We have a meeting Friday night to decide the itinerary for the next while, and what exactly we're doing in Meekatharra. Once again Bindi has all the numbers so we agree with her and move on. There's the prospect of going to visit a proposed mine at Lake Maitland that ANAWA (AntiNuclear Alliance of Western Australia) have asked us to check out since it's one they haven't seen. It's 350km to get there, but hey, we have a hand-drawn sketch map of the area that's been faxed up to us so it shouldn't be too hard.
Sunny has also rung round and we can get a rental van if we want, 9 seater 4WD thing, looks like $500-$700 including petrol. That looks useful, considering that everyone at the meeting wants to go to on the trip. After a bit of fluffing around John says he's happy to stay behind and look after our gear. That stops the circle about what to do with our stuff while we're away. The trip will be overnight, so we can spend a reasonable amount of time at the site.
It turns out that the "lake" is dry, and flat. ANAWA have kindly included GPS co-ordinates for the site so we can avoid trying to locate small survey pegs on a 20km square flat thing with no landmarks. But the group splits on whether getting a GPS is worth doing.
John goes to get the trike ready, we're going to ride into Meekatharra tonight because there's a moon and that way we don't have the hassle of packing up, moving, then trying to be ready for the mine trip by 9am. It turns out that Jonas is playing with the meeting, he most obviously stands up and says three times some point that I'd made (once) a few minutes ago that had been ignored. After three repetitions the meeting actually decided to consider it. Jonas and I grimace at each other. It really is that bad. I'd raised this at Karratha and some people hadn't believed me. Jonas does now :-)
I give up, as do Chris and Jedda and a few others. It seems that "we" are going to have a deep ecology ceremony at the site, and possibly also do a flora and fauna survey and take some photos. "we" have decided that the best way to do the survey is not to take anyone with any expertise in that area (John the forester, Chris the botanist, Jedda the revegetator are all staying behind). "We" are also going to rely on a fax of a hand-drawn map for navigation, the technological aura of a GPS unit would corrupt the deep ecology feeling (it's about feeling in tune with nature, not about actually doing anything to preserve or maintain the ecology).
I even raise the point that none of the people who have not yet gone to a mine site are going on this one, but the people who have been to both of the other ones are mostly going to this one. By now I'm seriously pissed off. The politics of the group have degenerated seriously.
I leave, John and me ride into Meekatharra then out to "the rocks" where we're camping. My knees hurt a lot, and I've pretty much decided to stop riding, Even though I'm in no emotional state to make a sensible decision, I don't think I have a lot of choices.