29 february leap Year

Wednesday 29 February      Leap Year

Slow and late start. Everyone is waiting for the Hispanic mechanic to get back with the chunk of gearbox he took home. He was going to clean it out of fragments of broken teeth and be at Scania when they opened this morning to get the new part and assemble it. He reckons he will be here to install it and take all our tents down by lunchtime! Not exactly lacking in confidence, and well lubricated by that stage. I have this mental image of his triumphant arrival, serenaded into the camp to the tune of Toreadors (Geelong theme song).

We have been one of three unlucky tents to have attracted the attention of whatever birds have been peppering us with overnight dung. It rained quite a bit during the night and I entertained fantasies of some of the poo washing off – yeah as if. In fact it was 10 times worse – the little bastards must have been eating licorice yesterday.

Only about half a dozen went into town for dinner and another couple went in for a drink later. We woke up to find Danny and Jamie still at it. Apparently, Danny and Tab came home in a taxi and both had turns driving it. The driver took them into town and then evidently spent the money on grog. When they rang him to fetch them again he turned up plastered. Danny stalled it and so Tab (who was even more legless) had a turn and drove the 6km out to the camp (and almost through the gates).

J had long Skype chats with Steph and Amanda while we wait for El Mechanico, who slid under Bob and with blistering speed installed the repaired gearbox. Huzzaah. Colin took off to get fuel while we took down tents. He was gone a long time and then Sam got a mobile call that seemed to make her unhappy. We all assumed the worst – broken again. Turned out that nobody would accept the credit card and he couldn’t get fuel. He announced that we would have to wait until the following day so we should all re-assemble our tents. Makes one wonder what they did with the $US20,000 cash we gave them 4 days ago to buy petrol? Anyway, Gordon and Kevin both immediately said they would lend him cash (another example of why you should consult people before you direct them) and we headed off. It was 2.30 by then and, as predicted, we didn’t reach the overnight quarry stop until after 10.

C was on cook group with Jamie, the newbie who was all fired up with demonstrating his award-winning prowess at chicken parme-whatever – and CHIPS! Nobody ever does chips on these trips and we only really have 2.5 burners which are too close together to get anything else on next to the big frypan. The shopping trip dragged on while we repeatedly went through the chips/hash brown debate. We settled for the browns and had enough to afford a full chicken breast each.

It turned out that Jamie didn’t know the recipe for parmegiana sauce, but we had lots of accomplished helpers and set about the long slow process of coaxing some heat into the food. We reviewed the forecasts of golden-brown hash browns and settled for hash beiges and eventually mash browns. Eventually it turned out quite well and the 10kg of hash browns were finished at breakfast, by which time they tasted really excellent. Somebody had kindly put our tent up and once we found it we had no trouble in falling asleep.