The CrossingCarrabin toward Southern Cross
Positive Mental Attitude And Flies
The flies were relentless, the sky was enormous and the campervan problem wasn't going away. After another 48.6 kilometres east, we drove into Southern Cross to swap vans.
Day 8 began with a small but weird absence.
It was parkrunday, and there was no parkrun for me. After a week of HAA already bending normal life into a new shape, that still felt strange enough to post about from Carrabin before dawn. The best I could do was dedicate the first five kilometres of the morning’s session to parkrun Australia and get moving.
The campervan story was still alive too. Ben and Ols were dealing with the oil leak and the hire-company reality of replacing a six-berth campervan in the Wheatbelt at short notice. I couldn’t fix it while I walked, but I could cover the kilometres.
Positive Mental Attitude could sound like something you put on a fridge magnet. For me it meant believing we would work things out, because worrying wasn’t going to fix the campervan, make Apollo move faster or put kilometres behind me. The older version of me would have given up before a goal could hurt this much.
So I kept walking.
The day had a different kind of visual rhythm. Remote crossroads. Bodallin. Dirt tracks just off the highway. Bush that felt like it was much further away from the traffic than it really was. Wheat stacks. A vertical rainbow in the sky. A supposedly major intersection quiet enough that walking down the middle of it felt safe for a moment.
And flies.
So many flies.
The day turned from Lord of the Rings into Lord of the Flies in one warm, dry afternoon. By this point the jokes were not separate from the hard bits. They were part of how we carried them. The grand quest language gave us somewhere to put the absurdity. The fly jokes gave Ben’s suffering a public service.
By evening I had 48 kilometres locked away, finishing about eight kilometres past Moorine Rock. The team made it into Southern Cross and said a quick hello at the Railway Tavern. That base had already come through the wider HAA network: Allison Hunter from Kalgoorlie-Boulder parkrun had put out the call, Kylie had responded locally, and Jo at the tavern had donated rooms, showers, and space for the campervan.
Then Ben and Ols met the replacement vehicle driver, brought the new campervan back to the tavern, moved the food and gear across, and returned the broken campervan while I showered, had a recovery shake, and let my legs stop shouting for a while.
Ben and Ols moved the food and gear into the replacement van while I showered, drank a recovery shake and let my legs stop shouting. That was the finish.
Images From The Day
