Australia – Page 42

UTFR …

We had crossed the Simpson Desert. I would do it again at the drop of a hat. It was right up there with any place I have ever been.

Is it for you?

Yes it is … provided you can tick these boxes :-

You have a reliable high clearance 4WD vehicle and some experience using it
A companion vehicle
Maps
Satellite phone (or HF Radio)
Dune Flag
Shovel
Winch
Radio
Snatch strap
Fuel
Water
Food and
A sense of humour

I hope to see you out there but I have a favour to ask. UTFR.

This stands for Use The Radio.

I have a pilots licence and a Marine Radio Operators Licence, I have absolutely no fear of public speaking. Give me the radio and I will give you a lecture. It’s easy for me. If you find it daunting remember they can’t see you … that’s the whole point.

On the track you will hear chatter between vehicles. Some of it is so inane you will wonder what on earth the speakers have between their ears. But you will know they are there. They are on the same one lane track as you and they may be coming toward you on the other side of the very next dune. Say hi, say where you are and which way you’re going, express an interest in where they are and which way they’re going. Don’t be shy. And if they ask, please reply.

Some people do it really well. I use this photo again because you see a little convoy on the right of the picture. From the top of the dune they had broadcast this …

Convoy of three vehicles departing Big Red, west bound, now.

Thank you party of three, safe journey.

Channel 10 is the channel to use in the Simpson.

The technology is not perfect. UHF is essentially line of sight and dunes do interfere with reception. If the aerial set up is different between stations it is possible that you may hear them but for them to be unable to hear you. So a dune flag and a sharp lookout are also essential. Motor bikes are not required to fly a flag and are unlikely to be using radio.

Love to hear from you.

Big Red …

Big Red is 40 km west of Birdsville, about 30 metres high and famed in legend and song. It is the focus of an annual concert and a car rally. Many a 4WD wannabe takes the run out there from Birdsville to try out their truck. Coming from the west it is, by some counts, dune number 1113. You first see the top of it over this ridge …

and when you get closer it looks like this …

On that particular day the tracks on the left ended with steep churned up sections, the tracks further right were easier. The place to celebrate is on top …

and then 40 klicks further on …

It was just another dune.

Eyre Creek …

There was a bit of a breeze and the next rain band wasn’t expected until the evening. There was nothing to gain by rushing off, better to let things dry out a little. We took the time to enjoy the locals enjoying their new lake …

And we took our opportunity to smell the Gidgee Trees. I found them not as bad as their reputation. Their leaves though are poisonous to stock (and presumably people, don’t eat the Gidgee).

When we got to Eyre Creek there was practically no water in it. When it floods it’s because of heavy rain over a much wider area and the result can be a river up to 30 km wide that can take months to subside. That’s not to say there was no challenge, the flood plain was a quagmire especially on the western side. So we slipped and slid with many a sideways moment for several kilometres. We were thrilled to be on the eastern bank …

Big Red here we come …

A change in the weather …

There was a magnificent sunrise and no ice on the cars. Cloud had kept some warmth in.

We packed up and drove up the west side of Lake Poeppel, crossing the salt encrusted surface near the northern end. Light rain settled the dust.

Having made our northing we headed east along the QAA line towards the Queensland border. One desert but three states and three different regulatory authorities. In South Australia we’d travelled through the Witjira National Park and then a Regional Reserve, in the Northern Territory we appeared to be on vacant Crown Land. At the Queensland Border we entered the Munga-Thirri National Park.

The QAA line is initially similar to the French Line, rolling dunes. The dunes are quite high and the swales quite broad often with a clay surface. The amount of vegetation seemed to be slowly declining.

We had a decision to make regarding our camp site. Beyond Munga-Thirri lies Adria Station. After leaving the National Park there would be nowhere to camp until Eyre Creek. Off to our north-east lie the three major rivers of the channel country, the Georgina, Diamantina and Cooper. Georgina joins with Burke and Hamilton to become the Eyre Creek, this is the driest of the three. Some years water flows down these channels into Lake Eyre, some years there is no flow at all. When we set off we knew that the Warburton was flooded and that Eyre Creek was dry.

We could smell the impending rain. The big question was would it be enough to bring us to a halt? There were three options

a mad dash for Birdsville
a longish day to the far side of Eyre Creek
short drive, camp in the park

One of the highlights of the trip was still ahead of us, the most famous dune in the universe – Big Red. We had no wish to rush this. The mad dash was rejected.

A camp in the park would be on sand. Wet sand is absolute luxury compared to mud. The black soil along the creek would only be fit for hippos after just a couple of millimeters of rain. And surely there would only be a couple of millimeters, big rain events are usually summer phenomena …

We camped just inside the park.

One of the locals was also happy to smell the roses ..

