Adventure to the Red Centre, part 3

North to Arkaroola

There's no such thing as a lie-in on this trip because of the distances involved.  Up at dawn yet again to reach Arkaroola.  En route was the Brachina Gorge .  Real Outback country, yet unlike anything we had encountered so far.  Following a (mainly) dry creek at the bottom of the gorge, it was jumping (pun absolutely intended) with wildlife.

Once your eyes had dialled in, there were yellow-footed rock wallabies everywhere as the following photos show.

Can you see them in the crack?

How about now?

Posing on a rock - thanks mate!

The bank behind the tree is silt to a depth of over 3 metres from a flash flood.

Driving along an old creek bed

Not many people out this way

Lunch was due at Parachilna, first surveyed in the 1860's.  A tiny population in the area but a centre for various gatherings as the Prairie Hotel has developed an excellent reputation for fine dining, together with a micro-brewery. 

The Prairie Hotel, Parachilna

Micro-brewery inside the hotel

Seating for lunch with Aboriginal art gracing the walls

The hotel specialises in local foods and emu, kangaroo, camel, goat cheese and the like were all on the menu and utterly delicious, as was the beer.

Platters of local produce

Opposite the hotel was a sculpture garden with some interesting items.  My particular favourite was what looked like random bits of sheet metal on poles.  When you lined them up at a particular vantage point, they took on the shape of a train.

Cool garden art

Early life from the area up to 550 million years ago

Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary covers over 600,000 sq km and is also a Dark Skies area.  Because of clear skies and a massive variation in rock types and ages, it's also a mecca for science study.  There are even radioactive geothermal springs at the northern end of the property. Temperatures are typical desert, hot during the day but cold after sundown.  The wallabies came in from the surrounding bush for wilderness staff to feed (not enough for dependence).

Our evening meal was a little chaotic initially as around 150 adventure bike riders from all round Australia had converged on Arkaroola and wanted feeding.  Sorted pretty quickly.  Most were grizzled greybeards of "a certain age" and great to chat with.

Russian Ural sidecar unit

These guys had more modern BMW's

Another early start the next day for a ridgetop drive in an open Toyota Landcruiser over some challenging tracks and hostile conditions.  Low range gearbox selection, low gear was the order of the day. It was difficult to stay in place and we all ended up getting very friendly with the people seated next to us at one time or another!

Built for the job - the Landcruiser

Wild country

   

Grass Trees on a ridge

Quite a view from this tea and cake stop - Siller's Lookout

Aussie guide - amazing presentation skills as were they all

Rock which was largely iron

Unknown rock but way cool! C3PO's head perhaps?

The end of the ridgetop tour

It's quite unfair to single out one part of this tour as the highlight as it is so beautifully curated with such variety. However, if someone was to ask what part we would do again, it would almost certainly be Arkaroola.  It fitted in with my interests, was superbly run and the overwhelming scenery evoked quite an emotional response.  Pretty much the same for Jennie too.

Next post - Lake Eyre and Birdsville area.

Two steps forward, one back

It's been anything but a routine existence in the James household since my knee replacement at the end of last August.  The surgery itself was pretty much painless and testament to the wonderful surgical team lead by surgeon Melissa Rossaak at Ormiston private hospital in Auckland. Rehab has been anything but painless. Getting started with a proper rehab programme was delayed due to a shortage of public health service physios in our region so I went privately after losing patience.  The rehab pain was due to the exercises to regain flexibility.  It's unavoidable that these will hurt when you're pushing hard.  Being grumpy and a little depressed was inevitable and massive kudos to Jennie for taking it in her stride and only telling me to pull my head in on far fewer occasions than I deserved.

After several months of flexibility exercises, it was time to graduate to cycling again.  Stage one was mounting my ancient road bike in a simple resistance frame and doing lots of static pedalling in a lean-to shed attached to the house.  The biggest hurdle was getting my rebuilt knee over top dead centre because of the degree of bend required but we got there with much sweat and bad language.

Pedalling fast and going nowhere

Muscle strength was markedly improving and knee stability was outstanding compared with the previous few years. In the new year, it was time to try out the e-mountain bike, albeit sticking to sealed roads for a while to gain confidence.  Sitting on the e-bike in the shed for the first time revealed some ergonomic problems as the configuration was markedly different to my old road bike. Some adjustments saw a very careful first ride without too many anxious moments. Yippee!  

Three or four more shortish rides and things were going well, so I booked an appointment with Bryan, my village GP for a progress chat.  Bryan is a great guy and like most GP's in a rural environment with proper hospitals few and far between, he has an amazing array of skills but he's really down to earth with no pretentions.  This is where the "one step backwards" in the title comes in.  After expressing pleasure at the progress made, he points at the side of my knee and says, "What's that?"  "It's a mole", I say - had it for at least 2 decades.  Bryan was uneasy about it, made an appointment for the next day so that he could remove it and arrange a biopsy.  Duly removed the next day in about 10 minutes and sent away.  Result came back that it was a low grade melanoma.  Heck of a shock, even though it was low grade.  Bryan didn't see any point in organising a specialist hospital consultation due to potential delays through the national health service so offered to do the larger excision the following day to make sure that it was all removed.  Absolutely brilliant as it stopped me brooding about it and letting the mind run wild.

