Mt Elizabeth

02/07/2019

The plan was to travel 7km back to the GRR then 30km east along the GRR then 30km north to Mt Elizabeth Station.

The road out here is a bit rough, and not everybody makes it.

This day turned into somewhat of a disaster, perhaps we hadn’t been showing Franky enough love, or maybe he wanted to join the others above, but just short of Mt Elizabeth Station he decided he needed a bit of a rest and a belly rub. As we were travelling about 60 kph the rear diff snapped, this resulted in the diff hitting and dragging along the road, and both rear wheels looking like they where about to go separate ways. This happened about 4km before the Mt Elizabeth Station.

With much appreciated help from some other travelers we did some impressive bush mechanics which involved disconnecting the Tail shaft and with use of 4 ratchet straps, a log, and lots of head scratching we managed to get Franky up off the ground and gently towed him into the station.

As it works out our RACQ membership had lapsed, we went through all sorts of stresses and confusion on what to do and how to do it. It took us a fair bit of time to understand our options, then make some decisions, only to find that the options changed and we needed to re-consider, very frustrating and a bit stressful. All in all we spent 9 days at Mt Elizabeth Station, then another night at Mt Barnett and then about 7 hours travelling back to Derby in the Supply Truck that we loaded Frank on.

We cannot speak highly enough of our new friends that we have made through this challenge. From the beginning of our drama, Peter from the station came out and picked us up, Chloe encouraged us to sit in the beautiful gardens, have a cool drink and relax a little so that we can think a little clearer. During our stay we met the Station Managers Luke & Emma and their children Lacey, Joyce and Kelly, along with the rest of the team, Izzy, McKenzie, Helen, Terry & Jan. Every single one of these people went out of their way to make us welcome, comfortable and included us in their lives. We feel privileged to have met them and are proud to call them our friends.

During our stay we learnt a bit about the teamwork and dependency on each other that happens to keep the station functioning as well as the challenges and benefits that they experience living on a remote cattle station. This is very different to the way we normally live, and turned out to be an excellent opportunity to experience a little bit of this lifestyle.

One of our attempts to leave involved loading Frank onto this old Army truck and then onto the Supply Truck, for a few different reasons this couldn’t work, we needed another plan.

We met Tim & Pam at breakfast and they invited us to spend the day with them exploring the station, we had great day 4WD ing (well watching) and exploring the station and some of the rock art.

After our long day we enjoyed the communal fire with Tim, Pam and Helen, also check the out the sketch that our camping neighbor Val, did whilst we were out for the day.

We decided to an experiment one day by giving other campers $10 to take to Ellenbrae Station which is 180 kms away  who have a good reputation for their scones, and then see if other travelers heading back our way might deliver them. Well talk about great service, the money left at about 9am and the scones were delivered by Sonya around 5pm, complete with cream & jam.

Its now the 11th of July, and we are leaving Mount Elizabeth today, we are excited, but feel a little funny, kinda like we are leaving home. Although we had some challenges we both cherish our time that we spent here, many great memories.