By evening it was cold and raining heavily. Overnight there was a very impressive thunderstorm. My guesstimate is we had 25 mm of rain. We piled out of our tents in the morning to a landscape full of little lakes.

We got the weather forecast by satellite phone. They’re was much more to come and the Eyre Creek flood plain ahead of us. This was going to be interesting.

Turning the corner …

Towards the eastern end of the French Line the dunes get higher and further apart. The swales are more likely to be clay and salt lakes make their appearance. This is Lake Tamblyn, named by Colson after his school teacher.

Before long we reached the intersection with the Knolls Track where there is even more obvious evidence of change … trees.

These are Gidgee trees, Acacia cambagei, said to emit an offensive odour when wet, variously described as like boiled cabbage or town gas. The weather this day was fine but we would have our chance to savour the smell before the trip was over.

At the intersection there is a rough and ready plaque celebrating the efforts of the surveyor David Lindsay who passed this way in January 1886. These days he would be fined up to $1000, the nanny state closes the desert for the summer.

Our next landmark was Poeppel Corner. Once just like any other spot in the desert but now a magnet because it is the entirely artificial place where South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory collide. Mal and Kelly and sundry others had preceded us and left an indication of their IQ …

Just imagine, you could chip a golf ball from South Australia, through the Territory to a hole in Queensland and someone has been kind enough to provide the opportunity … but you need to be a left-hander.

Whilst there are three main routes across the desert they are by this stage reunited for the last push to Birdsville. To avoid a crowded campsite we took ourselves to the western side of Lake Poeppel for the night. Sunrises are so much better in the Northern Territory …

The French Line …

We had come here to enjoy the desert not conquer it. We’d knocked off the 1900 km to Hamilton in four days, an average of 475 km a day. For the next six days we would average just 88 km a day. This would keep us driving for as much as four hours a day but give us plenty of time to stop for anything that sparked our interest.

The desert was carpeted in wild flowers. I was surprised at how densely vegetated it was. Birds and reptiles were well represented but we saw little in the way of mammals. There were plenty of camel tracks and some camel droppings … by the way, these look like horse shit designed by a committee. To that can be added one House Mouse and a dingo.

For all its awesome reputation driving the French Line west to east presented no great challenge. Concentration was required, you needed just enough momentum to ease you over the crest, too much would rearrange the contents of the vehicle unnecessarily. There was often a moment when all you could see was the bonnet and the sky. When the road came back into view it wasn’t guaranteed to be straight ahead.

The dunes trend SSE-NNW and continue parallel for many kilometres, some as much as 200 km unbroken. This pattern is seen throughout the deserts of Australia. The height and spacing between the ridges have an inverse relationship. Where there are 5-6 ridges in a kilometer, the height is around 15 meters. Where there are one or two ridges per kilometer the height jumps to 35–38 meters. Dunes on the west of the desert are mostly small but they increase in size as you head east. The eastern faces are not only steeper, they are also longer. (No you don’t get further and further below sea level, you climb quite gently across the interdune space before reaching the next challenge.) Where dunes are close together the surface in between mostly remains sandy but where they are widely spaced the surface is often clay – much more of a challenge than sand when wet.

In places the track is scalloped, this effect is blamed on the drivers who fail to lower their tyre pressure and those who insist on towing camper trailers although I think injudicious use of the brakes on the downhills is just as much to blame. On steep faces the scallops are out of phase, your left wheels go in as your right wheels come out, it feels like riding a camel. On lesser slopes they are side by side. Either way the wave length is the average length of a vehicle.

During the second night a cold front passed through. It brought no rain but the wind drove sand into everything. I woke with sand in my sleeping bag, even some between my teeth.

The desert has a stark beauty. Visiting is a little like scuba diving … we don’t have the means to live there but we can take what we need to enjoy it for a short time and come away looking forward to the next time.

Moon rise over the saltbush — A full moon rises over the saltbush.

Sand …

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

… William Blake

The road beyond Dalhousie Springs had not been graded and had a challenge for every season, clay pans for the wet, dunes for the dry and stones to puncture the tyres at any time at all. The corrugations were ferocious – we were carrying hard-boiled eggs that were actually peeled for us by the vibrations. Vehicle contents were redistributed freely – note to self, screw top lids are a really good idea. They would have saved scooping up the sugar off the floor of the car.

At Purni Bore it all changes. No more stones, corrugations become far less arduous. This is the start of the sandy desert. Time to drop the tyre pressures to 18 – 20 psi.

Soon we leave Witjira National Park and enter the Simpson Desert Regional Reserve. Before long we are cresting the first dune on the French Line. The first of many, you could count them, but be aware, if you get confused tradition dictates that you go back to the beginning and start over.

Camping restrictions are eased. We can now camp anywhere within 50 metres of the road.

