Sun, 26th June, 2022 Bush camp by Gibb River, Kalumburu Road to Bush camp near art site near Gibb River, Kalumburu Road, WA (truck broke)

6.30am 12.6 degrees. There is a cloud band in the south.

8am only up to 14 degrees as the cloud is blocking the sun.

Packed up and drove back down the track a bit to the track into an aboriginal art site. The area is a huge rocky outcrop and there are two big rocks with small overhangs where some very bright paintings area. The area has been fenced off.

Poor Mr Chook doesn’t look to happy. I had a cockatoo at Yellowfin Close who looked like this so I started putting out some seed. Unfortunately all his friends arrived too.

Back to the truck to head up to Mitchell Falls but it wound over but wouldn’t start the engine. Steve checked everything - battery, fuel all fine. We had bought a Scan Tool to diagnose electrical problems after the Common Rail bit in Darwin but it wouldn’t register with the truck. Steve had noticed that the glow plug wasn’t coming on so figured out it must be something to do with the ECU (Engine Control Unit) which he can’t fix even with his mechanical knowhow. There is no phone reception here and we only have the satellite phone for emergency calls. Luckily Steve always parks so others can get around us in carparks etc and we were reasonably level.

We put the roof up as it looks like we are staying here for a bit. After lunch when Steve felt he had tried everything we decided to call a towing company. I walked up to the creek to see if anyone had a sat phone I could use. I waved down one car with 4 lovely gents from Adelaide and they let me use theirs (I gave them some money for it as it costs $2 a minute to use). I got onto Chris from ATR (Auto Tow & Repair) in Kununurra as it will be shorter to go back there. He will send out a tilt tray tomorrow and said it should be here about 7am. Luckily I had paid the extra to increase the towing allowance for our policy with Club 4x4 so we should be ok there. I also borrowed another chap’s scan tool but that didn’t work either. Steve kept checking things, just in case but no joy.

Other people came up to look at the paintings and commiserated with us but I said it could always be worst. Unfortunately electronics on cars now make this difficult to fix in remote areas.

The sky has cleared and it is quite breezy. I got my blog up-to-date! Just need good internet to upload it all one day.

Clouds coming back over again in the afternoon. After a cuppa we wandered down to the river to chat with some others. Lots of campers here tonight. A group of kids were fishing off the rock and a water monitor was sun-baking on the rock below one chap. He wasn’t disturbed by all the goings on at all.

Back to the camper - noticed it had only got up to 28 degrees today. I walked around the area checking other big rocks for paintings but didn’t find any.

Quiet night here all by ourselves.