MONDAY 3 JULY     KUNUNURRA

In the morning, went to the shops. Bought some odds and ends at the supermarket, including filters for my water filtering jug.

We found someone – a Landrover dealer of sorts – who could fix the air-con on Truck. He quoted nearly $300. John was shocked! It did seem a lot. He said he needed to think about it.

The light industrial establishments in this town were rather hard to locate, being kind of scattered around in the housing sections.

After lunch, went to the Post Office to collect the mail. I had letters from three friends – a good batch! There was a phone bill – small, for once, and cheques for $14 in Keno prizes! Haven’t exactly made our fortune at that, yet.

We went for a small drive – out through the Packsaddle Plains irrigation area. This was across the Diversion Dam and then to the south, on the other side of the Ord River. Bought some bananas at a farm gate stall. I was shocked at the amount of wasted produce we saw – mostly water melons. Could not tell why there was so much mangled fruit lying about.

Tea was sausages, potato, tomato.

After tea, I did some planning of food to take on the Gibb River Road jaunt. We will only have the Chescold fridge, so can’t take frozen meats. I believe the local butcher does cryovac meat packs, so they will keep for a while in the fridge. But mostly, we will need fresh produce that keeps well. Hopefully we will be able to replenish some stocks of fresh items at community stores – I remember being able to buy a chicken to roast at the store at Mt Barnett, in 1993! At the time, I had not expected to be able to buy such items along the Gibb River Road. We will probably only be about 4-5 weeks away from the van.