My dear friends,

It has been over 5 weeks since my last blog update. Last time I wrote I was sitting in a library in Broken Hill reflecting on my time at the Theldarpa Sheep Station. Now I cannot believe I have been back in Walgett already 5 weeks and I am about to leave Walgett behind for the last time. Time passes so fast.

Tiphaine picked me up from Hungry Jacks (Burger King) in Broken Hill 5 weeks ago. It was Thursday evening 14th May 2015. I was so happy to see her. We wouldn't arrive at home in Walgett before Monday evening. Friday we visited Broken Hill, a nice city in the NSW outback. What struck me most were the panels all over the town with information and pictures about the towns' history. Really fascinating. Saturday our destination was Cobar (+/- 500 km). In Cobar we charged our electrical stuff at the Tourist Information Visitor Centre before heading off to a lake where we would spend the night in our Subaru. The lake, however, was almost fully dry, but it was still a nice spot. There is also where trouble began. We noticed the right rear tyre of the car was getting flat really quickly so we replaced it. Not a problem you would think if we hadn't had one really bad left front tyre that already started to show its wire and therefore started to deform. And we had Sunday 150 km of dust and gravel road ahead of us and, yes, shops are closed on Sunday. We had to go to Wanaaring to pick up the Holden Commodore I left there 3 weeks earlier after an accident. So we inflated the tyre we replaced just so in case of an emergency we could use that one to replace the left front tyre. Like this we drove Sunday towards Bourke and Wanaaring (after making a brief stop in a national park to walk a bit). It would take us 400 km to get there from Cobar of which 150 km dust/gravel road. We hoped for the best and tried to keep the stress of the left front tyre. We got to Wanaaring without incident and to my relief we found the Holden Commodore just how I left it behind the police station. I started doing the necessary (temporarily) repairs to get it back home. I sealed off the sump and let it dry out overnight. Monday morning I inspected my repairs, decided everything looked all right and put oil in the sump. But, stupid as I am, I put too much oil so we had to drain a bit of it. Easier said than done. It turned out we had to have a knot welded on the relief knot to be able to drain the sump. The sump only leaked a bit and the Holden was ready to go. Now we still had the tyre problem of the Subaru. The night before we tried the spare tyre of the Holden which turned out to be too big. The following morning we tried to find a tyre somewhere in town but apparently our Subaru's tyres were not that common and had a lot smaller profile than most. So the only option remaining was getting the broken tyre fixed. But because, as all tyres, this tyre was very worn down and repairs wouldn't hold very long. We hoped for the best and started driving back: 150 km dust and gravel and then 300 km to Walgett. We arrived way into the dark Monday night in Walgett without incident. We decided to have all 4 tyres changed. I was really happy the Holden was back 'home'. Now I would have to try to sell it which would turn out not to be easy at all as the car was only registered for another 3 weeks.

But at least we were home again. Normal life took its turn. I started working more for Jim Collins as he needed someone to mainly help him with raking sticks on a paddock which he was clearing with the purpose to plant a crop there the following year. It was an easy job. Driving a tractor with 2 big sets of rakes behind it. He paid me about $100 a day. I did this work on average 3 days a week. Besides this I had a shift at the bar of the Walgett sporting club and I cleaned Jungle's house. The rest of my time I put in finding a new car for travelling and trying to sell the Holden Commodore and the roof rack seperately. I had been told I could expect around $500 for the Holden with the hole in the sump. If that was the only problem. However, the car had a hole in the sump, a dented gear box (still worked), a big crack in the windscreen, a broken bonnet and some other small issues. So I didn't have high hopes. I advertised it on Gumtree twice. The first time I got an offer of $500, but the guy backed out quite quickly and another offer of $200 which was just too low. The second time I advertised the car as a whole but also for parts. A week later I got an offer of $1000 for the car so I played it cool and I said I could live with that. When I met James (the guy who wanted to buy the car) he said: "Hey... would you take $800 for it?" I was singing inside but replied very nutral: "Hmmmm... I guess I can do $800." Holden Commodore gone and we with much more money in our pockets than anticipated. I was so happy.
We already got in contact with a french backbacker Martin who was selling a 2002 Ford Falcon Station Wagon. We had very high requirements and this car was (and is) the only car that answered to our requirements. We needed a car with a low amount of ks (km), not more than $2000, NSW rego (registration) until at least November so it would be easy to sell for us at the end of August, low fuel consumtion, it had to be able to sleep 2 people, common brand for Australia (Holden, Ford, Toyota, ...) so it would be easy to fix and, most of all, it had to be reliable. Martins' car was a 2002 Ford Falcon Station Wagon, +/- 150.000 ks, NSW rego until the end of January 2016, average consumption of 9l/100km, very common and very reliable. The only problem was the price. When we came into contact with Martin he had already lowered his price from $3500 to $2900. At the moment he sold his car there were a lot more sellers than buyers which worked out pretty well for us. We offered him $2000. At first he said "no". A few days later he contacted us again and said $2000 was fine. However we had to come to Sydney, what would be at least a 2-day journey that would cost us quite some money, so we suggested to meet him halfway in Dubbo. He declined. A few days later he came around and agreed to meet us in Dubbo. We sold the Holden on 3th June (4 days before the rego expired) and bought the Ford on 5th June.
The roof rack I managed to sell a few days ago for $80, a fair price.

Besides all this life went its way. Tiphaine worked on Monday and Tuesday for the Collins, for the Ricardos on Wednesday and Sunday, for Melany on Friday and she went to the art group on Thursday. I worked for the Collins on Monday and Tuesday and various other days in the week. Other than working we would go for a walk, visit something, have someone over, etc. We keep busy. Life in a cottage on a farm is quiet and relaxing. I like the fact we have to drive 20 ks on a dust road before we reach sealed roads. You can leave you house unlocked, leave your keys in the car, etc. They won't get stolen. And where on earth could you still do that?!
I love the sunsets over the farm and the stars at night. But all of this comes to an end tomorrow because we will leave Walgett. We will drive south towards Mildura where we plan on working about 2 weeks as fruit pickers before heading to Sydney to pick up 2 friends (Margaux and Astrid) and start travelling the East Coast! Exciting! :)

That's it for now!

CHEERS,

Thomas