Wednesday, 11 October 2017

Sun, 8th Oct, 2017 The Granites, near Mt Magnet to bush camp beside historic railway siding, 50km E of Yalgoo, WA


4am 14 degrees. We had everything ready to drive into town in our PJs and park up ready to watch the V8 broadcast of the Bathurst 1000 at 4.30am. Parked on the outskirt of town and settled in with a coffee in bed to keep us awake.

7am still only 15 degrees when we got up for breakfast and the start of the Great Race. Clear blue sky but the breeze is still cool – not that we opened any windows that is.

Rain is predicted for the race – glad we are here watching – we might be cold but at least we are dry. Poor Leanne & Rick doing their morning shift on the main gates – freezing.

We both would love to see Scott McLaughlin finish off his great start to the weekend with a race win but it is a long race and with rain anything can happen. Of course any of the Fords will do. We would also like David Reynolds to win as he is with Betty Klimenko’s small team and it would be such a reward for them all even if it is a Holden!!

What a change to yesterday’s times – race started with misty rain so the times are only 2min 27 sec and as the rain got heavier it slowed to 2. 40. Poor Scotty’s car developed problems and eventually stopped causing the first safety car then a kangaroo hopped along so out came the safety car again. Next one was because there was a rock on the track. Thank goodness for the Mute button as we are over the repeated adds on TV. A few more safety cars now as the cars start wearing and spinning off etc. Eventually after 7 hours 13 minutes David Reynolds won followed by Scott Pye (another guy who has had some horrendous crashes over the years so good for him to succeed) then a Ford with Fabian Coulthard. Betty’s other car came 4th so she was very excited.

Lou rang to discuss the race as we were getting ready to head off. First though Steve noticed a tyre was down on the truck so we had to pump that up.

Headed west towards Yalgoo. Lots of goats along the roadside. There is a goat farm near The Granites – maybe they catch the ferals or maybe they escaped!!

Pulled into the siding site of the Geraldton to Cue railway line beside an old chimney of the Railway Board house. Checked out the info board – very hard to read. It’s construction started in Geraldton in 1894 and reached Cue in 1897 and eventually got to Meekatharra in 1910 and in 1978 the line was closed. Now there is a gas line running beside the road.





Drove a bit further away from the road and pulled up for the night.

Pretty flowers.

Steve checked the tyre and the rim has split so he had to change tyres. We had problems with splitting tyres in Tassie too.


Quiet evening and off to bed early after our early start this morning.

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