newton strolled on stage and reveled himself as the wizard, that was cool.

Defying Gravity no doubt

Other than soaking myself in the culture of Adelaide by attending musical theatre Heather and i went exploring with Jess just before she left, we explored some tranquil Japanese themed gardens, went on chocolate factory tour and caught a tram. All awesome things to do. Last Friday Nikki and Dan from Happy Coffee invited us out for tea, Heff dawg had to work but the rest of us happily tagged along. We went to a little place in China
Town called 'city wok' or something like that and had and amazing selection of chicken and dumplings for around $12 it was super cool, after that i tried on a traditional Asian rice field hat, surprisingly it looked stupid. Hat discarded we continued into the Central markets (conveniently located adjacent to China town. Nikki bustled us off to a little slice of heaven know locally as 'Bun Chef' were right before or eyes the clever culinary magicians were whipping up some amazing little run type things with all sorts of amazing fillings. The pastry was like a profriter roll in the shape of a cylinder about 2.5cm high the void on the inside was filled with chocolate in my case, my science it was delicious. After that we continued our tour and surprise surprise it resulted in us being at a pub, not just any pub it was the metro, which is much like any pub. After we lubricated our brains sufficiently it was decided that it was time to go to Mars Bar so that Mik could try and
pick up a date. The Mars Bar is a gay bar and inside we had quite the funny night. Nothing untoward happened except
Nelson yelling "i'm post op!"
which was hilarious. Other than that we were pretty much left alone thankfully hahah. Mik had a bit of luck with the ladies but opted to come home with us at about 1:30am.

So that's about the Raggatt rundown for another blogisode. Sorry i haven't written in a while but not all that much has been happening.
Love you xoxox
Sweet dreams.

Job Hunting

Hello followers of the plight.
And never before has the prefix plight been so appropriate as it is right now in my current financial/occupational situation. We've been in Adelaide for a couple of months now and I've had no success in looking for work, it seems I'm a little over qualified for most of the sign writers around here and haven't had the experience to look appealing to a straight design studio. Needless to say my face is in an almost constant fluster. I was beginning to feel like this was the end of my adventure on this majestic trek around the continent. I voiced my concerns to the wolf pack and informed them that d-day was upon s and the ever looming option of hanging up my travelling boots was dangling perilously close. With no job and no decent income stream it seemed impossible for me to conjure up enough money to provide sustenance and fuel for the hungry bumblebee to make the trek up to Darwin in June. Sad days indeed my friends.
But amazing group of friends that I'm travelling with formulated a plan;

We can stay in Adelaide until September thus relieving the fast approaching deadline and enabling me more time to seek some form of gainful employ. This plan also works out well for the rest of the guys as it gives them more time to save money and see more of what the Dark-horse, quiet achiever City of Adelaide has to offer.
Breaking News
Heather just arrived home with a resignation letter to her former employer in wagga wagga. This is a Friday of celebrations and to celebrate we are going to go to happy cafe and indulge ourselves in a coffee.


Anyways to do digress from the story at hand, wrapped up basically we have more time in Adelaide to peruse the proverbial wares that the department store of Adelaide has to offer.
I shall continue in my quest to find gainful employ and will keep your faces updated with any news in this regard.

