Peak Hill

Gary's mud map was perfect and I got to Peak Hill no worries. Some really rough sections of road, not helped by both dogs wanting to sit right up on the console & Boy trying to get on to my lap. Lots of waves from the regular truckies, road crew & passing mine utes - everyone knows the big red bus! It was about 40 degrees when I left Meeka, so I decided to leave Smokey at home - too hot for an old adventure cat. He's happy chillin' wid his chicken homies (he's taken over their little house in the corner).

To get into the house at Peak Hill, you have to know how to use the 19th century locks - sliding hidden bolts set into holes in the door, which you ease back with a metal pin (hidden in a gap in the stone wall). The kitchen was dusty and insect-ridden, so I did the right outback sheila thing - grabbed a cold beer & went outside to enjoy the view.

After loading groceries into one of the old fridges I took the ute up to a hill next to the Alchemy mining camp and radioed Gary, who came over the rise in the loader a few minutes later. He was very hot, filthy with red dust and and in one of his horrid Mr. Grumpy Old Man moods so I ignored him until a shower & some dinner had made him slightly more bearable.

After dark, we drove around to the back of one of the mining hills near the house, where there is a 120 year old horizontal mine shaft. We parked the ute facing in with the headlights on in case our torch failed, and ventured slowly into the earth, the ground growing soft with bat shit under our feet. The shaft is just over six feet high and about three feet wide, hacked out by hand with pick & shovel. You can see black quartz seams that the miners were following as they looked for gold. Odd things appeared in the gloom - old tyres, bones, tins and a mummified kangaroo. Creeeeeepy.

Soon tiny bats started darting about our heads! One landed briefly on my back. Most of them were out hunting thank goodness or it would have been one of those screaming "oh god it's in my hair!" swarming type experiences. We explored the mine shaft for about ten minutes then it was time to get some air before we ended up as grimacing, claw-handed corpses next to the old roo.

It was a hot, muggy night, seething with mosquitos and millions of insects & frogs (one climbed up my leg with its sticky little food pads) - we discovered that one of the mining kitchen dongers was hooked up & had air con running off the generator, so we took refuge in there on the swags. The dogs stayed outside, chasing frogs. Boy has never been on a trip before and is beside himself with happiness.