Aug 14 (Day 196) - Jardine River quarry to Fruit Bat Falls

 

Today was the day we really wanted to have a good swim at Fruit Bat Falls and Eliot Falls. We had seen these both briefly on August 3, on our Telegraph Track day, but hadn't had time to really make the most of them.

Our food supplies were starting to get a little low. On reflection we could have bought up a bit more at Bamaga or Seisia, but we were reasonably well stocked then so didn't think of what might be coming. Given we didn't, we realised our best option for a full shop was Weipa. Weipa is certainly the best provisioned place in the northern half of the Cape. This wasn't in our original plan, having already been to Weipa a week or so ago, but it seemed inevitable.

So our plan today was to drive down past Bramwell Station and hopefully stop for the night at Moreton Station, which is a nice-looking station right by the Wenlock River. We'd driven past this a few times already during our commutes from Bramwell to Weipa so thought it would be worth a stop in.

But before that we had to get to Fruit Bat Falls!

Perhaps the only Subaru RX in the world
with a snorkel!

The northern half of Bamaga road south of the Jardine River was pretty rough in spots. The road really seems to have deteriorated from when we drove up here a week or so ago, and a few people we spoke to later agreed. We would discover later today the effects of this deterioration...!

 There were probably half a dozen destroyed vehicles along the side of the road in various stages of decay. Most looked like they'd rolled over and had just been left to rust to pieces. This red Subaru (sporting a snorkel!) was at the junction of a link to the northern part of the Old Telegraph Track, leading up towards Nolan's Brook.

 

We got to Fruit Bat Falls, and after stopping for about 15 minutes to try to help a fellow Pajero driver with his vehicle (his Diesel Particulate Filter has suddenly decided to clog, leaving him in limp mode - we sadly couldn't help). Having already had a decent swim here, we left the van here and drove about 8km up the Old Telegraph Track to Eliot Falls and Twin Falls. Eliot Falls we'd visited two weeks ago  very briefly, but Twin Falls we hadn't seen. Well it was definitely worth the visit!

We'd had a pretty good swim and some lunch, so headed back to the car and drove back to Fruit Bat Falls to pick up the van and head off. But just before we were going to leave I did a walk around and noticed something rather wrong yet strangely familiar with the rear left wheel. It was sitting noticeably further back than it should have, which is exactly the same problem the rear right wheel showed a week ago when its spring was broken...

Eek! The rear wheel (on the right) is far too far back. Note its position relative to
the strip of metal poking down between the two wheels, compared to the wheel in front!

I took a look underneath, and confirmed the horrible diagnosis. Those corrugated roads had broken a SECOND spring!

The broken spring!

Thankfully of course the springs we got came in a pair, so we had a spare. Also thankfully, I'd been heavily involved in changing over the first one so knew what to do and what problems to anticipate. There was no way we could safely drive the 120km across badly corrugated roads to get to Bramwell Roadhouse for this job, so given it was only mid-afternoon we decided to carefully reposition and change the springs over on the spot. Still, the irony - two broken springs eight days apart!

This meant Friday turned into a Tech Studies lesson with the kids on how to change a set of leaf springs!

Pointing out the different components of the (new) set of leaf springs

Little Judah just wasn't heavy enough to undo these wheel nuts!

Hard at work

Getting there... the four nuts on the U-bolts were pretty tight and needed a lot of
WD-40 and plenty of patience. You can also clearly see the break at the right end of the spring.

Bek did a great job cleaning up the damaged U-bolt threads with a file.

Loading in the new spring!

Matt got a little bored after a while and took the wheel for a spin!

Teaching Bek how to correctly re-tension a six-stud wheel

The Bush Mechanics!

 With our van back in business, we were all feeling pretty hot and dirty, so we walked the 150m down to Fruit Bat Falls for a late afternoon swim. No-one had come into the caravan / long vehicle car park the whole time we'd been there, and certainly by this time (after 5pm) no-one was here. With nightfall approaching we decided to stay at Fruit Bat Falls for the evening even though it is officially a no-camping area. We hoped any ranger would take a reasonable view of our having been stranded there, with the only alternative being driving for three hours at Kangaroo Hour across poorly maintained roads to try to get to Bramwell. So we moved to a quiet corner and camped for the night.

-- Greg