First Year of living in Fregon
Leonie the rally driver
That day became very still which was unusual for Fregon which was usually very windy. What was also unusual was the fact that all of the birds had become silent. When we looked towards the west there was a very large storm front rolling along with thunder and lightening. However it was still a long way off so I decided to change the rear lyre on the car for the trip to Adelaide, with Bronwyn helping me, as I had never changed a tyre before.
Treacle can over to warn me that "big water" was coming and as he was telling me the heavens opened up. I have never heard or seen such rainfall before, all of the gutters on the house overflowed like a curtain of water from all sides. We rushed inside and watched the driveway become a river of water. The noise was so loud that Bronwyn and I had to scream to be heard. I was soaked but at least the tyre had been finished before this otherwise the jack would have collapsed in the wet sand. We looked around to see where Treacle was and there he was kneeling in the corner of the lounge room praying.
My confidence to drive out to the highway through the dirt roads fell flat. I had been given instructions from Peter, the local mechanic who had lived up on the Pitj lands for most of his life, of how to drive the dirt roads. One of these tips were that just after a rain if I kept to where the water was puddled it was the hardest bit of dirt because the water couldn't soak away and be mud. When the rain finally did slacken off Bronwyn and Treacle rushed off towards their homes. I finished packing the car and put it away in the shed. We were still going to leave at 5:30 am so we went to bed to the sounds of further rain falling.
David, James, Puddles the poodle got into the car, attached the trailer by hand because I didn't have a shifting spanner and off we went. We arrived at the first corner just out of Fregon and saw that it was completely covered in water with the biggest puddle I had ever seen.
"Right boys", I said lets try and get through this it doesn't matter if we get bogged as we can walk back into town and get help." I backed off the accelerator and eased the car forward; I breathed a great sigh of relief as we made it through to the other side.
That day the VC Valiant swam through some amazing water, it even had bow waves coming off the front and water exiting from the top of the bonnet they were so deep. In fact some of them you just hang your hand out the window and touch the top of the water. I had to keep stopping and putting the trailer back on as it kept falling onto the road off the hitch but the chains held it to the car. The car often lost traction in the mud but we kept it going with the thought that if it stopped we would sit on the roof and wait for someone to tow us out.
We had enough food to last a couple of days and we certainly didn't have to worry about drinking water. We kept seeing fresh tracks off to the side of the road so I knew that someone had got through before us however they kept going off to the side of the road and I could see where the vehicle had almost become bogged several times. I decided to keep with the middle of the road as the sides of the road and the surrounding area was very muddy and you would easily get stuck. The boys and I were having a wonderful time and they would cheer everytime the car went into a puddle or slipped in the mud. So we were very surprised to find a Toyota Landcruiser bogged when we came around a corner about 10km out from Mimilli. Off course we stopped and asked if they needed a lift to Mimilli. It turns out that they had been there all night long as they had taken a patient to Fregon for a night evacuation by the Flying Doctor (ours was the only night landing strip for the whole of the Lands, as we have no surrounding hills). They were returning when the storm had hit and got bogged on the way back to Mimilli. So we took the Anangu HealthCare worker and I called into Terry's (their Mechanic) to go and tow the male white nurse that we had left with the vehicle.
Finishing all of this we continued towards the highway, however the road toward Indulkna wasn't as sandy as the road that we had come along so there weren't as many deep-water puddles. It took 4 and half-hours, which is twice as long as it normally took so I was relieved to see the bitumen. I had such a sense of achievement to get to the highway on my own without anyone's help. Once we got into Marla I bought a shifting spanner so that the trailer wouldn't fall off the hitch and filled up with petrol, bought take-away and hit the road again heading toward Copper Pedy which is the next petrol stop. We went fairly slow as I hadn't driven any distances by myself and I was worried about my driving ability at speed. So the kids and I sang songs and played games all the way to Adelaide.
I kept trying to offer David to the people behind the money tills saying that I have proof he has a dollar in him. They just laughed and off we went once again driving to long distances south, I decided to drive all the way to Adelaide without having to stop for the night mainly because we couldn't afford the hotel money.
Everytime I stopped the car to have a short sleep the boys would wake up and create such a noise I may as well continue so we arrived in Reynella at 12:30 am. The next problem was waking up Bruce, who can sleep through anything and get him to open up the door. Eventually he let us in and was very surprised to see us 3 days earlier than he had expected. I explained all that had happened and collapsed into bed. We made all of the appropriate appointments at the doctors for David to have the x-rays to find out where this $1 had got too and wouldn't you know it just as we are about to leave to go he has to go to the toilet. Yep there it was, it had finally come out. We debated as to whether we would keep it as a memento but yuck, what do you keep it in? In the end we put it in the bin and it went to the dump.
