Thursday 26th August - Robinson River Road to Borroloola

There was no traffic during the night so we avoided getting showered in dust, although neither of us got much sleep and we were up early.

A single recovery truck turned up at about 7:30am as there had been some confusion regarding the police message to the recovery company. The latter had been told that two Land Rovers and a caravan had been involved in an accident, but they thought that there couldn’t possibly have been a collision between two Land Rovers and assumed there was just a single vehicle which they could bring back on the lone recovery truck whilst towing the caravan behind. The result was that it was a long day for Bruce and Stacy as they sent us and the Camel back on the first run, then had to wait for the truck to do the three hour return trip twice - their camper and our roof rack came back on the second trip, then finally they and their Discovery returned on the third run.

We got into Borroloola at about 10am having ridden back with Brett, the recovery truck driver.  The staff at TJS One Stop were great, allowing us to use their phone as our mobile wouldn’t work (it wasn’t a NextG model), and putting up with us hanging around for the rest of the day as we tried to make arrangements.  We informed our insurance company, managed to book the Land Rover on a road train leaving tomorrow for Darwin (although we’re not sure if we can go with it as passengers are taken at the driver’s discretion, so we’ll have to ask him tomorrow), and our shipping agent was put on the case re finding options for containering the vehicle back to the UK as it’s beyond a quick repair in Australia.

Whilst we were in TJS One Stop, Rhonda from Butterfly Springs came in looking for us, having seen our damaged Land Rover outside.  A familiar face, even though we’d only met them yesterday, was just what we needed to see, and they invited us round for dinner this evening. SPOT

Bruce and Stacey eventually got back to Borroloola at 8:30pm looking a bit sunburnt (their suncream was in their trailer which went back in the second run).  We’d booked them into the motel where we were staying as accommodation options were a little limited when camping was no longer possible.  They’d spent the day at the crash site being interrupted by passing motorists who stopped about every 10 minutes to ask what had happened, and they soon grew tired of having to explain things.  It was fortunate that they stayed with their vehicle as I think otherwise it would have been stripped, and they had to fend off one bloke who wanted to take our roof rack and tent (he asked them to look the other way, but thankfully Bruce had promised he would look after our rack until the recovery truck returned and was good to his word).  We shared a drink at the bar before bed.