A Red CUBIFA V

A Red CUBIFA IV
A Red CUBIFA III
A Red CUBIFA II
A Red CUBIFA I

Can "Y"ou Believe It´s Friday Again?

Actually, what have we seen of Dongara? Not much, that is for sure. But I can tell you the public toilet/shower is worth seeing.

But from the beginning. We had just started our big holiday/journey a few days ago, back in 1999. It was in the late afternoon and we looked for a place to stay over night, a rest-area always will do. And Dongara has a nice picnic-area right beside a little … well, river is too mighty, it´s a creek, I´d say. Idyllic. We thought.

Well, and they have Neighbourhood Watch.

Pic taken in Perth on the way from Wanneroo to the city at a bus station in 2006.

At around 2 in the morning someone knocked at the door. We nearly stood in the water already, Neighbourhood Watch, oh what a great idea!
We quickly moved the Esky, our kitchen and clothes from the front to the back of the car and were escorted to a safe place.
If I remember right it was rather cold, but the sun had been out all day the next day.
We found public toilet/showers for free, for the road-train-drivers, mainly, I suppose. Right?
Funny thing was: The wallpaper had flowers all over! :-)
And the showers were hot, awwww, sooooo good!

We were stuck in Dongara due to flooding, together with the mad road-train-driver beside us. He ran around, swearing about all the time he looses.

He could´ve screamed an angry “go away” at me or he might´ve been happy to get something to do. Sadly I didn´t ask in the first place if he would show me his road train.
And sadly I didn´t tell Ingo, either, cause later, when I did, turned out, Ingo would indeed´ve asked.

Maybe he´d let me in, maybe he´d let me drive 2-3 m, I could say:

I have driven a Road-Train, but noooo.

Yikes, it really sucks to be a shy, anxious person, it still does, I haven´t changed.

Pic taken somewhere on the route, I certainly did not dare to point a camera at our mad man ;-)

Two days later road-trains and 4WD cars were allowed to travel on. Ours:

Since I had parked the car in Dongara, I was the driver in the morning, that was our concept: One person drives in the morning, after lunch the other takes over and has to find a safe place for the night, has to park the car in a way that our heads are a bit higher than the feet and yes, we did fight over this (and no, the Sissy wasn´t me!). This person drives the next morning and so on.

Well. Since I was driving, Ingo took the cam.
The water was still high and very dark/dirty/RED.

I had left a big gap to the caravan in front of us - was it Britz? Must´ve been Britz, cause… the driver got slower and slower, I came nearer and nearer, Ingo started to get nervous cause once our motor extinguished, it´s over, we have no snorkel as the one in front of us!
When I see this passage on the video (I could show if Ingo would cut it all to seperate movies), I still get nervous. Guess the driver finally had a look in the rear mirrow, just in time, like really just in time, he drove on.

Those are the memories I have of Dongara,
I´m thankful for Neighbourhood Watch, for them for taking the time and checking the rest-area and I´m still mad at myself I didn´t ask! And never again will I drive in such a situation behind Britz.

Happy Friday - again!