Bonfires and Meteorites: now with 57% extra visual stimulation!

Well, I must admit, after posting my last post I immediately changed the fact that ‘nothing happened this week’. 1^st of all I tagged along with the Notre Dame crew to the art center before going out to the pound for sunset. So it happened, Mary, KP and Warrick arrived shortly after us and Mary offered to take us out to the ‘Jesus cave’ a hidden cave only accessible by going down a body sized hole on a ladder. Apparently some old nuns who lived in Balgo occasionally held mass services down there and you can still see an altar and some sports used for candles.

The ladder down to the Jesus Cave

The Jesus Cave



Warrick and Sophie



It was also an awesome view of the sunset which was made even cooler with a plane flying right near the sun leaving a big jet stream behind it.

Pretty cool hey.

The way out

Two of my favourite Notre Damians

Pondering on top of the troopie with Soph

Friday night we had another ‘Blue Light’ disco at the store, this time with DJ Ale-J playing the music with his iPod. Twas another fun night full of the usual MTV dancing.

Saturday morning I went to do the Mirli Mirli (church bulletin) and then headed up to school to fill in the rest of my day. Up there seeing Sophie reminded me how she gave me the idea a few days before to cook some decent sized hamburgers. Basically she was craving a pub style meal and it hit me that it really shouldn’t have been too hard to do it our self. I was planning on doing them or a sort of open fire BBQ we’ve got and I suddenly thought of also holding a bit of a bonfire. It was about 1:30 at this point so I knew I would have to act fast.

Firstly I carried a punch of rocks from the empty yard near our house to make the fire pit, then whipper-snippered the grass around the pit originally for comfort purposed but as later pointed out, could have also prevented the flame extending a wee  bit out of the pit. It was then a case of gathering the wood for the night which 1^st meant carrying 3 pallets from school, then using the school troopie to gather wood from behind the school and out in the bush before heading back to school one last time to collect a massive pile of empty cardboard boxes which completely filled the troopie.

Then after mass, we had the Notre Damians, Rick and Ant over to ours to start up the blaze. Once the fire was going we headed inside where Jarred and I started to make the patties. Basically I was head mince masseuse and suggesting ingredients as Jarred put in a little bit of everything. There was a bit of confusion and drama while cooking but they all turned out amazingly! We didn’t have very many chairs but we all found it to be much more comfortable to just use a cardboard box to sit on around the fire. Ale unfortunately decided to stick to his plan for the night and watch Star Wars but the rest of us enjoyed the fire very much. Fairly early on I said how I was seriously considering sleeping outside and everyone thought it would be a good idea… the clock struck about 12:30 and the last of our guests left as I started to realize that they didn’t quite take my suggestion as seriously as it was intended. It didn’t really bother me because I still had a fair bit of wood and ended up getting an awesome sleep on my cardboard box, woken only 3 times, 1^st by Angel attempting to join me, then by a mosquito buzzing about 5mm away from my ear and then finally by the sun as it began to rise at 5am. I then went for a walk where I saw the sun come over the horizon before going back with a dead gumtree branch I found to reignite the fire which I kept going while eating cereal and playing guitar. With a few more wood hunts to ensure the fire stayed alive until 9am I was able to chill out outside and enjoy the morning.

The Fire Pit

Discovered the easiest way to start a fire :)

Going Strong

Preparing the patties

Some amaznigly well cooked sausages

Working in shifts to avoid facial burns

Hows that for teamwork!

The next morning.

Don't know why this is sidways but 10 points for spotting the deamon head!

Again, my words were slightly misunderstood when I said that I could do that every Saturday night, the others took it as a locked in Saturday ritual but I don’t think they quite understand the amount of wood we’d need to collect each week.

  

At 9, Sophie, Jarred and Warrick met at our house to head out on our journey to Wolfe Creek! It ended up being about a 2 hour drive because the roads were really good and Warrick wasn’t afraid to push the speed a little. When we got there, we had a quick lunch of leftover rissoles before heading up the steep hill up to the top of the meteorite crater. When we got up the top, it was an amazing sight! There was a weird organization about it with majority of it covered in spinifex grass, then a circle of green trees and then finally some really white sand. I originally thought the inner circle was salt but after a quick taste, it definitely wasn’t.

The treck up to the edge

Wolfe Creek Crater




Wolfe Creek Crater

 For some reason, no one wanted to actually go into the crater besides me and Sophie so we had a good walk right into the middle exploring the place while they just sat at the top taking in the view and ‘processing the memory’ as Warrick called it. It was stinking hot down there because there was no wind but was still a really nice walk.



The Lone Hitchhikers



Working on my aspirations to be a photographer



The Murderer came back for seconds... He is currently beng treated in Broome Hospital for signs of near fatal 'staring down'



The treck back to the top



Mr. Wolfe's creek



The Tanamai



We then piled back into the troopie and made our way back home. Overall, not a bad weekend at all!