Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 57 - 80 Mile Beach Day 3

We are up early, as we have a long drive today. The night before, we did a bit to make the readying phase easier today. As we approach 7.00am I hook up the van and we are ready.

Next to us, something is wrong. Silver Leader for some reason has driven forward a little and stopped. Oh no, not again. A couple of campers instantly come across from the other side of the road and say to him they heard a funny noise as he started. We try to restart the Jeep with first a manual starter and then jump start with Forbsy’s Cruiser to no avail.

The campers from the other side of the road are apparently mine workers on their transition off period. Looking under the bonnet they see an initial issue, the fan belt has come adrift. Not just that, it has been mangled slightly, suggesting something else may be the problem. Thankfully the younger one is an auto electrician in charge of keeping the big mining gear going, as time is money in the morning game. He looks around, trying to refit the fan belt when all of a sudden, he changes his demeanour from, I can fix this quickly, to, I think you are in trouble.

He points to the tensioner and says something like “oh bother, that is broken” but in a language not fit for paper. He dismantles the broken part from the engine block, and it is instantly seen what is wrong. What should be a bearing filled with ball bearings, has none, and it’s frozen and unable to be used.

Next problem, the Jeep is now all but blocking the road. Safety measures employed by jeep mean the vehicle cannot access anything but “park”, meaning its stuck where it is unless we can get it started. Let’s try and jump start it again, Forbsy’s Cruiser is edged up and our new friends show us the proper way to jump such a vehicle. We have tried several times and were not in the park at all in our attempts. The Jeep thunders into life and we are able to get the Jeep into Neutral and push it back.

It’s the Saturday of a long weekend in Western Australia, the Queen’s Birthday weekend, and you know what that means. The race is on to find the parts we need before any Saturday trading is over, and if possible get on the road to the town where the parts are, assuming they are in stock, and obtain them.

The campers in the site beside us know of the predicament and suggest another family will be leaving from Port Headland shortly and if we can arrange the parts they will pick up and deliver them. Sound too good to be true, it was. A fan belt is an easy item to procure, but this tensioner, not so easy. The mechanics here with us recommend a business in Port Headland, but they are not open on a Saturday, we try Repco and another business which has outlets all up the coast. Repco is our only real possibility and they want us to order online, remember internet is shaky at best, and it will be in Port Headland, hopefully on Tuesday. No chance of delivery, we will have to go and pick it up. This would have been very interesting is they had been travelling alone and needed to get to and from Port Headland, but luckily, we are travelling together, meaning either Forbsy or I will make the 6 hour round trip once we know the parts are in store. They are not guaranteeing Tuesday, more like Wednesday or Thursday.

As with Halls Creek, the tyranny of distance has come to the fore. I am taken back yet again to those Toyota commercials, suggesting in this part of the world everything else but a Toyota is only a toy, and unfortunately this is being borne out much to the chagrin of Silver Leader.

What this does mean though is more chances to fish. We set up the van again, buy some more bait from the reception, along with 3 more nights of site costs, and head back to the sea, where high tide is just about to happen. Unlike yesterday where we were out to catch whatever we could, today we could be more discerning, knowing we already had a decent feed of fish left over from the previous day.

Other than for some strip baits, anything like a small fish goes straight back. We are concentrating on the larger ones, the trophy fish if you will and we are on a mission. The bait goes quickly as the smaller fish hammer the large gang hooked bait. As I did yesterday, I stripped a small fish and created strip baits. These were much hardier than the pilchards, and the small fish have much more bites to remove it from the hooks. Plus, now there is more time to strike, the larger fish seem to be more inquisitive of the commotion and are hooked up.

I have big hook, but the first run snaps the line. Devastated in my inability to play the fish I change to my bigger gear and return, and immediately I am on again. This time with much heavier gear I feel I am a better chance of landing the larger fish. It jumps for freedom and manages to spit the hook – bugger.

The time of the tide is done and we head back with a good bag full of fish. A quick refreshment and off to the cleaning tables to fillet and skin the fish for later cooking. While we are there we talk to a young European couple who are cleaning a fish much larger than anything else we have caught, but rather than skin it, he is scaling it. Thinking he is going to cook it whole, I am amazed when once he has scaled it, he then fillets it. I ask him why he didn’t skin the fish and he suggested they liked their fish cooked with a crispy skin.

They have been here a while, their quad bike is well rigged for a romp down the beach, and although they probably caught as many as we did today, only kept the one fish, which will be more than enough for their dinner, whereas ours will do the three vans, plus a little left over.

Back from the cleaning tables the family who were heading up from Port Headland have arrived and placed themselves alongside their friends. This means we have two vans behind us with seven young children, one of which likes to scream to get her point across that she is unhappy, especially at bed time. The kids all play well together and run around like mad things and their parents ensure they are in bed early of an evening.

Its AFL grand final day and Robyn, being from Melbourne is very much all over the TV. I had made some TV snacks, particularly a dish I like to put up to parties of salami and tomato, topped with garlic, pepper, doused in olive oil and lemon juice. At a party everyone has to have some or they will not be able to handle anyone who has, who will then be oozing garlic. We watch intently as Richmond win their 12th flag.

Also on tonight is the second preliminary final in the NRL and Robyn’s favourite team the Melbourne Storm is playing. They are playing the Roosters. It’s a titanic battle and Robyn is right into the mood. The game ebbs and flows but the Roosters prevail over the Storm. Next week will be a Roosters, Raiders grand final.