go west handbook – the blog

With a good nights sleep under the belt the ‘Irish Go West’ team tried to prepare itself for splitting up. The Tercel was packed to the gills  with camping equipment and rucksacks. While Steve was dreaming of his next Liverpool tatoo and Darren was getting his 14 hours a day sleep; the rest of us tried to figure out how we were going to attack the rest of the west coast with only one car. Eugene ‘Ginola’ Greaney wasn’t helping the situation when he walked past two French backpackers with a campervan to themselves, claimed he didnt see them with the hair in his eyes.  The next bus coming through this godforsaken spot that made Ballyjamesduff look like New York wasn’t coming for another two months. The Galway trio were forced to put on a smile and hitch the 240km trip to the next town; Port Hedland. The Dundalk branch spun the wheels and motored on in the Tercel which was in need of a rest after towing Steve’s “I don’t know what oil is” Creavens shitbox Magna the day before.

About an hour into the trip the Tercel was cruising along when all of a a sudden a car flew past with three of the gammiest heads I’ve ever seen hanging out the window. Turns out the boys are in luck when some union head takes pity on them and gives them a lift on the condition Gino puts some socks on to cover his toes which now resemble Freddy Kruger’s ring piece after a spicy Indian. By the time the Tercel rolls into town the boys have been taken on a guided tour of Port Hedland and given the in’s and out’s of mining and exporting. After a quick bite it was down to the airport to see if we could get our hands on a car needing relocating, turns out we just missed one. Typical! Finto and Nige decided to keep her lit and hit the road for Broome while the 3 boys tried their look at hitch hiking again.

After some serious driving the Tercel pulled into Broome. We made a quick call down to Juma and Becca’s campsite for a quick reunion. We obviously weren’t missed that much as Becca didn’t bother getting up to see us, no room in the inn there so more driving looking for somewhere to kip. Dead good, right good, innit! After some serious f##*ing and blinding we decided to sleep in the car. Genius’ that we are, we thought it would be a good idea to sleep beside a river. Nige was killing mosquitoes for a good 20mins when we got a phone call from the boys to say they didn’t get a lift and were spending the night sleeping on the ground beside the petrol pumps. The Tercel felt like a king size bed with the thought of the boys pulling pebbles out of their ears.

The Grand Canyon

On the road early, weather was a bit overcast. We set off on the short trip from the campsite to the Fort Escue Falls. It was a steep climb down but no problem to us seasoned hill walkers! Finto aka Danny Divito from The last of the Mohicans skipped on ahead. The waterfalls were absolutely quality Finto, Gino and Nigel didn’t waste much time and barrelled into the water. It was absolute Baltimore as Gino would say! I think gets Baltimore confused with Baltic but none of us have the heart to tell him.

Willies were about to get a whole lot smaller,but not as small as steves

Darren was forced to sit this one out with his gammy foot, Steve just wasn’t bothered. So they watched on bitching about how crap Liverpool were playing and how wrinkly there Liverpool tattoos would be by the time they won anything worth a shite. After an hour freezing our balls off, we took the trek back up the gorge. We thought we were doing pure Bear Grills stuff until we met an old woman on a crutch heading down towards us.
We headed off on the road to Joffre Falls it was basically a 35k long rumble strip. We were forced to drive below 20km most of the way with one wheel on the verge to stop the cars from falling to bits. We had to let the air out of the tyres, no point in fuel economy without a back axel. Darren couldn’t have picked a worse day to start driving but he took it all in his stride. We arrived down to the pool at another gorge they were a little shallow for swimming so the stone skimming competition began. It was a photo finish between Darren and Finto for the most hops but Darren was lucky to be still in the competition after nearly amputating Nigel’s leg from the shin down with a dodgy early attempt.
We opted out of getting fleeced the 15 dollars for the 15 minute internet access and headed on to Oxer’s gorge and again it was spectacular stuff! We met two crustys on their way back from there annual wash. Soap Hating Bastards! We also seen a Hornet, mad looking things. They are know to carry away babies! After Nigel tried a dive bomb off an 8 foot ledge into a 2 foot pool we decided to call a halt to the tourist stuff.