And now a little treat...
Retro Post: the wasp incident.
The terrain was flat and desolate, the air thick with heat and dust, the road straight and narrow and the horizon was forever unobtainable. We were travelling between to Broken hill in Central Australia, and i was feeling under the weather as i had contracted so sort of viral infection (a cold) and so i was quite drowsy. I was riding shotgun in Bumblebee and Nelsoninan was at the helm. We had only the smokers windows in the front open due to the large number of airborne arthropods. I was asleep when a wasp collided with one of the smokers windows and made it's concussive decent onto my lap. Apparently at this point Nelso notices the invertebrate and made the judgement call not to wake me up because "it probably won't bite him." It was at this poin the wasp changed its resting point onto Nelson's lap. At which point he felt the situation was now worth waking me up for.
"Craig....... there's a wasp" he shrieked like and upset guinea pig.
So in my half asleep stupor i decided the best course of action to rid us of this infestation was o start punching at the wasp.
Numerous punches later and some swerving on Nelsons part had proven futile. The wasps exoskeleton was just to strong for my feeble 1 foot fist attack. Eventually the wasp decided it had enough of being slapped about and casually made it's way into the back of the vehicle.
I said something like "It's gone now."
I believe Nelson replied with.
"F*ck off i have to sleep back there".
So we pulled over and found the wasp, who was now just minding his own business and we banished it from the car.
With the wasp situation dispelled we could now happily continue our drive.
The Girls informed us that from behind the chaos they though that Nelson had fallen asleep and i was furiously punching him in an attemp to wake him up. HA i wish thatwould have been way more fun.

Well thankyou for tking the tie to read my cognitive speel and i hope to see you all again soon.
Much love

Radelaide and Barry Morgan

We've been in Adelaide for about 4 weeks now. Despite my state of impoverished disposition i am pushing forward and enjoying myself regardless. Mik, Heff and Nels have all found gainful employment. I've been doing a bit of freelance design to boost my dole check, yup I'm now officially on the New start allowance, somewhere i never imagined I'd be but hey, I've worked full time for a while i guess its time i soaked up some of that tax I've paid over the years. mwahhhahahaa.

So over the past couple of weeks I've been looking for work, bludging and designing. Pretty good combo mostly but can get boring and lonely. Anyways here is an image of the logo i whipped up for the cafe i'm designing for, so far i've designed the shopfront signage some business cards and i'm about to get started on a website for them.

awww widdle froggy :)

One highlight over the past few weeks was going to see Barry Morgan and his world of Organs, at the garden of unearthly delights which was part of the fringe festival going on here in Radelaide. I'll talk about the garden shortly but first I'll detail Barry morgans show. And even Before i do that, here is a picture of the subject of the topic in which i will soon discuss.

Oh Barry

The show is in a tent called the cupola, we briefly glance over the merch as we head inside. The stage is populated by two plasma screens, a vintage hammond organ and a vintage hammond organ rotating speaker system, atop the speaker system is a glass of some mysterious red spirit i haven't heard of before. We were awesomely seated in the front row, we waited anxiously for the show to start. Eventally Barry busted out of the red velvet curtain and into our lives. Looking around the room similing at people soaking up the applause. If he catches your eye he'll smile at your face for just long enough to make you awkward. Which is hilarious and weird at the same time. The whole show revolves around Barry Morgan from Barry Morgans world of Organs trying to sell his antique hammond organ. The whole show is a demonstration of the effects and tunes playable on the organ. Barry Is hilarious, the show was filled with innuendos about him playing, polishing and going down on his organ. He demonstrated his one finger method with some delegates from the audience and stayed hilariously in character the whole time. The plasma screens on the stage were linked to a series of cameras he had on his organ so that he could switch them and give you a demo of what his feet were doing, what his hands were doing and what his face was doing. The show was hilarious i had tears leaking from my ocular region on numerous occasions. The show ended when barry couldn't sell his organ. That was a very fun night after the show we wandered the garden for a while.

The Garden of Unearthly delights is part of the Adelaide Fringe festival and is an awesome carnival atmosphere, complete with a small selection of rides various tents that are used as venues and various drinking establishments, it's like a carnival for adults. There were burlesque shows, freak shows, dancing, musical acts, acrobats, comedians and heaps more. I took a couple of photos to try and capture the feel.

The Entrance to the GOUD

Ferris wheel

Various market stalls

All the trees are dcorated in some way

looking back towards the dogem cars and kamakazie

So yeah we spent a few nights at the GOUD it was great, ad a great spot for people watching.

During the last week of the Fringe festival there is also Womadelaide on, a world music festival. We rented out the spare room in our hous to a couple of loverly ladies from adelaide. It was great spending the week with them and i even managed to get Chrissie to trim my beard.

