Shelfa 13-09-11

We farewelled John and Lanlan this morning.  John is worried about his tyres, he has no more spares, he also wants to be in a nice place where he can have a nice romantic dinner with Lanlan for his birthday.  We will miss them.
Wanda and Greg are in the lead today, this is well deserved since they take the tale end on numerous occasions and poor Wanda has to close all the gates we open.  It is also felt that they have eaten enough of our dust! 
We see quite a few brolgas, kites, bustards (yes with a U) and wedgies today
We are travelling to Kowanyama for a look, this is an aboriginal territory and we must have yet another permit, we call into the land council to pay and are advised as to where we can camp and where we should cross the river.  Greg leads us to the river and…..hmmm it looks kind of scary, very wide, looks deep and rocky, the current also appears strong.  Tony tells us on the CB that we have missed the turning to the advised river crossing and we backtrack to a very wide, very sandy beach.  It doesn’t look much better here.
There is a car noise in the distance and a car comes down to the river (where we have just come from) to cross.  Peter C thinks that someone should be paying close attention and drives across the deep sand and….gets bogged.   Peter cannot budge, Tony reduced the pressure in his tyres and drove across the sand to help him with a tow.  Hehe.  Tony gets bogged!!!!

All ends well and they are able to come back to us. 

Other cars (with aboriginals) go through without any trouble and we notice that although they are familiar with the crossing, they still get out and have a look.
Tony and Michael decide to walk the crossing and check out any significantly dangerous bits.  Sensibly they put cairns down to mark the passage, which involves driving down the river for a bit.  There is a steep deep sandy hill just on the other side and the instruction is to ‘gun’ it to get up.