Reason triumphs
Blossom-Camp — 2000-08-06
My sleep is broken by the sound of raindrops drumming softly on the thin tent walls, I hope that the weather improves by tomorrow, then I let myself fall back into the world of dreams. The horrible beeping of our watches awakens us at 5:00 a.m. and I realise that the rain is pelting down as before. The chances of us departing today are next to nothing, considering how dangerous the going is for our camels when the road is slippery. After a quick consultation with Tanja, we decide to roll over and sleep some more.
At 8:00 a.m. I leave the tent at last, in order to relieve myself. The rain has stopped and the dark clouds are moving away to the north. ‘It looks good’ I say to Tanja, slipping back into my damp sleeping bag. For about fifteen minutes we consider whether it would still be worth setting out today, after losing more than three hours of the day by sleeping in. Normally, we need four to five hours to take the camp down and load the camels, my body wants to remain where it is, but my mind and reason say ‘Get up you lazy fellow, and get your backside into gear. Or do you want to waste all your time in the rest camps?’ I fight with myself in this manner for some time, until my body can’t stand listening to reason’s arguments any longer and finally gives in. ‘Okay, let’s get up. If we work quickly then we’ll be ready to go by midday.’ I say to Tanja and force myself out of the tent.
At 12:45 we are on the road to Yalgoo. ‘It’s good to be on the move again’ Tanja says good naturedly, and I must agree. We eat lunch on the move, seeing as we didn’t get going until midday, and soon have to share our freshly baked nut and apricot damper with Sebastian. He gets a whiff of the goodies and pushes his huge head between Tanja and I, batting the lids of his big teddy bear eyes at us. We can’t resist, of course, and let him have a bite.
The road is an important link to the outside world and the mining company has sealed the pretty dirt track, making the going hard on our camel’s bones. We keep to the soft shoulders and are surprised at how much traffic passes this way, besides the huge road-trains that regularly thunder past, moving the earth with it’s precious content from the Golden Grove Mine to who knows where, we see at least one car tearing by every two hours. Sometimes the drivers pull over, hop out and ask us why we are walking with our camels, if we are collecting money for some worthy cause as well as many other questions. One very friendly couple, on their way to Perth, told us all about their holiday and gave us some deliciously juicy oranges and lemons. Despite the rain of last night, today is clear and sunny and we find a lovely camp at 3:45 p.m., nestled between blossoming bushes. We sit together by the fire tonight, as usual, and are glad to have come a little closer to Broome, our goal for this leg of the journey, even if only 11 kilometres.