Robyn, Chrissie and illuminated flower

So it was nice having some fresh people to talk to. Thats about all i have to say really, i haven't been doing too much becasue im a little financially fragile. I'm sure i'm missing a couple of things but they'll just have to live on in my distant memories i guess.

Wagga to Adelaide

Hello there, so nice of you to join me. When you last heard i was in Wagga Wagga catching up with friends and family. My sisters engagement party was awesome. Joe (my future brother in law) decided he'd play a game early in the night, he got my mum and his mum up to the microphone area. The game was, he was going to whisper in each of their ears and see who could keep the straightest face, i think mum won because Joes mum, Penny just screamed. Turns out the news he told them was that my sister was pregnant! Totally didn't expect that and now i'm so happy for them, that kid will be the most loved child in the world.


So after that bombshell the rest of my trip to wagga wasn't quite so exciting, but i did see my mates and worked a bit at Crazy Jims mitre 10 which was great.

When it was time to rejoin the travels i hitched a ride with me 'ol mates Dusty and Jenny to Melbourne and stayed with them in a nice hotel suite. (still owe you for that guys thanks heaps) we met up with Grantos and Sally and Corey and Joleasa (can someone correct my spelling sorry :s) we all went out for chinese in china town, which was awesome and great fun due to the ingenious game Dusty and i had come up with, as the hotel we were staying at overlooked the freeway everytime a trade vehicle, harley, bus, or any other strange vehicle went past we drank heavily upon the beer. This. Lead to extremly fast brain blur intoxication and a measurable volume increase in the shit talk coming from our faces. Anyway i have suprisingly detracted from the chinese meal which was amazing ( thankyou sally and grant i will repay you ). I had west lake duck which was delicious, but Jenny wouldn't talk to me for a while as she once had pet ducks, but little did she know they had the potential to be so delicious. After faces were sufficiently filled with food we decided to waddle our gluttony fuel butt back to the hotel which is convieniently located right behind crown ca$ino. Bowling at the crown was the next port of call and bowl we did. Apparently, unbeknownst to myself my bowling technique leaves a bit to be desired, but i do enjoy throwing heavy things around (which is coincidentally how i've made it this far through life) even my painful sounds of disgust after each gutter ball couldn't help my ever stagnated score. Twinkle toes Sally was in tremendous form and came runner up to the Grant's face, which complained about having a sore butt aparently from the vigorous bowling the night before, just to make sure we knew that he was playing with a handicap but still managed to beat us. Many thanks again for shouting me guys you are gems.



The next morning i was collected by Sir William Poynton, and we enjoyed a day of wining and dining in various locations around the city. All the food i consumed in Melbourne was amazing. Highlight of the day was the espresso martini from the "white rabbit" basically an espresso shot in kaluha and vodka? Anyway it was delicious and energizingly intoxicating. Thanks guys. It was great to catch up with Will, Ange, Melodie and her man Christian After at the irish pub that night we ate 47 different types of potatoe all differently satisfying in thier own carbtastic way. After another bloated whinge filled waddle back to the apartment we talked some shit and retired for the evening. The next morning i woke up at 5:30 to catch my flight, the brave Sir Poynton was also awake to chauffer me to the airport. After a 12km walk through the stupid Melbourne airport i found my plane and boarded.



I was greeted at the airport by my long lost counterparts and a beam of light shone down from above as the wolfpack was together again. No doubt other people in the airport were rightfully scared/awestruck by the event taking place before them. Or they completley ignored us and my need for importance has lead me to embelish somewhat. Regardless we were all back together again, the guys took me back to the caravan park where we would be staying for the evening, later that day we were also joined by Sonia and Misty whom were coming to the Big Day Out with us awwww yeah. That night Heather came out with the corker of a question

"how can you go overseas, and not know what means everything?"

I wasn't sure how to answer and still have not thought of an answer, sorry heff.



A night of sleep opened up into a day, a big day, a BIG DAY OUT!!!

