SUNDAY 12 AUGUST     HOME VALLEY

John worked on the brakes. M helped by trying to decipher the notes he’d made, from the laptop manual. He seemed to have fixed them and was very pleased with himself.

It looked like, our previous service centre, when they were supposed to have properly fixed the brakes in 2005, had used pins that were the wrong length, and bent them to fit. This was certainly the case in the brake on the other wheel, that was partly coming apart, so he presumed it was the same on the one that fell apart here. That one remaining pin was definitely a different configuration to the one supplied to us now. We’d had trouble with their brake work on a previous trip too. Landrovers were such great vehicles, but it was so hard to get work done properly on them in Melbourne.

Son fished while the brake work was going on. He only managed to catch catfish, which annoyed him no end.

After lunch, when the work was all done, we drove back up the Gibb, to Bindoola Lookout – partly to test the brake work, partly so son could see the outlook from there, to add to his mind-blowing Kimberley collection.

We stopped off at the Reception/bar area and bought ourselves a beer each. Again, this was to allow son to soak in the atmosphere of the place. He used our GoCall card account to phone his estranged wife, to check if all was well. I gathered that he had some concerns about how she was managing her life and the company the children were being exposed to.

We spent a couple of hours round the campfire, after tea. Another great night.

I was really enjoying sharing this special area with son.