A day to manage stress and heat. We eventually drove in to Tom Price, hoping that it would be a little more than Newman - in reality it was a little less a Coles and a library, but not much else. It was 100km each way (nearby in this country) and we encountered 3 lots of roadwork and a couple of over size vehicles. The big vehicles are huge "4.5m at the blade" was the constant call from the Pilot vehicle (and that was just a front end loader.
The camper battery finally ran out of juice over night. No charging of phones, No freezer, although it may have run out far enough through the night that the food stayed frozen. Fortunately with the sun came enough charge to start charging the battery (without any tricks). No coffee this morning as there wasn't enough juice for the hot plate and not enough enthusiasm to visit reception. We need to find a way to take some load off the battery, so powering the fridges from the car on the way to Tom Price was a useful option.
We have also seen (on Sunday) whole trucks being moved from mine site to mine site (they are over 5m wide.) Also seen some new equipment being transported up to Roy Hill. The UHF is useful to hear the chatter between vehicles, pilots and road works and find out a bit of back ground.
On the way back from Tom Price we dropped into the visitor's centre to see the display. We only had 45 minutes until closing time, so really a reconnaissance to decide whether to come back. It is good, we need to complete the visit.
On the way to and from Tom Price the fridge and freezer had access to power. The Eva Kool struggles as a freezer, so we swapped them over. The Brass Monkey seems much happier maintaining -4 degC and the Eva Cool is really good at maintaining +4deg. The solar slogged away all day and roughly 50% charged the battery, so things are getting back on track. So with the fridges doing what they are good at we might stay within the power budget.