Economy Bungee Jump Minus the Bungee

We drove about 5K when the Magna started slowing up. It was out of petrol but luckily the two well prepared baby wipe sharing bastards from Dundalk took the crazy decision to bring a spare can! We topped it up and Darren tried to start it there was a serious knocking sound coming from the engine, not good at all. We checked the dip stick, not Steve Craven the lad who spent 7 years in the motor trade but the thing used to check the car for oil. We tried putting oil in hoping that with the engine still being hot it might not be completely ceased but no such luck it was fecked. Stranded by the side of the road, a jeep with 3 fine young things pulled up to see if we needed help. Of course the clever boys that we are we waved them on!

Stevie '7 years in the motor trade' Creaven checkin for oil....

We decided we would try to tow the Magna with the $400 1984 Turcel. We weren’t holding out much hope, it was 80k to the nearest petrol station, getting dark and both cars were as full as tinkers bras. We took up positions with Nigel driving the Turcel, Gino up front on kangaroo watch, Finto steering the Magna, Steve reading the Haynes manual for Mitsubishi Magna’s wondering what went wrong and Darren in the back reading his book on the war in Iraq. That’s right they go to war for the stuff, its kinda important!
We pulled off very slowly trying to ease the strain on the Turcel. At first it was getting it very hard to pull the magna at anything above 40k in second gear. It wasn’t looking good we feared that the Turcel might end up goosed like the Magna. We were about to pull over and stop when we finally started heading downhill. We were soon tearing down through valleys at 100k, at night with an overloaded magna 5 feet from our rear bumper. Gino’s kangaroo spotting job soon became pointless. If one did jump out in front of us we would just about have time to scream like little girls and no more. The trip down through the valleys was nerve racking to say the least. We couldn’t afford to slow down on the downhill sections because they were usually followed by uphill sections, a bit like a rollercoaster but completely different. So were ploughed on and after about 50 minutes we could see the lights of the petrol station off in the distance. We rolled into the petrol station buzzing because we had made it. It was like reaching the top of Mount Everest but completely different and a lot warmer!
We headed into the service station to get a bite to eat and discuss tactics. We knew that there was no point trying to fix a blown engine in a car worth $1000 on the remote west coast of oz so that was ruled out straight away. So it was either report it stolen or dump it. We got chatting to a sound Kiwi who told us of a place to dump it not far from the petrol station. We decided to put all the stuff we could do without into the magna and tow it to the dump. Nigel, Finto and Darren took on with the task.

Taking the Number plates off before we dumped 'the smegma' into a farmers field

Darren was just along hoping that he might get to torch the car the vandal that he is! We dumped it without a hitch and headed back to the campsite for a well earned sleep. It was by far the most eventful day yet on the west coast trip.

karijini

Woke up and walked straight into the tourist information centre to find the quickest way out of the town which we later found was twin townd with Rathkeale in Co Limerick. Pulled out of the car park and were finally on the road to the much anticipated Karijini National Park. Only problem was the road getting there, there was so many bumps it was like driving over Luke Chadwick’s face for two hours.

Road to Karijini

We arrived at roughly 4.30 pm and it was time to get the tent up pronto as the sun was setting fast. Got it up with just enough time to check out one of the nearby gorges. On the way there Euge tried to throw a stone at Nigel and in doin so somehow managed to stub his toe on a rock and split it open. Looks like he will have to go back to the chiropractor to get the foot sorted out!

Only got a glimpse of the gorge but it was enough to get us excited for the following days adventures.

So out of the Mitsubishi Smegma for a much needed shower. After the shower Stevie finally let Darren take the wheel. After doing the hard part and getting us back in one piece Darren somehow managed to lock the only key we had into the boot. 25 minutes of head scratching and blaming each other had passed before a freshly showered Fintan ‘Paula Abdul’ Goss returned and quickly solved the problem using just his calf muscle and a single piece of sticky back plastic, lifesaver. After that close call it was back to the bat cave to eat some more prison food, pure Guisseppi Conlon shit!