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Message: <blockquote data-quote="birdboybowley" data-source="post: 1198903" data-attributes="member: 60953">We dropped into Parry’s Lagoons just off the highway and enjoyed the waterbird spectacle from the hide, with the large flocks of 2000+ Plumed and Wandering Whistling-Ducks predominating. Also present were White-necked and Pied Herons, Glossy and Straw-necked Ibis, all three egrets, Magpie Geese, Radjah Shelduck, Green Pygmy-Geese, Comb-crested Jacanas, Australian Swamphens, Blue-winged Kookaburra, Rainbow Bee-eaters, Gull-billed and Whiskered Terns, Australasian Grebes and a nice Australasian Reed Warbler in front of the hide. The mystery heron that had been present for a while seemed to have disappeared – I saw a photo of this that a guest at the BBO had taken and I really wasn’t sure what it was.[ATTACH]140104[/ATTACH]We had lunch and set off eastwards – today’s the day we leave WA!! Except it wasn’t. About 20mins down the road, I noticed a weird smell from the engine and then suddenly the temp gauge went off the scale so we quickly pulled over with steam gushing from under the bonnet. As we popped it open it was obvious that the hoses had split and green coolant had exploded everywhere. So....we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, I’m not what you’d call mechanically-minded in any sense and we had no mobile reception. Oh joy! Just as we’d managed to flag another driver down who reluctantly agreed to tow us into Kununnura, a Ute pulled over and four guys got out and said they could help get us going.The big guy, Mike Nutts, changed the belts and put a new hose on but he was pretty sure the head had gone again. We told him the work we’d had done on Moomin down in Perth and he said there’s no way they’d changed the hoses and belts, which apparently they should have done at the same time....thanks Larry, you ba****d! As we were standing there another car pulled over being driven by the Irish comedian Jim Eoin. I’d never heard of him but he’s pretty big Down Under. The guys had been doing work with him on a documentary he was making about his latest tour and he had played Wyndham last night and was playing Kununnura tonight. So he videoed our predicament and put us on the guest list for tonight’s gig! Whether we ever made it into the final cut I don’t know! Mike finally got the car going and said they’d follow us into town, which was good as the car really began to lose power and struggle. On Mike’s advice we pulled over and they towed us straight into town and stopped at a garage where the very unhelpful owner did himself out of our business that’s for sure. Mike, bless him, then towed us into the Kona Lakeside Caravan Park and got us into an unpowered berth. We must’ve looked very sorry being towed into here! At least this place was set in a great location, backing onto the lake and surrounded by good-looking habitat. Quite disconsolate now, one of our saviours was also staying here with his family, so later that night we went with his wife to the posh country club for Jim’s gig. The security guard had quite a smug grin on his face as he stopped us and asked for our tickets. We told him we were on the guest list under Dawn and Adam to which he replied no names here....ok, try the panicking Poms then.....oh yes, actually here you are...Ha, gutted! That made me feel better straight away and we got some beers in! The gig was a blast and we were even part of it : when Jim told our tale of woe and asked if we were here tonight to which we of course cheered “Yes!” he countered with “I dunno what you’re cheering for, your car’s f**ked!!” So a day that really should have been a complete disaster somehow turned into a bizarrely fun one.We ended spending 10 days stuck in Kununnura and finally got the car fixed by Rob Marshall and ended costing $1700 which was about a grand cheaper than the first place we went to. Everything’s naturally more expensive up here as parts have to be roadtrained in from Perth or Darwin. The cost of staying at the park was an extra expense to, but we met some amazingly friendly people here, most notably Jane and Laz Meszaros who became almost surrogate parents for our stay and Murray and Margaret with their grandson Anthony, were also so warm and helpful. We’d have bbq’s with them in the evening, taught them ‘shithead’ (a card game that every traveller seems to know!), they’d drop us into town to do our shopping, and Jane and Laz took us out with them on a couple of days. One day we got their groovy 4WD stuck off-road and had to dig it out, seeing a great Australian Bustard whilst there, and went to Miramar NP, a sort of mini Bungle-Bungles, where we saw Sandstone Shrike-Thrush and White-quilled Rock-Pigeons.During this time we did see some great birds, most notably point-blank views of the resident pair of Tawny Frogmouths that roosted under the eaves of caravan 30. A great bird we saw nowhere else was Buff-sided Robin that would feed round our stricken car and the grounds held Yellow Orioles, Shining and Paperbark Flys, Grey-crowned Babblers, Nankeen Night-Herons, White-gaped and Blue-faced Honeys and Barking Owls would call incessantly all night from across the lake. A few crocs inhabited the lake where, scarily, people went swimming (!) and large velociraptor-faced Perentis walked around the grounds, hissing menacingly when approached too close! [ATTACH]140106[/ATTACH][ATTACH]140103[/ATTACH][ATTACH]140102[/ATTACH][ATTACH]140105[/ATTACH]We would walk into town which was quite pleasant, but it was full of semi-drunken Aborigines which always seems a great shame to me. Flocks of Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos fed on the grassy verges, and the ditches held flocks of finches but I couldn’t find Yellow-rumped Mannakin anywhere. Walks up the river gave me Chestnut-breasted Mannakins, Pheasant Coucal, Bright-headed Cisticola, Tawny Grassbird, Azure Kingfishers, Star, Crimson, Double-barred and Long-tailed Finches.One day, standing talking to Jane next to the car, a crack sounded from above and a big dead branch crashed into the ground not 4ft from us – followed by a bloody long green tree snake that slithered at amazing speed under the car and was never seen again...!!Everyone we had become friends with was due to leave on Saturday 29th July and it was quite sad saying our goodbyes, but we were left with a humbling feeling of how decent and friendly people can be to complete strangers. This was something that really defined Oz and it will always be one of my favourite places in the world. In fact, in four months out here I only met one complete dick – and he was English! Amazingly Rob turned up about an hour later – with the car!!! Fantastic! We sorted it all out, thanked them profusely and left Kununnura – well for 10mins as we had to come back as the car was running like crap. Rob tinkered around with it again, test drove it, and then it really was time to say goodbye to WA! It was definitely weird to wind our watches forward 1.5hrs as we finally crossed the border and we continued on to the Vic River Crossing and parked up for the night down an access road behind the roadstation.</blockquote>

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