Trepedation filled the air as we organised our way to the showgrounds where the big day of out was to be held. Mikyla had thoughtfully in her brilliantly organised fashion arrange for a duo of taxi's to ferry us to the festival. The crowd was thick at the entrance but to my suprise the entry process was quite painless and efficient, before we knew it we were in the venue buying drink tickets and discussing the days frivolity. The bands i can remember/enjoyed seeing were:

• Dead letter circus

• Children collide

• Airbourne

• Birds of Tokyo

• Bliss and Esso

• Wumina

• Die Antwood

• Rammstien

• Tool

Higlight of the day was Tool, great light show and i love hearing them play their songs in a different way. Closley followed by Rammstien who's show was ridiculously over the top, we're talking pyrotechnics in every song, head mounted flamethrows, fireballs explosions smoke and ridiculous light show, there was also a hint of metal chugging away but the visuals of the show are awesomely distracting. The nex artist i really enjoyed was Wumina, she was awesome in lilly world, (a far out hippy themed area, thrown forward through time with a hint of nightmarish phsycadellia.) it was great giant cushions to relax on plenty of people dancing and having a blast.

The other part of the day that was quite the thrill was Mik and I went on the slingshot ride in the middle of the main stage are. Very intense i recommend it to everyone should you get the chance. As the day turned to night and the glamour of the stages returned to dark skeletal scaffolds in the night we made our move to head back to the brown hills caravan park. It took a bit of taxi wrangling but we arrived home fairly easily.

The rest is content for another post, so stay tuned for another overdue update.

Main stage area

Main stage area

Whyalla and Awesome X

Scenic Whyalla

(Warning i was drunk when i wrote this)
Well well well, good on you for checking back on my tales of interest. This months episode may leave you jaw on the floor and your hair standing on end! Or it may leave you slightly amused with a quivering smile upon your face, or it may leave you upset that you spent your precious time reading a garbage introduction to a tale you know nothing about. Either way it doesn't bother me, because you're still reading now and that means you're interested. So with not much more further ado and a little bit less nonsense i bring you the chronicles of Awesome X.


It was a dark and overcast afternoon, the sky was ablaze with a ferocious thunderstorm of torrential rain and omni-directional wind. We needed a plan to entertain ourselves and escape the cruel grasp of mother natures infinite rage. So we decided to go to the supermarket and get something for tea, harmless enough? Or was it? Midway through the glorious act of shopping cart filling i spyed, in my peripherals an old friend from high school. I called out his name half sheepishly because i wasn't sure if it was him.
"Josh" *look down quickly*
he realised immediately it was me, then he recognised Nelson, and then was soon introduced to Heather. This formal introduction no doubt triggered the retaliatory introduction of Josh's lovely girlfriend Lucy. We blocked the isle for some time, swapping who's, whats, where's and hows until Josh formulated a brilliant scheme. We would all join them at their house for tea, and regale each other with tales from near and far. And so it is written so it was done, we joined Josh and Lucy for dinner and it was quite the feast. Delish. Nelson and i had been discussing our brilliant success in not getting employment, and josh decided he would introduce us to his friend that he works with at the mines.

Mrs Awesome X was very welcoming and so was her husband Awesome X. It didn't take long before nelso was fixing a computer and i was shifting bails of hay from one shed to another. Since that first day of work the days rolled by, Nels and i would start work at 10am and work through till about 5 or 6 and we'd get paid in cash AWESOME. So this kept us fed and watered for the next few weeks, along with Awesome X's amazing culinary skills. The work was varied, we built cyclone fences, concreted, built a make-shift spray booth, stripped a ute back, painted the panels and I'm pretty sure nelso will be back there tomorrow, i won't be because I'm currently on a bus heading back to Wagga, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

X's patience with teaching us how to do all of this labour was not the best part of the experience, the amazing farout anecdotes the man has are enough to make Rambo seem like a duckling. I wish i could go into detail here but i don't want to to protect those involved in the stories, but here are some buzz words to get your imagination going in the right direction: special forces, mercenary, land speed record, jet engines, custom harleys, rebels mc, cage fighting, stunt driving, drag racing, experimental mig jets and fighting. Needles to say X does not let anyone get in his way when he has an idea, very inspiring individual. And i hope to meet him again one day.

