Wet week.

Its been a long week. After a heinous bout of gripe that had me in its grip after a particularly flavoursome beef and red wine casserole, followed by a couple of glasses of red wine as we debriefed the news of the closure of the school, I awoke at 6.30am the next day with a second gripe attack. As I was up I switched on to face book to see the news that Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett had passed away. I found myself unaccountably sad to hear the news of MJ's passing as that was a total surprise. Two people who had lived their lives played out in the media, both with immense fame and not much luck to go with it, it would seem. Both of these people made me money and are part of my life. When I left school I started work in a radio and tv repair shop that also sold whiteware and stereos, tvs etc. There was one stand of records (yes I know, - just after dinosaurs walked the earth, lol) and people used to order 45's which were the singles on the charts at the time. Long story short, I ended up having a corner of the shop and became "Lynn's Music Mecca", selling records. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 were huge on TV and just about anything that they put out sold well. I bought posters into Waiuku, and along with Eric Estrada, Elvis, Clynt Eastwood, Mountains in the USA, etc etc - there was the famous Farrah Fawcett Majors poster which just about walked out the door. We never missed an episode of 'Charlie's Angels' and with FF being married to the 'Six Million Dollar Man', she seemed to be the epitome of the then American Dream.

So, it was with a surprisingly heavy heart I went to work for the last weekend in girls boarding at school. On top of all this, it was raining again!!!! and it continued for the rest of the weekend. A roaring fire and a night in front of the TV watching footage of MJ, and then the footie followed. One of the boy's staff came down and made us some damper, cooked in the oven which was meant for the following day but it didn't last thatlong once it was cooked. He put some rosemary in it which made a lovely savoury taste.

Saturday dawned raining (spot a theme running through this post, lol) but then changed to merely overcaste and the decision was made that we would go anyway for a drive with all the kids out bush. We ended up at some mining place where there were a couple of trucks,a portashed, a BIG hole/lake and not much else for miles. I believe the blokes that were there are test drilling for gold? or so I was told. We had intended to have a campfire for lunch on the side of the road, but the rain started setting in so the decision was made to head on up the road to Yalgoo via the back roads that we were on. As we were travelling, we passed the 'rabbit proof fence' and one of the staff told me his grandfather remembered the girls that the movie was made about. One of our girls said her aunty was in the movie. The staff member had spent a lot of his youth in this area. He told me his grandfather had been adopted by an Afghan camel driver, who used to take his camels laden with wool down to Perth from the district. As we got to Yalgoo, it was still raining so the decision was made to pull into the old railway station which these days doubles as the sports centre and the race track is over the back of the building. There are only two houses on the side of the road as you go through the town, with a few more houses further to the left and an old church up on a hill. The men had organised lunch so we all had a couple of sandwhiches, and what luck, there were flush toilets WITH hot and cold running water. I was extremely greatful for that as the only other option was going out in the fresh air and Aussi scrub is not as thick as NZ bush to enable much discretion (well, not where we were anyways).

A bit further up the road and we turned right up another gravel/dirt road to a place called Jokers Tunnel. We had a kangaroo leap out before us followed by two emus just to keep the adrenelin flowing, lol. Jokers tunnel is maybe 100 odd metres through a hill - to the other side and that is it. Was a bit nervous when I saw the warning sign with a snake outlined on it - something to be aware of in summer, (note to self, will not be going there again at that time of the year). As I was one of the last to walk through the tunnel which is just over head height for most of the way with a slight bending required for the last few metres, I felt that any beasties lurking would get one of the others first, lol. It was quite novel to walk, in the dark and to see literally, the light at the end of the tunnel. Can well see how the saying came into being. The tunnel was dug around the 1870's as the search for gold was occurring. Most of the local mining leases were named after cards - right bower, left bower, etc from the game of euchre. I think something like just over 3k of gold was found in this tunnel after 550 tons of soil/rock was removed.

Fortunately, the rain lifted long enough for us to light a campfire just down the road and one of the men made some damper, cooking it in a camp oven and he put two large empty fruit tins of water on the fire to boil for tea and coffee. Both very welcome. I was shown a karrara tree which is what used to be used for making boomerangs if the branches had the right curve. The leaves can be used to cure warts, the wood makes excellent fire wood, and the old ladies used to grind the seeds for flour so the one tree could feed you, warm you and cure you. The work mate was very impressed that I have been picking up all this bush knowledge, lol. I also got shown a tree that you can rub the bark of, and the bits that come off used to be used to smoke before tobacco came along. Didn't look appealing at all I would have to say. We had no sooner finished the damper than, you guessed it, more rain. We packed everything up and headed back to school for another night in front of the fire.

Because we didn't have Mass that Friday night, the decision was made to attend Mass at Mullewa - 8.30am Sunday morning instead, so no sleep in this weekend. It was still raining steadily so decided to leave early allowing for the weather and not having to rush. Although the roads were soft, it wasn't too bad. An hour and a half later, after getting some hot chips from the local petrol station before heading back to school, it was a different story. The road was totally slushy, water was building up on the sides of the road and I drove back mostly around 60k instead of the ususal 110k. I had to drive down the middle of the road as when I did go to the side, the ute started sliding out. We got back to school and hunkered down for the day in front of the telly as I was not going to tempt fate by driving anywhere else. Although we had plenty of rain in the district during the week, it was now raining north of us which meant the water would start to flood down towards us - and it did. The workmate and her family had left for Dongara that morning at 6.30am as the boys had footie there. They then went to Gton on the way home and less than half a mile from school, later that afternoon, their 4WD slid across the road and took out a small tree, fortunately only damaging on of the spotlights on the car. The WMH said he was only driving 40k at the time and it happened so quick. Was I pleased we had stayed on site. (Have tried to upload some photos but computer being ever so sluggish so will call it a night/early morning, lol.)