I was on tents again; John on canoes.
Mail plane day. Was a card from friend M. I was pleasantly surprised to find my newspaper came – despite the long weekend.
Now cook and husband had gone to Mt Isa for a two day, one night break – their routine two days off.
B, who had been acting for much of the time as kitchen hand, filled in as cook and did an excellent roast beef dinner. There was plenty for all and even seconds for the hungry men – a nice change!
John on amenities/grounds. I was on tent housekeeping.
A routine sort of day. Not too many tents to do. No unpleasant surprises, like a man using the little rubbish tin in his tent as a potty, during the night, and leaving it behind to be emptied by whoever found it! That was V, not me, and she was most unimpressed!
Some of John’s signs, drying
I was on tent housekeeping, John on amenities/grounds.
I was called up to the office to take a phone call from the Flying Doctor. I had some anxiety as I hurried up there from the laundry. But it was just to say that all my blood related tests came back normal: blood sugar, liver and kidney functions, thyroid levels – the latter always reassuring, since I was surgically relieved of half my thyroid some seven years ago. Unfasted cholesterol was only 4.9 which was apparently very good, since several of the other staff expressed envy!
I was now certain that the mystery aliment had been a muscle injury.
B and M arrived back late in the day. Their two day break had extended to four, because M had a sore foot and had to have it scanned in Isa. He thought he had hurt it doing the canoes, with the new canoe ramp in place. The men did not think it was a great design and found it very difficult to use. Thought up by a Ranger who did not work on canoe hire, clearly!
I wasn’t sure how M had managed to get a scan done on a long weekend. Their extended absence had meant last-minute roster changes. If he could no longer do canoe hire duty, F and John would be happy because it was their preferred duty. But it could also put some pressure on, because M did not like the more grotty jobs like cleaning anything, collecting campground rubbish. He preferred to be off working independently on “special projects” – like building planter boxes for flowers!
It was our twelfth wedding anniversary. I spent it on reception, John on amenities cleaning and grounds upkeep. We did not publicize the occasion and there was no celebration.
Old F had been spending much time, over the past couple of months, repairing the canoes. The tourists were pretty hard on them. Even though there was a well posted and publicized ban on taking them beyond Indarri Falls, because of the lack of a proper portage, many did drag them along the somewhat rocky path around the falls, then kept paddling up to the Upper Gorge. So there were lots of holes and weakened patches on the canoe bottoms. Most days, the old canoe rattler came back at the end of the day carrying a canoe or two, for F’s attentions.
John had been using time left at the ends of days when he was not on the canoe roster (which often ran beyond 5pm), making some signs on old drum lids. The idea was that these would be posted, along the road from the Gregory corner, to here, advertising the place. He and old F had a work area for their activities outside the old workshop, a bit away from the tourists were likely to wander.
Same duties as yesterday for us.
I was steadily busy, as was John, without being frantically rushed. Trade was tailing off a bit.
We were back to night temperatures of about 19 and days of 30.
The baby fell off the unrailed back verandah/loading dock, 1.3 metres up. He had a few more bumps on his head and some skin grazed off his jaw. The boss was really missing the carer!
John was on canoes. I was on reception.
It was the long weekend for the Mt Isa Rodeo. This time, last year, we had just gotten to Doomadgee. That was not a pleasant recollection!
We did a fair trade in tourists who did not like the idea of the festivities – or who could not get into the booked-out accommodation in the town. Rodeo refugees! There was also a steady stream of locals from Doomadgee, stopping in for drinks, ice creams, snacks, on their way to Isa for the event, which is huge on the local calendar.
B and M went off to Isa for a two day break. They managed to get out a lot – much more than the rest of us. Some of that was medical related, which we did not envy them for, but status as relative of an owner seemed to allow them latitude.
The crawling baby fell down the steps in front of Reception, when the boss got distracted, and developed a sizeable bump on his head. Apart from that, seemed fine – tough little tacker.
I was on tents, John on amenities/yard again.
It was a hard day – I had thirteen tents to “do”. That meant about fifty sheets to wash, dry and put back on beds; twenty six towels to wash, get dry, fold, and place on beds in tents; the kitchen tea towels and the baby’s nappies to wash. I actually managed, though, to get our clothes washing done, in amongst tent cleaning.
I worked 8am to 6.30pm and was exhausted at the end. I sweated a lot – the days were heating up and it got quite stifling working inside the tents. Think I got a bit dehydrated.