The surgery session itself was a surprisingly social affair.  I guess that's what happens in a village of 1600-odd people where everyone knows each other.  Whilst Bryan performed the surgery, a nurse practitioner was there for routine surgical support duties and a final year med student was there to observe and suture the incision under Bryan's guidance.  While this was going on, we were all chatting about wine, classic cars and fishing; accompanied by much laughter.  What an incredible atmosphere to take one's mind off proceedings and an hour later, it was all done.  My knee surgeon isn't going to be happy though.  Her once arrow-straight incision is now crooked where the skin had to be stretched to close the latest battle scar.  Just call me Frankenstein's Monster!

Decent battle scar

The subsequent biopsy result was completely clear - a massive relief.  I owe Bryan big time for spotting it in the first place as I wouldn't have noticed anything. Also for all his additional experience and skills when they were needed.  Whilst not a big deal in the scale of things, with the skin in the area of the incision being quite tight, I wasn't immediately  able to cycle or do anything else strenuous and risk popping the sutures - another time-related setback.  I've only been on the e-bike again for a relatively short time but everything is going well.  Hopefully, I'll be back on the dirt trails before long.  NZ and Australia have some of the highest UV levels on the planet and whilst I've always taken precautions, I'll be extra vigilant from now on, including regular mole mapping.

Out for a nice 25 km training ride - Te Kouma launch ramps

These delays have stopped progress on other jobs too.  The garden is in dire need of a tidy-up for starters.  We used a mowing contractor during rehab but the rest hasn't had much attention since last August.  Autumn pruning, thinning out our bromeliad collection and other gardening chores are all work in progress.  We had a massive crop of Luisa plums but we were able to  pick the lot and bag them for the freezer.

Impressive Luisa plum crop

Garden in dire need of tidying

Driving the MG has generally been limited to local trips but it's been a good time for routine maintenance - changing hoses that have gone hard etc.  However, we have a day trip with the classic car club from the next town coming up shortly and next month, a 2 day weekend trip with the MG Owners Club.  All great people with no egos or marque snobbery.

New hoses ready for fitting

Unfortunately, there's one more cloud on the horizon.  I had a call from my surgeon asking when I wanted the other knee replaced, with a strong recommendation that it should be done by the end of the year.  It's something I've deliberately avoided thinking about but the replacement has been so good that having another like it will be amazing.  I guess having it done next spring should be the goal and rehab should be faster this time.  However, something to look forward to beforehand is our 52nd wedding anniversary trip to Australia to an area we haven't visited previously.  Starting in Adelaide, South Australia; we're going through the Outback in a 4WD truck north to Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) via some of the famous landmarks.  That should help take my mind off things.  Perhaps we can get back to normal in 2025 - I'll be 77 by then but still trying to live life to the fullest.

Outback 4WD adventure

A light-hearted book review....

 The cover of the book in question

 
Paul Carter is the stereotypical portrayal of an Aussie male - larger than life, a bit rough round the edges, absolutely up front, supremely resourceful and a wicked sense of humour.  Could be Crocodile Dundee we're describing here apart from the fact that Paul is real!  He spent what might be described as his formative years working on oil rigs round the world and during the process, was surprised to discover that he had a considerable literary talent.  I've read his accounts of working on the oil rigs and the lunatics who worked with him and have literally come close to wetting myself in embarrassing locations.   He's also a keen biker, although that doesn't receive a lot of coverage in those books.

Anticipating a wet weekend, I took myself off to the public library and was delighted to find a copy of his latest book - the cover of which is shown above.  It's the story of his ride round Australia on a bike originally built by Adelaide University students for an alternative fuels challenge, consisting of a Cagiva adventure bike rolling chassis and a small single cylinder diesel pump engine running on used cooking oil to propel it along.  With a top speed of 70km/hr and vibration on par with a road compactor, you just know this is going to be one heck of a tale!  Oh, and the bike was prepared for the trip by the Australian main branch of Deus Ex Machina - you may have seen my 2 blog posts on the NZ branch of these extraordinary motorcycle builders.

Paul is one of those rare writers who describes things so well that it's easy to believe you're there too.  His enthusiastic but unhinged approach to things marks him as a "man's man" whom guys will immediately identify with.  Women will identify him as possessing the very worst, irritating and excessive traits of their partners!  This isn't some tale of  a mega-expensive Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman-type ride, it's done on a shoestring with some help from a few odd mates (the emphasis being on ODD) plus some family members.

 The conclusion to an unbelievably funny incident!

Paul's self-deprecating writing style  makes you immediately identify with the predicaments he continually finds himself in.  In my case, it's usually the most embarrassing ones!  I'm not going to spoil it for the potential reader but there's one incident in a hospital where Paul is stiff all over following a spill from the bike and moving about with the aid of a walking frame.  Why is it that all medical staff seem obsessed with bowel movements??  He's been put on a diet of prunes for over 24 hours.  Whole prunes, puréed prunes, prunes with a side dish of prunes - you get the picture!  At a completely inopportune time, they start to work as intended and what happens next had me crying with snot running out of my nose and ribs hurting.  One of the funniest and perfectly-painted mental pictures I've ever encountered and that's just one incident in this brilliant book.

The twists and turns in the book will probably awaken a deep-seated need to go and do something completely daft on two wheels so don't blame me if that happens - you've been warned!!  If you enjoy it (and you'd have to have had a humour bypass not to), go and get the biographies of his oil rig days too - you won't be disappointed.

Is That Thing Diesel?  by Paul Carter.  ISBN 987-1-74175-702-6

Costs about US$11 from Amazon; a bit cheaper if downloaded as an e-book.