Busted,broke and bored at Birdsville. .

 After saying fare well to Dave, we decided to say on another day to regroup, clean and do any repairs, also, Daniel needed to catch up on some school work. The town was gearing up for the races and we wanted to be long gone before the mayhem started. The Birdsville races are the second biggest single race, other than the Melbourne cup, in Australia. In a space of days, Birdsville goes from a population of 70 to thousands.
 So once ready we packed up and headed out towards Innamincka, about 420 K's out from Birdsville. At about 120 K's out of town we heard a clunk clunk, smelt smoke and then the car lost all acceleration. We were in the Sturt Stony desert with car problems, not a good start to the day! After a few checks, James was able to put the car into 4 wheel drive, and with only the front drive working, we were able to limp back into Birdsville. Daniel got the most of the return trip, spotting over 25 of his beloved bearded dragons sunning themselves in the sun along the side of the road.

 Once back in town, we found out that the back bearing had gone, taking with it the axle. It needed to be re built, the mechanic said we were lucky to get back at this time as he was just placing his order. Any later we would have to wait for 2 weeks!!!! It was Thursday as it was we would have to wait until Monday for our part to arrive. Fortunately, our top spot was still there, hidden amongst trees for shade and privacy. We still had to find things to do in a one pub town, with a population of 70 for 3 days!

School's in.

 The next few days, Daniel did some more school work, I worked on my blog and James did some maintenance on the van. We went for a walk looking for more "bearded ones". We checked out the information centre and watched a 10 minute DVD on the area. We walked to the bakery, $6 for a loaf!! James took Daniel to the working museum, this is filled with old collectibles of rural life..very cool. The guy who owns this is a local legend but sadly wants to call it quits. he has a the biggest collection of old Australiana we have ever seen. We saw an old hospital with all the old medical equipment still there. Soon enough it was Sunday night and I became worried we might get trapped here and began to unravel. I didn't want to spend our last few weeks in Birdsville.

The working museum, a real treasure.

The old hospital.

 Monday morning James was up and at the mechanics first thing. I went for a shower, and on my return there's James AND the car! You won't believe it but the truck that had our part on it broke down and it will take another 3 days to get here! We were stuck here until then.
 A couple camping next to us heard of our plight and that night we woke up to someone in our camp. Getting up, it was our neighbours dropping off some wood they collected for us. We couldn't get some so they did. That was such a nice thing to have happened after such a shitty day!
 On the up side, Birdsville was getting busier and busier as the town began to prepare themselves for the races. The carnival  folk were setting up and there was some real characters amongst them. One we had met with Dave who was in town to organise the Fred Brophy's boxing tour. His name was Artie, known and loved as the Wizard. He came back to town a few days later and he was happy to see we were still here. Artie would pop in every morning with his dog, Krushti, and have a coffee. he would have us laughing at all his tales of show life and any thing else. A big bloke who has travelled the world and seen and done a lot. He told us he killed a brown snake and kept it to cook up, but before he did that he wanted to play a trick on some young blokes camping near by. He cut off its tail and put it in his mouth and pretended that he had swallowed one hole. However his trick back fired when he felt very unwell, the tail had a bit of venom on it and he poisoned himself! This was one of many wild and funny tales.

Artie in full story mode.

Krushti has hear it all before!

 As the days went by, Artie was trying to get us to stay for the boxing, James and Daniel were keen but it was all about the timing, we didn't want to stay in town any longer than we needed to. Not only were we wanting to get back on the road, but Birdsville was very expensive and because of the growing crowds, fresh food was very limited.

Outside the boxing tent.

 Finally, the car was ready. We were free to leave, Artie came by that night for a drink to send us off and then came back the next morning for a last coffee. This huge man in size and personality, had become a real gem to our stay in Birdsville
 When it was time to go, he read us his favourite poetry to send us off, well James had to read it, poor Artie was to moved to read.! We left Artie to deal with the madness of Birdsville but we will always remember him fondly. A crazy man with a huge heart and a taste of adventure.

Artie sending us off with some poetry. God bless him!

  Although, we missed the boxing we were glad to be on our way. Birdsville is a very noisy place with hundreds of highly strung Corella's nesting in the camp ground every night and the camp ground filling up for the races, we were looking forward to finding some peace and quiet at Innamincka.

The crazy Corella's coming in to nest.

   Once on the road we couldn't believe how much traffic was coming towards us. On the rocky, country roads it was very stressful as they drove fast and didn't keep to the side. We had a 120 K's to the turn off and when we got there we had a multiple cracked windscreen and front light. We weren't the only ones either. On the CB we could hear other drivers having the same problem and a lot was said to those reckless drivers.
 We left Birdsville, bruised, battered and financially lighter, but we did have a colourful 9 days. Now it was time to rest.