I could look out on this whilst cleaning tents
John had hosed around some of the tents, to settle dust, and he got some of the matting areas in the front of some tents, wet. I had to clean mud of those before I could do the tents. Two old codgers traipsed across the mats of three tents – separately – so I had to sweep them twice extra. Was not happy! That contributed to the late finish.
I was very thorough with the tent cleaning – perhaps more so than some of the other staff when they had a lot to do. Maybe I was not as kind to myself as I could be.
John was cross because I was late and wasn’t around to have a happy hour beer with him at the van when he knocked off at 5pm.
I couldn’t stomach the thought of cook’s greasy lamb chop special casserole – made with instant Maggi flavour additive and without any fat skimmed off whilst cooking. I’d also seen her bread and butter custard, sitting on the edge of the stove, most of the afternoon, waiting to be put in the oven, with the bread pieces drying up and going curled. She did not make it by pouring the custard over the bread – just dumped it all in the dish, any old how.
So, I drank lots of water, instead of having dinner, and really enjoyed my shower, which with the water adjusted to tepid, was really refreshing.
After tea, John went to do a computer internet download, in the office. It took ages, because daughter had emailed me a couple of photos of grandson, and that clogged things up. John couldn’t finish his download, so was not happy. I should have to tell daughter thanks for the thought, but no more! I loved the photos of the five month old – cute age.
About 10pm, John went out to investigate a crashing noise and found another white bull in a bamboo clump near us. Here we go again! F and D shelled out of their vans to help him chase it out of the grounds, but it finished up down in the campground somewhere. They had to choose between letting it go and settle down, or waking up the whole campground. They just hoped it stayed away from tents. For that matter, away from staff caravans too.
I was on reception – unexpectedly – because V got me to swap with her. She was not in the mood for being pleasant all day, on reception! John was on cleaning amenities and yard work – back to reality!
Mail day. There was a mail parcel from home, a couple of postcards from friend M, posted as she’d driven her wide circuit back to Mt Isa, and my newspaper.
I took a phone call on behalf of a touring group. They wanted to confirm that they were booked to meet up with boss R for a Riversleigh tour, tomorrow morning at Site D. They also mentioned that they had eight or nine camp sites booked for two nights. BUT – I could find nothing in the camp booking book! I made pleasant, affirmative noises, completed the call, then rather frantically double and triple checked. When I eventually caught up with boss, and pressed, he “thought” he could remember making the arrangements!
I had to do some very complicated shuffling around in the bookings book, to get the group into sites relatively close to each other – luckily, we were not full. This sometimes haphazard approach to records and bookings was very annoying. It was embarrassing when one was on the counter and people came in, believing they had bookings, and we couldn’t find same. It was mostly the result of people phoning in the evening, and the bosses taking the calls on the portable handset, and then not getting round to going into the shop to record the details – notes on little pieces of paper got easily mislaid.
It was a long day. It was quiet in patches, then there was a rush of campers near teatime, wanting pies, sausage rolls and the like – so there was pressure on the little microwave in the kitchen, as well as on me. It took about five minutes to heat one pie, and we could only do one at a time, so dealing with any quantity required patience, both by the customer and me!
John helped wash dishes after tea, while I went back to the shop to finalize the till, which I hadn’t had time to do, before tea.
It was cook and husband’s day off, so the boss was cooking. R cooked fish on the BBQ, which he did well and it was nice. But it was served with mashed potato and boiled frozen peas and carrots, which was a bit boring. Dessert was pineapple crumble – using tinned pineapple – with custard; the custard was alright.
After breakfast, drove out to the other place that we had permission to visit – Murray Springs – following another mud map. This one featured “wire gate”, “gap”, an arrow pointing on a track to the NT border, and a rough estimate of 15kms distance from camp.
Seen from a Musselbrook track
We missed a turn and drove almost to the NT border. Only realized from the distance travelled and the persistent westwards trend on the GPS that we had gone astray. We backtracked and corrected, finding the gap in the fence, that marked our turning point, that I’d missed before. The “mistake” was a scenic drive, anyway, through quite rugged country.
The tracks to these sites were quite good. The whole area is an absolute maze of tracks – presumably, some date from the days when it was all station property but most from the mining exploration period. Some would be maintained these days, by National Parks, for access to research sites.
The Murray Springs, on Murray Creek, were quite pleasant, but not in the class of yesterday’s gorge. Murray Creek eventually flows into Musselbrook Creek, near the mining camp.