Ahhh what the hell I'll tell you one story that he told us quite convincingly, you can make up your own mind as to weather it's fact or fiction.
Awesome X was imprisoned for one reason or another, and kept away from the other prisoners because they had a tendency to get hurt around him. One day the guards decided it was time to do a strip search on Awesome X, he didn't feel like entertaining their wandering hands and he let them know. They ignored his rejection and continued to start the search, as soon as the first guard layed a hand on X it was on, (in his words) he "slapped" the first guard and then continued on to "slap" 8 more guards as they tried to subdue him. Once this set of guards was subdued he walked one of the guards (who unlocked all the doors) right out to the front gates of the prison, Asked them to open the gates and they did (no doubt there was some "slapping" going on here to.) Once X was outside the prison he took the nearest car and drove home to his lady's house. Where he was greeted with
" WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
to which X replied
"I wanted to have a good time"
and then as i was told he proceeded to have said good time.
In the morning after a long night of good times, X decided he best go to the nearest police station and let them know that he should be in Prison, no doubt they were quite surprised...
After he was returned to Prison there was a court trial to deal with the whole debacle. When he was asked how to plead against the assault of 9 guards he said calmly,
"Well 9 against 1, that's gotta be self defence right?"
and on the charge of escaping prison?
"I didn't escape these guys let me out"
Apparently the prosecution didn't have much of a leg to stand on and X ended up with a reduced sentence...
And they all lived happily ever after.

This was jsut one of the stories i've heard and it's quite the story.

We celebrated Christmas as a wolfpack family, singing Christmas carols and such. Opening presents under the little tree the girls had set up in our cabin, it was alot of fun opening all the little surprises. That night we joined Awesome X and his family for Christmas dinner and drinks and much fun was had by all. Then it was life back to normal for a couple of days, then Bryce and Sarah came to visit. Which was very very cool!
Bryce Sarah and I spent New Years in Port Lincoln which was lovely the weather was about 10 degrees cooler down there and the Pub we went to was right on the beach. Amber and Steve where there and Steve was playing on the stage which was awesome as usual. We got our drink on as there was $5 cocktails PINA COLADAS!! they were fun. The next day we hung out with Amber and Steve for a while and Pluto their little puppy dog. Then we headed back to Whyalla.

Pluto

I think it was the following day we decided to go for a fish down on the Jetty, to which we were rewarded with Dolphins, right up on the edge of the Jetty, Very cool.

Dolphin and a wee baby dolphin

Wasn't long after that we bid Sarah and Bryce a fond adue as they headed back to Wagga Wagga. And it was back to business as normal, Nels and i were working back at X's house. for the remainder of the week, until the weekend where X decided we should go out to his Fishing Shack at Point Lowly. It's a beautiful spot so picturesque. We spent the weekend fishing and drinking and philosophising about the true nature of our existence. All in all a great way to spent my last bit of time in Whyalla. The following Monday it was time for me to pack my bag and head back to wagga, which i was still in the process of doing when i started this blog. And the rest is history.

Standing on the beach looking at the Shack

The Wonderous adventures of Mik and me.

Hello again, so soon? that's surprising i usually don't update in such quick succession, that's because I've been lazy and I'm still catching up. Well it'd down to just two of us, Nels and Heffie are back in Wagga Wagga going to weddings and what not, leaving me here with Mikki G and the Eyre peninsula. I arrived here on thursday 11th around lunch time hung out with Mikki G and we drank some Stones and went to bed. The following day i used to drop resumes around, as soon as i set off i got a call from supercheap auto informing me that i had an interview on Wednesday 17th WOHOO i thought. I had applied for the position online whilst in Port Lincoln. This could be good. Anyways i continued around town and dropped a few resumes off. finished mid afternoon and returned to the caravan park we are living in (and as yet haven't paid a cent for). Mik formulated a plan for the weekend, we would go on an adventure around the Peninsula and aim for Port Lincoln on Sunday to catch the Sunday session, then head back too Whyalla on Monday excellent!

