six am monday morning i was waiting on my curb with a mug of hot coffee waiting for my cab to the airport. cabbies in perth are sneaky. they hear my accent and think im a tourist that they can drive around in circles. little do they know, im a local and got this shit on lock! haha. no but really, i'd say 3 out of my last 5 cab rides i've had to tell them to cut the shit and take the normal way. makes me wonder how many times ive been travelling somewhere foreign and been given the run around...live and learn i guess.
super bonus! work switched airline carriers to qantas so now we get frequent flier points! we landed and hopped on the bus to cloudbreak. once we got to cloudbreak we had to get all our stuff from lockers (i also learned that little bugs crawl into your lockers and die so when pulling clothes out from the lockers, its best to give them a bit of a shake so you dont end up wearing a shirt...and a cockroach) and piled everything into two land cruisers and a flat bed ute. we had a mix-up with what cars we were taking and how many were allotted to us, it was a debacle and a half. looking back now i realize it was a sign from jeebus on how this field session would turn out lol. anyhow, we sorted out our rides and started the 3 hour trek southwest to the exploration camp of nyidingu (nyidi).
exploration camps are notorious for having terrible accommodation, and the rumors about nyidi were pretty extreme. so i was preparing myself for the worst. about halfway through our drive, the scenery started changing from a barren acacia and mulga landscape to a rich green one that was cris-crossed by creeks lined with big leafy eucalyptus, and these big green clumps of spinifex that were going to seed and looked alot like wheatgrass. i was totally digging the change of landscape. kirsten and i were cruising in the ute singing along to journey's "dont stop believing" heading into the sunset leaving a big red dirt cloud behind us. its funny how the same shit we did in the field in america is the same stuff you do in the field when youre across the globe and in another hemisphere. some things are just universal i guess.
we came around a bend and BAM! there was the hammersley range. i'd call them hills (compared to what we have at home), but out here they are considered mountains. i have yet to see any real topography since being here so even though they werent that big, they were still impressive. i was pretty stoked to find out that our camp was right at the base of them. i gave nyidi a mental "bonus point" lol. the camp was super small compared to cloudbreak, but it has a very local and personable feel that the big camp was missing. we were introduced to everyone (they all know each others names) and offered several welcome beverages. we hit the mess for dinner and i was surprised again by how tasty the food was (i gave nyidi another mental "bonus point"). usually the food tastes like dog kibble (...i'm mostly saying this for effect as i've never actually tried dog kibble) at the big camps, but i guess cause its a small exploration camp they put in some extra effort.
one part of the awful rumors about nyidi was that none of the bedrooms had toilets or showers. i was kinda dreading it until i saw their sweet set-up. they've got room blocks and then toilet/shower blocks nearby. the toilet/shower blocks are divided into 12 individual rooms with doors and locks so its sorta like having your own bathroom....just one that you have to walk to haha. it actually hasnt been that bad except for the other night when i decided that a chamomile tea before bed was a great idea. yeah, turns out that it wasnt. i woke up at 1 am BURSTING and didnt want to get out of bed and walk outside to the toilets, so i convinced myself for three hours that i didnt really need to go. i lost that battle at 4 am and trudged my way to the toilet through the dark.
surprise of surprises! the traditional owners were gathering around the cars in the morning when i hear "KETCHUP!!!" shouted across the parking lot lol. it was clifford and jr, two of my favorite to's from a previous field session who so lovingly nicknamed me ketchup (if youre confused, click here). i was excited that they were back and on my crew! our first go at survey was in area c. we started driving to it and realized that it was within the marillana cattle station. i tried calling several people to see if we had permission to cross into the cattle station, but couldnt get ahold of anyone (i took away one of my nyidi "bonus points". the cell reception out here SUCKS!) i decided i'd rather be safe than sorry, so we crossed the road and headed towards the station to give the landowner a heads up that we'd be working in the area. holy oasis in the desert! marillana is beautiful!
we got to meet lee, the station owner. he was an ooold time-y aussie cow poke with an amazing accent and the rattiest akubra hat ive ever seen. he was stoked for company and invited us in for tea but we had to decline (i bet he had some amazing stories). anyway, he said we could go anywhere we wanted, just to watch out for the python that was in the area. "that daaamn ole snake 'as bin gettin' all mah chickun eggs before i can git to em". lol, i kept an eye out but didnt see any snakes. dang? had a great day of walking and recording historic artifact scatters.
