Gibb river road, pictures

The famous Gibb river road crossing!


HV8, bush camping site....


Nice swimming, not!


I only have seen them at night doing this ..............

HV8:

The drive way to HV8, seen from HV8.


And there is Dave, working ........ under a car!

HV8, repair man:

It is very normal in these area’s to have flat tires, some times you have none for a long time, some times you have 2 or more in one day. Also wind screens are damaged more often then in other parts of the world. It is a nice thing we have Dave, witch is a very good repair man of all 4wd and other vehicles. He is a man witch can have a short look at your car and know what is wrong with it. Usually he can fix it, unless the parts he needs are not in stock. If I would ever work on a Camel Trophy race or something similar, he is the man to be on your team.

Rentals and production office in the back ground (work station HV8)


Crew cabbins at HV8

More about Home Valley Station (HV8):

Like all people working here on HV8 (Home Valley Station) are special types. A lot off Aboriginals work here as well, like horse man and tour guides and general staff for house keeping and kitchen staff. Most off the (not aboriginals) man and woman working here have there roots in other parts off Australia. Having enough off there formal life or just here working for a year or so, to make some money, some have a criminal back ground. The nicest thing off all is that there is a great kind off family bond between them. You can leave everything laying around, it want get stolen. Ok, there is not much to get, and if there is, where would they go? In my room there was always a lot off cash money laying around, from time to time I did hide it in different spots. I am talking about having around the 20 to 50.000 Australian dollars in your room, witch made me feel uncomfortable some times. With this money I have to pay local staff etc.

HV8 is a government facility witch also trains a lot off young students in agricultural, farming and tourism. HV8 also lets prisoners work here, luckily not when we where around. Actually it is a very nice place to stay , and if you will be ever around these areas, do pay a visit. Its not so expensive as other nearby stations are, like El Questro (where the Americans have been filming the original Outback Jack).

The Gib river road is the longest witch go’s along all these stations, is the longest dirt road I ever have been traveling on. Its longer then 675km, and will be closed in the wet season. Then the road changes in to a rather wet mud track witch is to difficult to travel along. Then the river crossings will be to deep and the mud to dens to travel thru. In these seasons the stations are only reachable with planes. That is why most stations have there own airstrip, to get the supply’s in. In these seasons it must be very isolated here at HV8 and other stations around.

You have to picture that if you travel to the first station next door, you will have to travel at least for 30 to 45 minutes be there. And between these stations there is nothing but bush. Every stations has thousands of acres of land, where the cows (cattle) walk freely. That is why it can be dangerous to travel at high speeds at night over the dirt roads and why all the cars have bull bars. (see previous) I thought I would never kill animals and would be able to avoid them, but in the last week it happened to me twice. I killed to Wallabies with night driving, till now I managed to avoid them all by making small steering adjustments. But no! Twice now, and they always walk precisely the wrong direction, using your horn helps some times. But usually it happens quickly, while traveling between the 80 and 100 km an hour on the dirt road in the night. Like rabbits but then bigger ………… poor animals.

The Gibb river road crossing is a very nice experience and people always stop to make pictures while other cars cross. It is strange driving thru water, but even this becomes normal after doing it at least 4 times a week. When I go in to town, to the bank and some shopping’s and returning again (the trip is always about 3 to 4 hours up and down), the Gibb river crossing for me is the sign that I am almost home again (HV8 is just 7km after the crossing). In the beginning the water was still higher than it is now, since we are well into the dry season now.

But marks ashore and in the trees, show clearly that the water can be very high here. (wet season) Then the river becomes a wild big wide river, and you clearly understand that it is not possible to cross at all.

Gibb river crossing

No worry's:

Is what all Australian say, more then 5 times a day. The Australian way off living (lay back) is in all perspectives because off the wideness off there land. As I wrote before, the distances are no yoke. It is very normal to travel for 4 days or more to get from A to B, by car well as by train or bus. So planes are often used and then still, you will be flying for hours and hours, just to get back from work. If you need to buy something it is very normal that it is not in stock and it has to be ordered from elsewhere, meaning that it will take a week or more before you have it. These things are just the normal things off the day. Not like in Europe, where you just walk to an other shop around the corner or drive 30 minutes to an other city to get it elsewhere. No worry’s made! No wonder that tourists coming from BIG county’s and are in Amsterdam, always ask “how long will the drive be”. Just tell them, no worry’s …….

And this is only a small Termite home!

Outback Jack: the end is near

The shooting is going very well, it was most certain a hectic shoot, and all HV8 people who have been helping us, must have thought the strangest things about the Dutch ant heap invading there daily life. Working from 05:30 in the morning till 00:00 in the night was not what they have been expecting from a television shoot. In the beginning we where more extinguishing fires (not latterly) , then doing something what looked like a well planed organization. But slowly we managed to get some structure in to the complete mess and everybody slowly grew in his/her role. Even for most off the Australian crew it was a weird experience. We even had 2 very nice English crew members, who are traveling the world and ended up with this odd job. (Zoe and Tom) It must be one off there most special job they ever will do on there travel trip a chance they will not come across often.