Click here for travel overview

If you click the link above I've put all the spots in where we stopped, Starting obviously in Whyalla on Saturday we made a beeline for Iron Knob, apparently if you can get a look at the size of the hold dug there its amazing, unfortunately they only run tours during the week. That didn't stop s from taking bumblebee up some dodgy track up the side of the quarry trying to get a glimpse over the top unfortunately we couldn't get to the top despite driving all over it, the top area was fenced off. Defeated we left the man made hill and found somewhere less hilly, wasn't hard because there were no other hills around and made some sandwiches for lunch. Stupid Iron Knob, the only time anyone would come and visit is on the weekend you knobs, why not run a tour on a Saturday! BAH.
We promptly left that shit hole behind us and headed for the town called Kimba. Kimba is quite proud of the fact that its the halfway point across Australia GO Kimba, also it had a giant Galah so Mikki G got to tick that off the list of big things, yay progress.

Flamin' Galah!

We bought a coffee from the local cafe and clambered back into ol bumblebitch, kicked her in the guts and we were back on the road again, the next destination was Buckleboo. Halfway there the road became dirt, which is awesome because bumbles loves dirt roads so she was happy, i was happy and I'm fairly sure Mik was also happy. Just a Big yellow truck of happy thundering across some terrain in the middle of nowhere.
I think it was around this area we saw pildappa rock which is SA's largest monolith or so my lovely navigator / tour director told me. so we checked it out here are some images for your eyes to look at.

1500 million years ago water smashed into this on a regular basis
thus forming its wave like structure hmmmm. PS that guy in the image was weird.

On top of pildappa, there was a 500mm deep hole full of water.

 We got to an area named Buckleboo which i think turned out to be a homestead of some description. We kept on down the dirt track joking about not really knowing where we were going. I was loving it, the road was getting rougher and i thought it would be a good opportunity to test the 4wd functionality of Bumble bee.
So i pulled over and locked the front hubs in and put the 4wd selector into 4L which is 4wd low "for maximum traction" In 5th gear ol bumbles was doing about 55kms/hr but it felt like we could tow a continent behind us. I opted for 4H next seeing as though 55kms/hr max speed wasn't doing it for me. 4H is the same as normal 2wd mode except all wheels have drive so that was good, we got back up to a cruising speed of about 80-90kms/hr and it felt great, the steering was much more direct and there was no more slipping in the sandy parts of the track WOOOOW i love Bumblebee! It wasn't long after this we saw a sleepy lizard which we avoided as Mik had recently informed me (reading from a brochure) that they mate for life, which is lovely but sad because you do see them on the road quite a bit. and next in our safari was a group of emu's running for their lives at the sight and sound of Bumblebee smashing down the road, what was extra cool was the baby emu running behind the two adult ones it was very cute and terrified awwww. We also spotted a couple of snakes along the track i think they were brown snakes can't be too sure they came and went pretty quick.
The road was great fun, it would have been a pain in the but for anything but a 4wd but for us it was great fun, we felt like we were legit explorers trekking through the outback when suddenly there was a speed limit sign. 40km/hr WHAT??? i considered it for about half a second and said F**k that and continued at our thundering pace which was actually quite comfortable as it was just fast enough to skim over the corrugations in the road. I said just my luck there will be a highway patrol car behind a bush out here. There wasn't.
The scrub opened up into a clearing which contained a self pay permit allocation station. We put some cash in an envelope and stuck a sticker on the window and we were good to go again. The are was a farm station to so long ago so there was still some hints of that around. After about 20kms of track we came across another car, enthusiastic waves all round and we were off again, we stumbled across old paney homestead so we stopped and investigated. It was slightly creepy really the fireplaces all looked like they had burnt up the walls. There were rotten mattresses on old beds lots of random old stuff like lanterns and kettles. Interesting though.

