An excellent sleep last night with not much wind to keep us awake flapping the tent! There was just enough to dry the clothes though. The usual for breakfast before pack up and an extra bucket of water from the well. Whilst eating breakfast we watched a lone camel trotting over the next sand dune. He stopped long enough for us to get a photo before disappearing over the horizon. Bob decided to have a look at the auxiliary battery one last time....no luck in finding a problem. We decided to use the sat phone to ring Garry to get the number for the auto electrician who who fitted the second battery.
Two phone calls later, a 30 amp fuse, some fuse wire and a fuse holder from Jon and the problem was solved. The circuit breaker installed for the battery isolator had failed. Bob and Jon made a new circuit breaker and wallah! We now have cold stuff!
The auto electrician was very good, he went through each component and working out different scenarios, making me short things out with a price of wire, until we narrowed it down to the circuit breaker. We have actually bypassed the circuit breaker, using an extra fusible link Jon had under the bonnet. So, we didn't actually hit the track till about 10am. Scotty and the worlds most expensive jeep ($130,000) with his mates arrived as we were fixing the battery and departed shortly before us. We caught up to at the intersection to the well turnoff where one of the Jeeps required a brake fluid top off. Bob has some handy and let them use it. They fired up and headed off in front of us. They were traveling a lot faster than us and planned to be 30kms north of well 33 tonight.
We visited Michael Tobins grave at well 40. He was speared by an Aboriginal man at the exact moment he shot and killed the Aboriginal. The aborginal whom he shot and killed does not appear to have a grave, and there seems to be no record of him.
The incident is vividly described in the book 'The beckoning west The story of Hubert Trotman and the Canning stock route' by Eleanor Smith
Had lunch at well 40. Not a lot of the well left. The salt lakes have formed in the last few years, making for a desolate scene at the well. the walk up to Tobins grave is very pleasant, much nicer than driving.
We headed south towards well 39, which was a hole in the ground with a tree growing over it. In the tree there were heaps of little finches surviving off the small amount of water in the bottom of the muddy well. On our way to well 38 we had a walk over a big red chunky rock outcrop. Kerrin had a fall skinning her pinky finger and hurting her thumb. Tonight we are camped on the side of the track about 20kms north of well 39. The wind has died down and we enjoyed watching the big orange moon rise over the landscape while eating our dinner. After dinner Bob and I had a play around with the camera and did some light painting of the tents and surrounding landscape. We got some very cool shots!
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