September 23 Day 2 Arkaroola Station

Doug Sprigg the owner of Arkaroola Station where we would be staying for the next few days came on the radio as we were joining the circuit and offered the use of one of the hangars.  There was a C182 and a small 4WD in it so we squirrelled the Emerald Hippie away in one corner and squeezed JCU in in front of that. Anthony had to fly out the following afternoon to pick Maddy up from Broken Hill; so he taxied around to the lee of the second hangar and pegged the Cherokee down in the dirt.

Doug was an interesting guy and an iterative font of all things flora, fauna, mineral and machine on the station. His father Reg is a legend: scientist, environmentalist, adventurer and an early pioneer of eco-tourism. He was mates with Mawson and something of a visionary apparently; although he knew dick shit about uranium.  He found the earliest living animal fossils though. Fancy a living fossil 630 million years old. Bet they drank Milo when they were kids. Anyways we didn't get to meet Reg who died in Scotland years back but we climbed the mountain named after his wife and we decided that we liked his son Doug.

The bus came down the dusty road and gathered us all up for transportation. Bit of a desultory lecture on what you can see by the road helped pass the time and soon we were dumped at the reception. Piled our bags behind the counter while we waited for our rooms and grabbed a quick lunch. Rooms were neat, clean and comfortable and had a nice view over the helicopter pad. Just the thing really. After lunch we got into the walks and decided to attack Griselda (but really gently). Steep climb up from the road and a bit of a scramble at the top according to the lady at reception. Been scrambling most of my life and so I wasn't much worried by the prospect. As it turned out it was pretty steep and pretty rocky and the going was slow until we reached a small rock wall right at the top. Then the going basically stopped. Dustin went up and had a look and a few of us followed while others found a comfortable rock and enjoyed the views of the valley. From the top you could see over the resort and the property and into the next valley to the west. It was scenic and the rugged hills, red rocks and green xanthoreas made for pretty pictures.


In the fullness of time we powered down the hill - slip sliding away as it were - and strode our way back to reception. Majella convinced us we should walk on a ways up the next valley, which we did. She's a persuasive woman. Much to Sam's delight we soon came across a formation of lizards out for an afternoon crawl. One of them poked a blue tongue at me and so I poked my red one back at him ... her ... bit hard to tell the difference between mister and misses lizard I'm afraid. Must be a tough dating scene in lizard land. Anyways it was another very pleasant walk. Most of the crew wandered into the bar on our return and as the sun was going down they decided to down a few quiet ales. But Majella and I had a crack at the pool. It was deep and it was cold: very cold: freeeeezzzing!. I should add refreshing and I felt great as a result but it took me a couple of hours to get the Bee Gees music out of my head. Majella didn't seem to have the same problem.

Dinner! Well ... dinner was a BBQ with a couple of big fires and it was good. We ate in shifts and we drank to augment the fires. Worked out pretty well really. Not a lot of veges. Guess the ground was too stony and dry to grow many. Clearly there was plenty of meat. Wasn't always sure what I was chewing on but hey I'm still here.