But not for long, a few days later i was back on the road . Memory hill was calling. The track up the hill to the top had to be finished. A trip for at least two weeks, max three, because my flight date was getting closer and closer.
We started to feel as an expedition team for the Himalaya's. We had our donga in the community. A place to sleep, shower and cook. From there we go to “the lay down area”. A place to unload the truck. The materials are Mesh, handrail , and other different sizes of square hollow bar, round bar and least but most important our tool box. The next thing we unload is our bobcat, the digger we call it. A machine that goes against all gravity laws, but mostly because it’s driver. Trevor drives it up roads, rock, dirt, everything you can imagine, vertical, horizontal , diagonal. He does it all. The next thing is our car , we rented out of the movie “mad max”. A V6 , automatic gear box, low range, high range, modified bumpers, modified roof rack .
All packed with material, smoko and lunch boxes , the expedition starts. Trevor drives the digger, i’m on the steering wheel of our V6, we still trying to find a proper name to baptise this machine. The first break on the track is ‘Turn-around 1’, just a dirt area that’s made flat to turn around our vehicles 180 degree’s. Don’t get me wrong, The place is just big enough to turn the vehicles after three spins.In front of us , the steel track starts his way to “base camp 1”. The track is just big enough to get trough with one car, definitely a one way direction, and the possibilities to modify our mad max car while we driving up. Every inch the car becomes smaller, the less turns we have to make. There is also one turn-around on the way up. A platform build out of steel, round bar and mesh against the incline of memory Hill. A training session for the upper arms. The training is all about turning a non-power steering wheel on standing position with air pressure 25 in tyres on hard mesh steel . Making 8 times a full turn in both directions.. After this training sessions it is just another 10 metres on a incline of 45 degrees, and “base camp 1” is in sight.
The first camp up the hill is a flattened area, to have a rest , smoko and lunch. Base camp is completely set up with shade structure, barbie area, engel, solar panel to keep it going. This is momentarily the end stop of our mad max car. The track keeps going for another 500 metre on steel mesh before it goes over to a ramp to cover a high of 4 metre. After the ramp , “camp 2” is in process of development. Once the camp is finished the car can get up there and turn around to go back again saving us a lot of time coming down every time to base camp one to have lunch.Our team is up here now for a week. The ramp is finished and Trevor is digging his way up . The final stretch to the top. Almost a flat stretch , just a few rocks need to be moved to make a decent track. Camp 2 , almost done, almost flattened, almost a new place to have a spell and barbie. We still have a week , all the pressure is on Trevor, once he gets his digger at the top. We can pack up and go back to Alice. A few days more and fly to Europe. Checking out if my godchild still behaves.
It was gonna be a relaxing last week here, till i pushed a handrail post the wrong way. Everything slowed down and changed direction.
The time in the outback town existed about different things to do. A day job , a printing job and a daily fight against the cold.
Every morning that passes , i discovered a new clothing material to keep me warm on my bike. Yep, you read it right. I go with a bike to work. So you understand why sport was eliminated on my bucket list. The temperatures here in the warm sunny outback can reach a minus. A min 2 or even min 3. So it’s freaking cold with a short on a bike. I was to stubborn to buy long paints. I live in the hot warm dessert , no way i’m gonna have long paints. But i had to give in , "winter is coming", T-shirt, work shirt, jacket, beanie, rigger gloves, high viv vest. These are just a part of my wardrobe in the morning to survive the bike ride to work. The only problem was i had a bike ride back to the granny flat. Once the sun gets at the horizon and starts her way up. The temperature also starts to rise up. With the rising of the sun and temp, one by one , parts of my bike survival trip , where stripped of my body. But the crazy thing here is , the temp doesn't stop at a plus ten or eleven , no, it can go all the way to a warm 28 or even 30. So on the end of the working day there is a whole wardrobe laying next to you that has to go back on a bike to the granny, to start again doing the same ritual in the morning.