we got back to nyidi that evening and when word got out we'd been to marillana, everyone freaked out. i mean really freaked out. you'd think we ran over four small babies with dump trucks the way they were freaking out. i guess marillana station is owned by a rival mining company blah blah blah. big debacle. but at the end of they day i wondered who the genius was that decided our survey area should be on land that wasnt ours, that also happened to be smack dab on/around someones existing homestead? yeah, that guy probably should be fired. jafi.
so the next day we were instructed to avoid area c like the plague and to work somewhere else. i chose area e. no particular reason, maybe i was just feeling "e"-asy that day (lol, god i love puns). we did some walking and some serious 'bush-bashing" with the land cruisers. i cant decide if all australians just like to rally cars through the bush or if its just because they are mining vehicles and nobody cares what happens to them? either way, we were pushing them through some gnarly vegetation. the worst is when youre the driver and youre mowing through a dodgy area and hear a dead branch scraaaaape across the roof (think fingernails on a chalkboard), and you go, "ahhh fuck. wonder how bad that looks?" but you dont really dwell on it that long cause you've probably just done something equally as heinous right after that. im amazed that either of our cruisers are still operational.
we wrapped up survey and headed out to the main road (keep in mind we're in the bush, so when i say main road, i just mean a bigger than normal dirt road lol). arden and i are in one car and kirsten has the fellas with her in the other car. she volunteers to lead the way back to camp and takes off like a hoon (aussie slang for someone who drives recklessly and/or dangerously). arden and i were following her dust cloud when i saw a couple of roo's dart across the road. because im a stupid american and cant get enough of kangaroos, i made arden slow down so we could "ooh and ahhh" over them. next thing i know we are getting called up on our radio by kirsten. she frantically tells me they've rolled the car and to come quickly. arden and i start freaking out and take off down the dirt road.
about 2k ahead we see everyone on the side of the road and the cruiser completely flipped on its opposite end. i could see that everyone was alive and breathing, but the shock of seeing it all was pretty intense. it felt like my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. we pulled up and kirsten was hysterical. i told her to move everyone away from the car in case it was leaking gasoline (because it was going to explode? i blame hollywood for making me think that all cars in accidents are on the verge of exploding). arden was on the radios and sat phone calling for help, and i went over to clifford who was wincing in pain. he'd dislocated his shoulder during the crash and was holding his arm at a super awkward angle. i nabbed my first aid kit and sat him down so i could sling and swathe his arm. everyone was freaking out and i thought i was handling it all pretty well until i looked down at my hands when i was tying up cliffords sling. they were shaking like MAD! crazy how panic and stress manifests itself. i got him all situated and ran back to arden. none of our radios were working and neither was the sat phone. i tell ya, there is nothing more frustrating than sitting through endless safety meetings and listening over and over to safety protocols, and then when a real emergency happens, none of it works. arden hopped in the other car and went to marillana station for help, and i went back to everyone else. kirsten was sitting in the dirt crying, but otherwise okay, clifford was sitting on the water cooler cradling his arm and looking very much in pain, and the other guys were open mouth breathing and staring at the wreckage of the cruiser.
when i was finally able to get the whole story it went something like this: kirsten was crusing pretty fast down the dirt road when all of a sudden a flat bed big rig came plowing around a blind corner. apparently it was driving in the center of the road and left kirstens car no choice but to swerve out of the way. they missed the truck but she over-corrected and thats what ultimately rolled the car. the guy driving the big rig didnt even stop. we're still not sure if its cause he was a dick or if he didnt realize that he'd just caused an accident.
it took 40+ minutes for the ambulance to arrive. thank god nobody was suffering from any life threatening injuries or we'd have been in a real pickle. the medic ran over to clifford and loaded him up in the ambulance and then did a quick check of everyone else. he gave me props on my sling and swathe job (booya wilderness first responder!), and then decided all the crash victims should come with him into newman to get properly checked out at the hospital. the medic drove with clifford, and i escorted the ambulance with everyone else. let me tell you, there is nothing more nerve racking than driving a car full of recent car-crash victims on a dodgy dirt road. i thought they were going to have heart attacks every time i hit a bump.
we made it to newman before nightfall and spent the next three hours in the emergency waiting room. i was beyond grateful and relieved when the doctor gave everyone the "all clear" and we were free to go. as we were walking out i caught a glimpse of the mural across from the emergency room desk. not sure as to why this was in an emergency room seeing as how it has nothing to do....with well, pretty much anything lol. but it still gave me a sleep deprived chuckle.
we loaded everyone into the cars and made the long trek back to nyidi. all this drama and we werent even halfway through the field session! someone on my team must have pissed off karma. i have more field adventures to bore you with, but they'll be continued in part three of my epic word vomit.
lol stay tuned.
Dang, that read is some good shit! What an adventure! Glad everyone is ok.
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