Thats not a 4 wheel drive..........

We set off from Barcaldine (bar-call-din for Qlders bar-call-dine for people that can read!) Only to come to a screeching halt 100k's down the road at a "road closed" sign. Apparently a river up ahead was flooded. Nathan stopped and hummed and arhhed at the sign for a while and during this a local came from the other direction. He stopped and told us "Maaaaate, rivers bloody flooded ahead. Only 400 mm, I got through alright maate but your wannabe 4wd not sure if she'll be right, maaate!" So Nathan turned back and spoke to some work men hanging around a truck stop only to be told "Maaate there's bloody a metre of water down there! No chance we'll get to work for days!" So we though bugger, no chance of getting to Brisbane today. We had no phone reception but funnily enough we had Internet reception so we emailed our parents to let them know. We did this at the driver reviver whilst the old lady there grilled the boys on the process of coal production!

Anyway, after a cuppa and a gossip with all the locals at the driver reviver we thought we might as well go out an have a look at this huge river. During the cuppa I had checked the Captiva's manual which told us she could get through 300mm no worries. So Nathan thought he, being the 4 wheel drive wizard he is, could get through 400mm. (We decided the workmen exaggerated the depth so they didn't have to do any work!) So off we went to have a look and on the way we passed a Copper coming form the other direction. We asked him what he thought and he told us it was 400mm and rising and would be impassable for half a day. But still Nath wanted to go have a look. So out we drove.......

When we got there we found a line of cars. They were all standing around discussing the best course of action. Which apparently is a big bloody (The country has taken over the way I talk!) truck crosses on one side of the road and as many cars as possible go on the down river side to get across. And they made it ok, and one of them was a ute so of course Nathan was keen to give it a shot after all we have a 4 wheel drive don't we????????

Anyway, we made it across, with a hell of a lot of bitching from me! "Nathan you're going too fast!" "You're going too slow!" "Nathan should we all have our seat belts off and the windows down?" "Nathan you're too close!" "Nathan you're too far away!" That sort of commentary! But in the end we made it across so Nathan belts past the Landcruiser we followed through, took off at 120k/hr only to come across the other arm of the swollen river!