Ol' Paney Homestead front

Bumbles covering the rear

 Onwards and upwards along some more dirt road we saw an old water tank and a couple of stone walls all quite historical and interesting. T intersection, and the end of the National park we passed a couple of 4wd's entering the park gave them waves and continued full steam left. On our way out we saw a sign for Murphy's Haystacks so we went and explored them as well unfortunately my camera was flat and on the charger so here is a picture i have stolen off the net.

Legend has it an idiot on a coach thought they were haystacks hence the name

After the haystacks we drove to Streaky Bay, we were hoping we could watch the sunset over the ocean, no such luck as the bay curved around and so the sun went down behind the land, not good enough. We stopped here and had tea at the local pub. Streaky bay was gorgeous, but again my camera was flat so here is another flogged image just for your reference.

Photo doesn't do justice 1 because i didn't take it 2 because Streaky Bay is beautiful

We tried the caravan park at streaky bay, but it was closed, the sign on the door gave us the option of staying in the car park and paying in the morning, but that sounded like a bullshit deal to me so we got out the Camps 5 book and found Sceale Bay and thought we'd try and locate that. Ended up just heading inland to some tiny little track that looked like no one had ever gone down it, HMMMM no good back into streaky and heading towards Port Lincoln now, I was completely bushwhacked by this stage it felt like we were driving towards Alice Springs but we should have bee going south. The road signs said we were going the right way so we plundered on.
We saw a sign that said Baird bay and we had noticed that in the Camps 5 book earlier so we took that road. After some confusion (because the signs in SA leave a lot to be desired) we made it to a campsite, set up the rooftop tent, took a bottle of stones up in there with us an drank it until we could sleep. (the tent is very floppy when its windy, sometimes sounds like 27 ducks are stuck to the outside of it flapping as hard as they can.) Next morning we woke up with a surprise noting that we had driven past a large body of water and not noticed it at all... Weird ... It's like the Bermuda triangle i swear just less dangerous... so far.
Next up was a high speed burn to Elliston. The scenery down the west coast of the peninsula is amazing, everything from white sand dunes contrasting against the sky to sheer cliff faces plunging into electric blue waters, The water is so clear and beautiful here its hard to fathom, it's so bright in some parts it looks like the colour of blue neon, very awe inspiring. Which brings us to Elliston a cruisy little country/beach community with a thriving art culture, we cruised along a cliff face drive and to our surprise it was dotted with different sculptures all along it. Here are some images to tickle your brains.

"Hey did you see that yellow 4wd"
"nuh"
"oh, maybe I'm imagining things again"

Crappy lil camera phone can't capture the brilliance of the blues



"Nah look there it is!"
"Oh that one?"
"Yeah"
"Yeah what about it?"
"OI YELLO.."



"Shut up blockheads! Your comments are irrelevant because you and i are inanimate"

Anyways back to the story. After Elliston it was about an hour and a half back down to port Lincoln, a beautiful big inland salt lake stole our attention for a little while and soon we were arriving in Lincoln. We pulled up out the front of Amber's house and i was just telling Mik about how Amber said she can always hear us coming, so i gave the engine a little rev, and sure enough Amber popped out the front all excited that we had come to surprise her. We talked crap for a couple of hours and then headed down to the good ol Boston for the Sunday session.

Nick and Steve (respectively) playing some awesomeness.

Mik and i had a bit to drink and ended up getting invited to some randoms house, which we didn't end up doing, but i some other people to go, even Ricardo was going if he could get a lift. We ended up chillin at Toohey's house again while amber used his oven to cook some killer pizza. After catching up we went back to Amber and Steve's and caught some zed's. Next morning we woke up late, as you do in Port Lincoln and cruised back up the eastern side of the peninsula. We checked out a couple of the little townships along the way but nothing was as pretty as the western side.

Mikki enjoying a scenic lookout

This is what Miks eyes saw (roughly)

Eventually we made it back to Whyalla and had a great sense of accomplishment we'd done over 1000kms in a couple of days and enjoyed every minute. Thanks for reading :)