Day 89 | Hamilton Station bushcamp: all fixed he continues on
41 km | Heading west total: 3,328 km
Some days you have good luck. Really good luck.
Eventually at about 9 30 am someone came past.
Not much help at all, but he did offer up a hardwood stake.
A what?
I’m not sure what he’s going to do if his 4WD decides to break down in the middle of nowhere. That at least enabled me to whittle a strong dowel to hold the pipes in alignment and then use the hose clamps I had with me, just for such an eventuality, to clamp 2 small spanners either side of the break giving a very rigid joint. I’d been thinking of doing it earlier but there’s only waist high shrubbery out here with brittle wood.
He’s an ingenious Kiwi this bloke.
It even worked long enough to get me the 32 km to Mt Sarah Station. Vincent Williams, who I’d met on my hyper speed travels a couple of evenings ago, wasn’t around but his son Shane helped me out. But the welder at Mt Sarah seemed to be stuck on 155 amps which was strong enough to blow holes in the tube. Shane was kind enough to drive everything 50 km over to Hamilton Station to use their more calibratable welder which at 50 amps did a great job.
And what’s more his girlfriend Ana postponed her bath for a few hours to also help out. They’d only just arrived back from being out mustering cattle for a few days. (Mt Sarah is about 2200 square kilometres and they had 2424 cattle counted.) It’s a bit remote out here, they drive 9 hours each way to get to the Port Augusta supermarket once a month. And have a small plane.
Thanks team. That meant I could be on my way once again with not much delay in the end.
Lucky.
It made a huge difference for me.