Murray Springs water hole
There was much ironstone around the area where we drove today.
Back at the mining camp, we walked and explored about the camp area.
Looking back to the mining camp from the nearby ridge
We went to where an original old homestead had been, on a slight ridge, with a great outlook. There was a memorial cairn there, to George Doherty – who I guessed was maybe of the pioneering family who established the original Highland Plains property.
Memorial cairn on ridge site of original homestead
Outlook to west from original homestead site
John took his time inspecting the mining camp plant – the solar array with its battery storage unit, fuel storage tank, satellite dish. He found some very termite riddled lengths of timber on the ground.
Main building at the old mining camp
Solar panel array at mining camp
After lunch, we packed up our camp and left Musselbrook about 2pm, to head back to Adels.
We felt very grateful to have been allowed to go out to Musselbrook. Even the bosses at Adels had not yet been there.
Stopped on the drive out to gather a couple of pieces of the gutta percha timber.
Cluster of gutta percha trees by Musselbrook track
We got back about 6pm, with thick layers of dust over everything, and my hair feeling like steel wool. Just proved that Truck had not somehow miraculously become dust proof! The shower was very welcome – that was something we hadn’t had whilst away.
I thought the break away had done us good, although I couldn’t feel very enthusiastic at the prospect of work tomorrow.
We kept the canvas window flaps of the tent open, all night. Because of the curve of the tent roof, we could lie in bed and look straight up at the stars, which was rather magical. There are so many, and they are so bright, out in this country.
We slept quite well on the air bed – a while since we’d used this!
After breakfast, set out to drive to Chilli Gorge, following another of Ranger J’s mud maps. This was a set of rather wobbly lines, with crosses over track junctions to show where we should not go! I was not convinced, however, that all possible deviations were thus covered! It had annotations like “tall ridge”, “ironstone escarpment”, “down through deep valley saddle”, “bulldust”.
Mud Map!
Having the GPS made me a bit more confident. If I entered enough way points as we went, then at least we should be able to find our way back to camp!
Track to Chilli Gorge
We took one wrong turn, but ended up at a pretty water hole anyway, which we thought might have been Black Cockatoo Water Hole.
Probably Black Cockatoo Water Hole
Much of the track was along ridge tops, with increasingly dramatic vistas of ranges and distant gorges.
Following a ridge top
Lots of the creek beds had stands of gutta percha, which we’d noticed by the track on the way in, yesterday too. John was determined to get some, later, for home wood working. I found a gutta percha tree that had been injured by flood debris, last wet, and gathered some of the large balls of golden resin that had formed along the scar. I’d been told that, in the early days, this had been used as a primitive form of dental filling. It certainly was set hard.
Great views from the ridge tops
We eventually reached the end of the track we were following, near the gorge, some 25kms from camp.
Chilli Gorge over in that range somewhere
Walked up the creek bed, into the gorge, carrying our packed sandwiches.
Followed the creek bed into the Groge
It was quite spectacular – rough and rugged. Water pools and sheer rock faces eventually stopped us from going too far, so we stopped and ate lunch beside the water.
Near the start of Chilli Gorge
Chilli Gorge
Then climbed to the top of the escarpment and could see the gorge extending a long way back into the range. We followed the ridge for a way, until stopped by a very steep sided gorge ahead of us.
Rugged country
About as far as we could clamber
Red rock walls of Chilli Gorge
Walked back to Truck and set off back to camp. Felt confident enough to explore some of the side tracks on the way back, but always eventually retracing our way, with the help of the GPS.
Spinifex and rocky ridges
KT had left this morning, to head to home in SE Qld, where he was due to have his fourth hip replacement!
So we were now alone out here.
We had been most heartened, out at the Gorge, to find the skeleton of a cane toad that had clearly been turned on its back and eaten out through the stomach. Some birds, notably crows, had learned to do this, thus avoiding the deadly poison sacs on the toad’s back shoulders.
Cane toad skeleton – eaten from stomach side
An interesting event happened back at camp, whilst we were relaxing after our drive. We heard, quite clearly, a ringing telephone! It took us quite a while to work out that a butcher bird was making the sound! He had obviously heard the amplified phone ring, when the camp was in use, and now mimicked it. It seemed totally incongruous.
Survivor tree near mining camp
This night on our own passed uneventfully – no spooky noises in the night.
This Adventurous Age 