This time last week I was on my way to town with Mr Chardy. I was pretty excited about the impromptu very quick trip because, as you know, I hadn’t been anywhere for at least 50 days!
Things didn’t get off to a great start though with a crying Clancy on my hands before we left at 4:30am. Poor little fellow. But the show had to go on and we had to go. I said to Mr Chardy that maybe I shouldn’t go but he needed me to drive the ute home as he had a truck to pick up. So that was that. Off I went feeling like an absolute monster leaving my baby crying. Ok so he is nearly 9, but still my baby.
All was good and the road was dry so it was an uneventful trip into town. Now look, I know I was excited about going to town but for anyone who lives out of town or on a station is probably hearing me when I say going to town with your husband isn’t usually all that fun. So we had 1 ute to share which left me like a homeless person while he scooted around town collecting stuff – and lets just say he isn’t the happiest of people in town.
Anyway, I was under no illusion that we would be swanning around the next morning, he told me in no uncertain terms that we were heading off “first thing”. Hmmmm…… the man can have a chat and if we did head off “first thing” maybe we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into the predicament that we did. Anyway, we were gone by about 10:30am. It was sunny and hot.
We had to go up through Mrs Savvy B’s Station and the across home as the shortcut that we normally take was too soft for the truck apparently. I headed up to Shelly’s and was quite looking forward to a little catch up with her while I waited for Mr Chardy to catch up in the truck. That was until I looked out into the direction we were to drive and saw one storm cloud. One storm exactly where we had to drive – OF COURSE THERE WAS!!!
Give me strength. I have the biggest fear of driving on wet, muddy roads, I just hate it. Anyway, we headed off towards said storm and eventually we caught it. We kept driving for as long as we could with Mr Chardy in the truck and me in the ute.
Until it got too wet for the truck. I backed the ute up and we got the gear off the truck and onto the ute (when I say “we” I obviously mean Mr Chardy – there was no way these pink little Birkies were going anywhere near that mud”. So I shimmied over into the passenger seat (thank the lord) and off we went, still heading towards home.
It got wetter and wetter – that one little storm sure did dump some water. We managed to get a further 15km or so until there was just water everywhere and on black soil. Not a great combo. I had my eyes closed for most of the trip, hanging on for dear life, so didn’t actually get a pic of the water that was in front of us. We stopped (and you know when Mr Chardy stops it isn’t looking good). I said “We have to turn back to Shell’s don’t we?”.
Now. by this time we were literally in no mans land – we were 60km from Shelly’s and 60km from home – and no SAT phone. So back we went. The plan was to get the truck back to Shelly’s and Mr Chardy had his hopes set on going back down to Camooweal – 1.5 hours – and then across into the NT and up the Stock Route – probably another 3.5 hours. By this time it was about 4pm. As we headed back towards the truck we could see another storm closing in from the East.
This is how I feel about driving in mud, thinking about my bag on the back of the ute and the 2 boxes of printing paper…
Mr Chardy started in the truck but the road was wet, so we decided to abandon ship once more and left it in one of our Turkey’s Nest enclosures – Robies – so the cows didn’t lick it to death.
Ok, so it was time for me to shimmy back into the passengers seat (yes please) and off we went, into the storm.
When we left Shell’s it was dry and when we arrived back this was the situation…
Meanwhile poor little Clancy would have been having absolute kittens about where we were. But it couldn’t be helped, we gave it our best shot.
I managed to get back to Shell’s without any mud on those pink Birkies.
In the end we both stayed at Shelly’s. The next morning Alex flew me home in their Chopper.
As we got closer to home all we could see was dust – that isn’t a storm – that is just dust… not sure where it was coming from.
Marty hung around for a bit, he did try to drive home directly west but it was too wet, so he ended up going back down to Camooweal and across the long way. He finally arrived home around 5pm on Thursday afternoon.
What a circus! So that was our quick trip to town. The truck is still out in the middle of nowhere – at Robies Bore. But at least Clancy got his popcorn!
On a positive note it is only 9 more sleeps until we go to town again (and I get my hair cut) – this time Brisbane to see family and of course our 2 boys at boarding school. I CANNOT WAIT! Over and out my friends.
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