Outback Camp Shower at the Cattle Trough
After several days out camping it would be nice to have a shower and change out of my sweaty and smoky smelling clothes
Camp Shower in the Arid Country
Camp near Wirrda Wells at the edge of the myall trees, on the swale between the parallel sand dunes
Many years ago, two wells were sunk a couple of hundred meters apart at an area now known as Wirrda Wells.
The deeper of the two, at about 30 meters, is salty and useless. However, the other well gives reasonable water, suitable for cattle.
The discarded windmill at Wirrda Wells and the fiber glass tank, part of the modern water system
The story of the sinking of the two wells is lost, but it's assumed that the original landholders may have found fresh water in the first well, but in trying for more water, went deeper and into the salt water table, thus ruining all their hard efforts. If you could see the rock they dug out! It must have been disappointing for the men.
Not far from the second well is an old windmill, laying over on it's side. It originally stood over the well, on the mound of excavated rock which surrounds the shaft.
Housework is minimal. Set up a tidy camp and keep it that way
But on the mound, there now stands a fiber glass tank and a solar panel which drives a submersible pump.
A strange shape found on a clay pan between the dunes, possibly from an ancient tree root
The water line extends about 12 kilometers east to the homestead with several tanks and water troughs along the way, and about six kilometers west with one more tank and trough at the end. It was near this last tank that I camped for a couple of nights, on the flat between the parallel sand dunes.
It was late winter and a glorious day, with next to no breeze and quite mild, in the mid twenties I should think.
So with my early photography accomplished, breakfast cooked and eaten and my living and survival chores done, it was late morning and time for a shower by the cattle trough, a few hundred metres from my camp.
An old tree stump casts it's shadow in the early morning, winter light
With the bike parked beside the cattle trough, I peeled off my gear and poured a billy of water over my head. Soaping up was easy enough but there was no lather at all. The water was quite hard.
The water was hard but the winter sunshine was pleasant. Using the billy for a camp shower, I was clean and fresh
It tasted just a little salty and I could also detect the taste of other minerals. I suppose it would keep you alive if you were desperate. Maybe you could even acquire a taste for it. Maybe!
Well, I got just a little bit of lather on my body and rinsed off with several billies of fresh water. That's how an outback camp shower works.
The daytime temperature being quite pleasant and the water having the chill off it, my open air, outback camp shower was really enjoyable. Not only that but I was reasonably clean and fresh again.