Yesterday was unexpectedly productive, which is not something I get to say very often these days. After ringing what felt like every mechanic within a three-hundred-kilometre radius, I finally found a Toyota dealership willing to fit a new power steering pump. Still, I’d need to supply the part.
“We’ll fit it,” the bloke said, “but if it’s the wrong part, that’s on you.”
A perfectly reasonable position, really. It’s hard to blame someone for not wanting to become emotionally invested in a power steering pump they didn’t sell.
“No worries,” I replied with the confidence of a man who’d spent several months working in a parts department and therefore believes he’s qualified to identify obscure Toyota components from grainy internet photos. Ten minutes later, I’d found one online, ordered it, and arranged for delivery to Mount Isa.
It appears all those months memorising part numbers weren’t entirely wasted.
This morning, however, productivity packed up and left. It was one of those outback mornings where the cold sneaks into the van and settles in for the night.
I found myself locked in the daily contest between staying under a warm blanket and admitting that my bladder was operating on a completely different schedule. The bladder eventually claimed victory, although not before the sun had climbed over the horizon and started warming the campground.
Coffee was brewed, followed by bacon and eggs on the little gas stove. Somehow cooking breakfast in the bush feels less like a chore than it ever did in my tiny apartment kitchen. Out here there’s no rush, just birds, sunshine and the occasional fly trying to inspect your breakfast before you do.
Once we’d thawed out properly, Will and I conducted a stocktake of the pantry. It was depressingly brief.
Eight kilometres later, after following the Bourke and Wills trail into Boulia, we arrived at the supermarket, where inflation appears to have been treated more as a personal challenge than an economic condition.
Nineteen dollars for a jar of Nescafé Blend 43. Not the giant one either. Just the regular-sized jar, priced as though each coffee bean had been individually flown in first class.
By the time we’d added soup, sausages, milk, bread and a handful of essentials, the register announced we’d spent $113.
I’ve never missed Aldi more.
The remainder of the afternoon was gloriously uneventful. I gathered firewood, shaved off enough facial hair to stop looking like I’d been trapped in the wilderness for six months, and gave the van a clean that’s probably already been undone by the red dust.
As it turns out, doing very little can be surprisingly exhausting.
The highlight of the day was watching the sun disappear behind the river gums while dinner cooked over the fire.
Tomorrow may involve another eight-kilometre pilgrimage into town. Not because we’ve forgotten anything important, but we’ve been without wine for three days, and I suspect the bottle shop hasn’t yet taken quite enough of our money.
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