Day 43 Victoria River

 A slow morning, and we packed up and prepared the interior with closing windows and putting in the rods to stop them self-opening and covering the bed and tops of the contents of our clothes drawers, ready to go back on the dirt road. This will become our regular routine once we get on the Gibb River Road. Matt decided as we were driving along, that he should film the bull dust. So he opened his window and filmed the bus with his phone. This was all very well until I turned around and noticed the whole bus was filled with dust! 😩. So Matt dutifully closed his window and I also noticed that his beard and hair was now a shade of red😜! The whole right side of me was red really. I filmed out the window cause the passenger refused to stand on the side of the road and film me going past. Something about needing to breathe… either way we ate dust. A small two trailer road train came the other way at one point, I knew he was coming cause I saw his dust cloud in the distance above the trees for about two minutes before I saw him. I had to stop when he went past as I could see nothing but orange dirt for about a minute.  We saw a dingo strolling along the road casually, and a few cows and even the odd water buffalo. Eventually we returned to the Victoria Highway and headed towards the west. We arrived at Victoria River and did a little drive around and checked out the river, before finding a 3km return walk to the escarpment of the ranges around us. Despite it being the worst time of day to embark on a walk uphill, we headed out on this walk (I was hooked up to my IV, as today is a 20 hour infusion day, so that helped in the heat). It started out ok, but the path was quite rough and rocky, and it became steep and we had to walk between rocks and over rocks. But despite the heat, the walk was worth all the effort. The views were breathtaking, as we looked down from the top of the escarpment, you could see the Victoria River winding through the ranges, the road coming through the valley of a gorge, a birds eye view of the road house and a nearby farm. All around us there was dark orange, almost red, rocky escarpments and mountain ranges with a smattering of trees and golden grasses. I took the time to stop and listen and be present; the buzz of the jumbo sized native carpenter bees, the whirr of the flies, the breeze whispering through the trees, breathing on us and cooling us down, the drone of distant engines. Eventually it was time to leave this moment behind and in my memory, and head back down the winding, rocky trail. Half way down, we could see the carpark in the distance and noticed that pulled up alongside Bridget was fellow road companions Ian and Meredith, in their Clipper ‘Trailways’; they had caught up with us, to do the WA adventure together. By the time we had reached the carpark, they were sitting enjoying a cup of tea. We headed back to the Victoria River roadhouse and parked up for the night. Matt had to get back under the bus to work on the water pump, again, so he could have a shower. It seems bull dust gets into electrical switches and clogs them up. Lucky I bought three switches, I’ve taped this one up to try and stop the dust getting into it. He found a spring was missing and after  me searching for a spring, and only finding a pen spring, Matt being Matt resized the spring and got the pump going again. When it’s all you have you make it work. He then had to readjust the hot water system before he could have his shower, but eventually all the systems were working properly again, and he could wash the red dirt out of his hair and beard. I am now temporarily grey again. He got to sit and chill and catch up with Ian and Meredith and we enjoyed dinner together before retreating to our respective buses when the mozzies came out. Tomorrow we will reach the WA border.