Tuesday, 4 August 2026
With all the mechanical problems – there is now a bull bar that needs to be welded too – a rest day was called at Mount Dare. That let us off the hook for packing up the swag until tomorrow morning. It also meant that we could have a leisurely breakfast and wait half the morning while we decided whether to shower in the tin sheds or use wet wipes. In the end we decided that we should shower as we will not have a choice after tomorrow morning for a few days. As we wandered back and forward from the shower we were surrounded by budgies and zebra finches zipping about. Finally we got to see some wild budgies closely enough to identify them as budgies.
After our showers Bernie spent some time finding a bolt in his collection that would do the job of fixing the aerial mount. With the bolt in place, Bernie decided to back it up with some gaffer tape that will (hopefully) prevent another bolt from being lost before it can be re-tightened. Meanwhile I made a start on catching up with the blog from yesterday. We don’t like to get behind BUT yesterday was just too long a day to keep up with the blogging too. With his repairs completed, Bernie turned to processing some photos from yesterday.
Lunchtime rolled around so we made ourselves some lunch and then finally published the blog. Far too late to satisfy our followers who like to enjoy it each morning with breakfast or morning tea. Sorry about that! We rolled up the awning so that Bernie could drive over to the bowser to fill up the tank and two Jerry cans ready to head off into the wild tomorrow. There will be no more campgrounds with facilities or hotels supplying meals for about four or five days.
We took a turn around the Mount Dare site to find some birds to photograph. We found a selection of wild birds, a rescued emu chick in the hotel, and some Gouldian Finches in an aviary alongside the hotel. The hotel also has some rescued joeys in the yard behind the residence. We wandered out onto the road to photograph the old windmill and the front of the hotel, desperate to find at least a few subjects to add to a blog post for today.
The rest of the afternoon passed lazily. We chatted with our fellow travellers and worked on our blog a bit. At 6.00pm it was time to wander over to the hotel, as a cake has been arranged to celebrate Dezi’s birthday. Many of the others prepared an early dinner at their campsites before going over for desert. Being lazy again tonight, we decided that we would join in singing Happy Birthday at 6.00pm then save our piece of cake on a side plate to eat after our pub meals.
The pub dog, Gem, was present again tonight trying to get everyone to play fetch with her and her ‘stick’. Said stick was not much bigger than a toothpick though! I guess seeing as she was wanting to play indoors with the hotel guests she had to keep it subtle or the staff might have shut it down?? She would retrieve it and then head under the table to deposit it at someone’s feet for it to be thrown again. She was certainly quite a character and when it came time to sing Happy Birthday she barked/howled. Some were concerned that she was scared by the sparklers in the cake, but we were assured that she loves a party and was singing along with us!
Such a lazy, lazy day resulted in virtually no steps or kilometres for the day!
