Third Year of living in Fregon

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Inland Sea

March 1992

Road going into Alywanyuwanyu

We arrived at Alywanyuwanyu and there wasn't much water in the rock pool. I had expected with all the overnight rain that there would be more water however there was enough for the kids to splash around in. There is a natural rock slide that goes onto the pool and the kids were soon sliding down that into the water. The only thing is that it wears away the seat of your pants pretty quickly and David had soon wore a big hole in his new Easter pants my mother had sent him - Woops.

Surrounding the rock pool were some shallow caves with rock paintings. I photographed some of these and Michael and I then went for a walk to see if there were some suitable swimming spots up higher but there wasn't. It was extremely humid and it was getting overcast. Bruce as usual was riding his motor bike where only mountain goats would venture. The kids were having a great time climbing the rocks.

The green is the water of the swimming hole. When there is nowhere to swim the kids will swim in anything

We had a barbie and were sitting around the camp fire talking when it got dark we were thinking of staying the night but a storm front was getting closer. The lightening and thunder came so we packed quickly all of the gear into the cars. Then the rain fell like someone had turned on a fire hose the noise was deafening. The valiant became wedged on a rock and we had to lift the sump off with a jack. We decided that it was too risky for Matthew to ride his bike in the rain and now forming mud so we strapped it onto the trailer and he got into the no-roofed car with Jason.

The rain fell and fell and the little puddles became enormous. It was fantastic. The sky would light up with the lightening and I tried to video tape some of it. We had to drive extremely slowly because the road was becoming one continuous puddle with waves being formed with the wind.

We made it to the short cut that runs along Officer Creek, which is mainly a two-wheeled track. It was raining so hard now that even with the windscreen wipers on full you still couldn't see out of it. We could only do 20-30 km per hour as the tyres would loose traction and the back of the car would slide around sideways. Most of the water was now constantly about the bottom of the doors and was seeping into the car.

It was great fun and so exhilarating. When the rain would stop I would put my head out of the window and watch the bow waves that were forming off the front of the car. The car lights would make the raindrops light up before they hit the car and would make the whole scene surreal. The kids would all cheer at the lightning and award points to them.

At one point the rest of the group had fallen behind so we stopped on top of a cattle grid (which was the only bit of high ground) and wait for the others. When they arrived poor Jason was soaking wet and very cold and when he stopped on top of the cattle grid and opened the door the water poured out. He had about 3 inches of water sloshing around in the car as he was driving. That is what you get when you have a car with no roof and lots and lots of rain.

We got to about 10km from town, in fact we could just make out the three street lights in town when our car stopped. Oh No!!! Bruce checked a few thing under the bonnet.
"Nope there wasn't any water on the ignition!" So he just shrugged his shoulders but when he checked out the automatic transmission it didn't drip red oil like it was suppose to but brown mud. There had been so much water that it had forced the hose off and mud down the breather and into the transmission. Bruce shut the bonnet and I tried to start the car. She fired up the engine and we were off once more. All the poor car wanted to do is share her pain and get a bit of Tender Loving Care. She carried us back to Fregon without any problems and into the shed without so much as a miss in the motor. Lucky we were going to get a new motor and gearbox for the old girl.

It had taken 5 hours to get back and only 50 minutes to get there. What a fantastic day! Bruce flushed the automatic gearbox out with kerosene a few times and it went perfectly again until it got its new parts. What an amazing car!!

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