I survived Wolfe Creek on the day the world was meant to end...WIN!

We were lucky enough to observe a pretty dandy weekend that saw me complete a variety of odd jobs, including cleaning the house (multiple times!), shopping at Mulan and more importantly, attempting to clear out the cooking room at school that is currently housing all the donated clothes. The plan is to get it cleaned out by Thursday however seven hours of solid work on Saturday afternoon barely even made a visible dent in the pile of clothes I pretty much just piled in the middle of the room, reminding me of the good old times when I'd clean my room out once every blue moon. Good times!

It was a great drive to Mulan on Saturday morning with the road having being recently graded meaning, there was no more constant induced shuddering of the car and travelling occupants. I actually felt ok about buying eggs and knowing they'd have more chance surviving the journey which is a testament to the decent road. We really do stock up when we go to Mulan because despite the smaller town, they have a lot more variety and because we come from Balgo, we get 20% off to cover the costs of petrol (which is great especially when it's the school paying for the petrol). I took the opportunity to buy a few ingredients that will come in handy when I use the cooking books my Nonna sent me the other day. I especially liked the title of one; The Commonsense Cooking Book. Exactly my type of cooking book!

Brother Rick recently had his office extended and a storeroom created out of the extra room in the sports shed that his back wall connects to. Jim did an excellent job however we helped Rick move everything from his office to his storeroom on Saturday afternoon, a job made more exciting by the multitude of hoarded stuff laden in the cupboards. This, along with some items of storage provided Henry with a large stack of cardboard which inspired him to build a bonfire. Well, it could have attributed to his inspiration but I think it's more likely that the fires constantly being lit around Balgo made him want to become apart of the Arson Club. Anyway he created a rather nifty little campfire and transported all the cardboard, plus stacks of wood into our yard where we lit it last night. Kudos to Rick for finding a hose, just in case. The result was a huge success! We went all out and made beef patties (well done Jarred and Henry) and cooked them on an open fire we have in our yard with some snaggers. For the rest of the night, we just lay on the cardboard watching the stars; a truly magical experience. The smoke kept the mozzies away but only Henry was brave enough to sleep by the campfire for the entirety of the night. We are planning a second bonfire next week and Sophie and I have already promised to sleep under the stars as long as it's not too cold! Good old Balgo with no fire restrictions.

Our fire. Kind of looks like we're burning a Guy here. Not an actual guy, those Guy Forks thingies

Anthony fuelling the fire

Beef patties! We soon realised the alfoil was a stupid idea

Snaggers

This is what about 30 massive pieces of cardboard, four palletes and endless amounts of wood is reduced to

Today we made the long two and a half journey up the Tanami to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. Being there just made me want to watch the movie even more beacuse we bumped into a group of Grey Nomads who just rattled on about the horror and the gore within the film as if they were our age! It made me feel just a little bit behind my time so I'll have to borrow it off Father John and watch it at midday so I don't feel too scared. Apparently the Tanami had been graded as well but it sure didn't feel like it. Fortunately I was in the forward facing front seat of the troupie which kept any travel sickness at bay.

Being in the front had its downside. There were two gates that we had to stop and open when we entered the park and every time I got out, Jarred, Sophie, Henry and Ale goaded Warwick to drive off a bit whenever I made my way back to the car. It's always funny when we did it with Dad at home driving away from Mum but being out in the middle of no-where made it a little bit more serious so I was sure to get back to the car before they drove off, not that they had planned to go further than 20m. With the speed demon Mr. Connor proving himself to be a very capable dirt road driver, we got there at about 11.30, just in time for lunch before trecking up the narrow path to the rim of the crater.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting the rim of the crater to be above ground level; frankly I thought it would just be a big hole in the ground. This made it more impressive as the high walls made it seem a little bit secretive. We had to walk up a steep path to actually see the crater and only got a sense of how big it was when we were at the top. It's enormous, and the second biggest meteorite crater in the world that has had meteorite fragments collected from it. The second part to that title makes it seem a little bit less impressive but I thought it was pretty cool! The thing that got me was the perfectly circular ring of trees down in the very centre that made it seem almost man made, but only Sophie and Henry were brave enough to take the steep path down into the middle. Despite the hot sun the breeze was very welcome and we sat for a while just enjoying the view and the fact that we were there, at the infamous Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater!

The rim of the crater

Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater

View from the top

Sophie and Henry are somewhere down on that path

The crater from a distance

Eventually it was time to head off, but not before Sophie and I took advantage of the fact that there was a toilet there. Like, an ACTUAL toilet, not a bush, tree or large termite mound. However we both realised that those 'toilets' would have been preferable when we could only stomach entering the drop dunny with large quantities of tissue stuffed up our nose. Even this did not completely keep the smell away but did make us look like right old losers when a group of tourists drove past and laughed at us. Oh well, it did the job and reminded me of when I went camping with the family in Karijini and that was the only way you could even WALK PAST the drop loo's. Gotta love the lack of plumbing in the desert! On the way back we stopped to check out an old Homestead of sorts with a few cows grazing around. It looked kind of freaky and for those who had seen the movie said it reminded them of the more gruesome scenes so they chose to stay well away!

If I ever get an Outhouse, I want one like that. It's so cute looking!!

La Mooca :)

(cow, for all you non-wogs)

The actual Wolfe Creek

Well lovely readers, I've got to love you and leave you. Jenny has allowed Sophie and I to plan an art/craft lesson everyday this week in Primary C to coincide with our Space lessons. So far we've made rockets, suns and Alien ships but we have not yet being able to come up with five new projects and with school in less than 12 hours, I really do need to actually have something planned! For now, toodles!!

BTW Grey's Anatomy season 7 finale! Oh WOW!!! There is some great television coming up people, stay tuned! It's soooo good!  Sarah Firns if you're reading this, I HATE who got that job. And oh wow wee, isn't the new bride in trouble! And I hate Christina, good job Owen! Firnsworth, did you cry?! I choked up, so sad! Great episode. Email me for spoilers because I want people to talk to about it!

Loving you all and leaving you all.