Doing my icy survival training in the morning, a day job, and the printing after. days just passes on, and my trip back to Euralia becomes closer and closer. Flight is organised, the date is fixed . 12 July i will be flying to Brussels , and will be able to see what a ten month gap does to a garden.The moment i had fixed my departure day. The speed at the working shop increased. A week in kings canyon was on the schedule .We had to install a new fence with gate, and a turn wheel to let people out but not in.The integrated installation had to be placed a few metres up front where the rim walk starts. A walk , I'm sure still is a fresh memory for my sis. Steps on a 45 and more degree angle. Steps who are not seems to end, all the way up to the rim. But from there on, is a beautiful walk in a moon landscape, descending to the garden of eve. One of my favourite places , but i reckon , in my case, everything with an association with eve will look beautiful for me.
The job went cruisy, dig holes, concrete, weld post and sheets and get out of there. We stayed at one of the ranger houses, a house with two bedrooms, kitchen and utilities. Nice place to stay, except every day there where contractors arriving to stay at the same house. So by the time we left there were contractors and swags spread everywhere . Outside, kitchen, laundry room, utility room. everything that could give a little bit of privacy and could be consider as a room was taken. It was a good thing there was no dog house. It would have definitely been taken by a contractor’s swag. The only problem we were starting to get was a contractor walking and creeping around and over swag’s to get an early coffee in the middle of the night.But as a law , no job is perfect. On the way back , we heard a strange noise coming from the passenger side. It looks like one of the plastic covers was not well attached. As a passenger i was looking at it, when in a few seconds , the whole side was ripped of by a rubber band that gave away from the tyre. Something that most experienced truckies never will experience in their life. A malfunction from the tyre, fabrication fault, a tyre fabricated on an early Monday or late Friday.So our trip was extended with a few hours, change the tyre and no short cut on the dirt track. We had to take long way around with bitumen road.
But as always , all roads lead to Alice.
Coming back from the three weeks of survival at the cross, i came back in the little town of Alice.
Suddenly , work drop back down . Instead of going for the usual 70 hours a week it just went down to 38. It resembles to the Australian dollar coming from 0.8 to 0.6 in a few years.
So i had to find things to do with my time. I still had another 32 hours to fill in. There were a few possibilities that i tried one by one. Sleeping was one of them, catching up with my body, but that didn’ last long. The end of this sleep trial came to end when i woke up at two , in the middle of the night and started to walk and creep in the middle of the night around the house.A second method was start drinking a bit more , but that didn’t last long too , after one night i had already enough from that trial, a imaginary joyride in the middle of the unit made sure of that.Another method was going out in the booming town in the middle of the dessert. But the inhabitants of that town made sure that i lost interest in that too. Going for a dance or drink and not to worry about your environment, is quit a problem. It’s a hunting ground in the true meaning of the word. Male predators who are fighting amongst them to become the supreme alpha. Female predators chasing each other to become the evil queen of Alice. And i’m not gonna talk about the chase between male - female. You definitely don’t want to know about that.Down to another one on my bucket list. Sport, naaahhh, was doing already enough body training during the day. Don’t want to become another muscles from a Belgian city.Eating, naaaahhh, to much dishes.After falling and standing up again, i found out i could buy a 3D-printer. That the prices of such a device where dropped a lot ,like everything else here, so i thought i ‘ll give it a try . It were anxious days, waiting till the printer would arrive. But it did. But to get the printer working i still had to work at the printer. Screws were loose, platform and extruders had to be placed at the correct height. Software had to be installed. So it took me another week to install the damned printer. But hé, i had enough spare time.
And yes, the first print sticked on the platform. And soon another and another. No time wasted as print-time. My first critters out of plastic came to life. And after a few days , i had a little collection of little funobjects. The worm, baby, joker, the slaves, diver and the speak, hear and see no evils all came to live. And still there are more joining the queue to be printed. Once a print is done, there is still a bit of work to do at the critter. A shame really, because if they would jump out the printer , straight to a finished product, it would have been an easy way to get my bank account growing. Of course if people would buy my critters, but now with all the hours of work to finish them, it becomes a product i can’t sell.
But anyway, there is more involved then having an idea , trying to bring it to the market and to make a living from it.