So we had Belgians, Dutch, Australians, English and Aboriginals in our crew, witch made it a diverse crew. Pity the work load was so heavy that we hardly had time to really get to know each other. Luke, our “Outback Jack” is a nice city bloke and quickly trained here at HV8 into a real Outback Luke. Learning the skills like handling a snake, riding horse, whipping the whip and getting a thane, all one week prior to filming. Then it the made house started when the reality film crew and the girls arrived (witch first missed there plane in Sydney) with parachutes in the outback. And than the made house started ……

All things went wrong, but where just solved in time with other solutions or alternatives.

Like, for instance, I have been negotiating with a lighting guy from Sydney for about 1 and a half week, he traveled 4 days to be at our set, he brought a special 4wd truck with a 150kva generator on top. (on my and my cameraman’s request) Just before shooting, the generator was in place on the (build up set) in the middle of the bush (1 our from HV8) and the generator broke down. What to do then ………… so we did get it out off the bush, drove it back to our magic mechanic Dave at HV8. After one hour trying to fix it, he found out what it was and did not have the right tolls to do it. After some phone calls, we drove it in to Kununurra, for repairs (2 hour drive 2 hours back). In the mean time I have been looking at every corner of HV8 and called all company’s in Kununurra to get an alternative generator, witch I could not find on that short term. Luckaly you have very good repair man in these regions where you have the strangest vehicles and land move machinery. It was fixed in 2 hours and was back in the bush just after dark and it costs me only 2 beers.

Off course there where many various problems and so on, like on every shoot. The difference here is still the country and the place you are. Again, nothing is close and no clouds what so ever, always a burning hot sun, witch is not to be under estimated. Luckily we only had one person who had a dehydration one day, the art director blacked out one day. He had to recover for half a day. We have seen many animals walking thru the set, snakes, frogs, gecko’s, lizards, spiders, hawks, eagles, wallabies, kangaroos, dingo’s, cows and buffalo’s and off course a lot off fly’s and “mossy’s”(mosquito’s). But nothing serious happened, al do we had a full time security/safety manager and a nurse (flying doctor) on the set. Every body was really scared at first, but after

a week or so, people did get used to it and eventually every body just stepped thru the grass land and the rock areas.

The film shoot worked in a way, so that we made 2 camp sites, one where the reality is happening at that moment, with the camera’s and the other is being prepared to be the next camp, where the reality crew and cast would move to next. Meaning that you have a lot off logistics going on between HV8, (home base, production office and Art department building area, catering facilities) camp 1 and the next camp and so on. Most camps where whit in a 10 km range of HV8 some where at about 17 km distance. (dirt roads and small rocky dirt tracks)

Beside that, you also have small (so called) dating sites, where Luke went with girls for one on one conversations etc. This is how we went on for about 3 weeks non stop. After every 1 or 2 days, sometimes longer, Luke has to eliminate a girl. This girl would be removed from the program and brought to HV8 where she would stay till an available flight back to the Netherlands.

Now way further (23-08-2007), all the girls are eliminated, and there is only one to go. The crew and cast left HV8 and all the people still here have some more breading space again. I just started to de rig with the few local staff left and finally I can finish off my finances witch is absolutely not my strongest skill. Paying people and many other bills is the main job of my present concern. Slowly the daily routines at HV8 are returning to normal.

Yesterday, when the reality crew and cast went on a plane to the last location on a beach, about 2 days drive from here, the last filming and elimination will take place.

We will be here till the last people have returned from this location by car (Art department) witch will bring all the camera gear etc. I will then make sure it will all be packed and put in to cargo to the Netherlands. (with Korean Air Cargo) I will also try to sell all our stuff, tools, tents, camping gear and lots more.

Hopefully I will leave her on Monday and drive back to Darwin, where we have to return cars and bring back other stuff. Eventually I will step on the plane 1^st of September in Darwin and have a long 3 day travel back, with one night in Seoul. So I do have a brief chance to see Seoul on the way back. The series will be expected to be on television in the Netherlands and Belgium in October 2007. In the Netherlands the series we be called “Outback Jack” (as a brand name) and in Belgium the series is going to be called “Outback Luke”. Only I do know who the winner is! ;O)

I am not sure of I am going to watch this semi reality/dating program, lol

The Parajump picture!

I made some pictures from the film witch has been made from me while jumping out off a plane,
with a tandem jump. The pictures look a bit strange, because I made them from my dvd.









And then you travel with 230km per hour ............ makes you look great!