A VERY chilly morning in Mingenew. The touring Party spent a good while drinking coffee and stamping foot to foot this morning but ultimately got going. We need to nominate a ring leader for this circus, coz there’s a lot of wondering and wandering. Those in the modern cars let the A’s get a 20minute head start but we caught them up 750m up the road at the Mingenew Bakery. Eventually, all were on the road by 10am and the days drive had started.
The trip up to Mullewa was pleasant with some sunshine and all the canola fields in full bloom looking stunning. We arrived at Mullewa about 11am for fuel, but thought to go further up the road for lunch after stretching our legs only to discover by word of mouth that there was no fuel in Murchison. As we were wondering what to do about this and who was carrying what Jerry cans, the fuel truck pulled in! We thought we were saved, but it was a different truck. Calls to Brett in Woolleen found that he was still out prospecting and after talking to Frances, we discovered Woolleen was waiting on the same fuel delivery.
After chatting to the local copper, who had been admiring the cars Darryl and Kim hunted down a 44 gallon drum and got it up on the back of Darryl’s truck. Apparently it’s illegal to fill a 44 gallon drum from a bowser while it’s on a vehicle so MANY Jerry cans were filled and ferried back and forwards by Kim lifting them up onto the truck to Darryl to pour them in the drum. It was a slow process, but got the job done. By this time we’d been in Mullewa a few hours and many had had lunch while standing around. As a piece of interest, some of us visited the pop up gallery of Helen Ansell. Lovely artwork of local flowers and birds. So, feeling as if the day was slipping away we were back on the road at 1.30pm to Murchison.
We met the first of the gravel in this leg, but it was well maintained and some road crews were out fixing damage from last weeks rain. The moderns caught up with the trailing As who’s had a quick beer stop at a likely spot and we continued on into Murchison without incident.
Murchison Oasis is a great stop with lovely lawn for the campers and nice amenities. I have it on good authority that the loos were 160 paces from Kaye Eardley’s camp which seems to be the upper limit of her night time walking tolerance. We’ll keep this in mind when allocating camp.
There is no mobile connections around Murchison, so I don’t know when this will be posted.