Witjira …

The map below gives you an idea of the possible routes through the desert. If you click on it it will enlarge sufficiently to be readable, the back arrow on your browser will bring you back here. Study it for a while, I’ll ask questions shortly …

You do need a Desert Parks Pass to enter the South Australian section of the Simpson, when you buy that you will also receive some better maps but they don’t photograph well.

Our route was as straight forward as it gets, north from Oodnadatta to Hamilton, north-east to Dalhousie, east along the French Line, Poeppels Corner, north to join the QAA Line, east to Birdsville. Just a simple matter of cresting more than a thousand dunes.

The sand doesn’t actually start until Purni Bore. The road from Hamilton to Dalhousie Springs had been graded since the last rains. This was a pleasant surprise because we knew it had been cut up badly not long ago and we expected difficult going. There was just one spot where we needed 4WD, a wet creek crossing with muddy approach and departure.

After a while we entered Witjira National Park which once was the Dalhousie Station and before long we came to the ruins of the homestead …

The Dalhousie lease was granted to the Bagots in 1873, the home stead is situated adjacent to a reliable mound spring. Date palms were introduced very early in the piece and thrived on the springs to the detriment of everything that belonged there. The Parks service have removed all but a few male specimens.

We made a fairly short day of it and camped at Dalhousie Springs. This is another collection of mound springs, one of the resulting pools makes a splendid swimming hole, as large as an Olympic swimming pool, about two metres deep and warm. It even has steps to help you in and out. There are some nice walks that take you through the Melaleuca woodlands supported by the springs and there are plenty of birds.

This Singing Honeyeater is just a juvenile which is evident from the yellow gape. Its parents were still feeding it but it did pick up food for itself as well. The name, Singing, was obviously bestowed by someone with rose-tinted hearing aids.

The arid zone seems an odd place for a cormorant, but this Little Pied Cormorant was perched above the swimming hole on the look out for a Dalhousie Goby or any of the other fish endemic to the region.

A dingo visited us shortly after sunset. We had heard them on previous occasions but this was the first one to show itself.

The campsite itself though is bleak and the population density is considerably higher than where you live (even if you come from Tokyo). The toilets are suitable for anyone with a working in confined spaces ticket and breathing apparatus. I would suggest tying a rope around your middle so that a safety observer can pull you out should you not emerge within a few minutes.

There are only three sites where you can camp in Witjira. The next site on our route being Purni Bore. Older accounts wax lyrical about the birding at Purni but the bore has been capped and it no longer seems all that exciting. It may have been better to go slightly out of our way and camp at Three O’Clock Creek, just stopping for a walk and a swim at Dalhousie on our way through.

Next time …

This is where we fitted our vehicles with their dune flags. The last thing you need on the crest of a dune is a surprise encounter with a vehicle headed in the opposite direction. The flags are visible before the front bumper.

Time as well to switch the radio to UHF channel 10. Chatter between other vehicles is often the only indication that you are not alone although occasionally someone has the wit to let the world know where they are and which way they are going.

Desert fringe …

At Oodnadatta we filled our fuel tanks. Just as they reached the point where they could take no more we crept up behind the vehicles with a brick in each hand and clapped them together on the differentials …

We needed to travel about 650 km to the next fuel, we also wanted the option of taking any detour that might be necessary or desirable. Both the FJ Cruiser and the Landcruiser will do about 1200 km of country road on full tanks but we anticipated higher consumption in the days ahead. We took an extra 40 litres for each vehicle in Jerry cans.

We also topped up our water supply which we carried in a number of containers, we had already had one rub through because of corrugated roads – beer cans, too, needed careful scrutiny and emergency consumption at the first sign of deterioration. We travelled on with five days regular supplies plus a week’s reserve.

Just north of Oodnadatta we parted with the main road which goes on to Marla. Instead we headed to Hamilton Station where they have a very fine campsite about a kilometre off the road. We had up to this point been putting in big days of driving now it was time to smell the roses …

The dunes surrounding the camp were alive with wild flowers and the birding along the Hamilton River, on this occasion a series of pools, was excellent.

The Ghan …

From Farina we headed north to Marree and then up the Oodnadatta Track through the tiny town of William Creek to the world-renowned Pink Roadhouse in Oodnadatta itself.

The sky is huge, the vegetation is sparse, the road is not sealed. The scene is occasionally punctuated by a mound spring thrown up like acne by the underlying artesian basin. The road follows the same line as the telegraph and the railway, evidence of both is still present although the rails and wires are gone. This is part of the route pioneered by John McDouall Stuart but people lived here for thousands of years before he passed through.

The Australian Overland Telegraph line was completed in 1872. It stretched 3200 km from the south coast to the north. The poles were 80 metres apart, there were relay stations every 250 km. At Darwin it joined a submarine cable that went via Java to the outside world. It was the thinnest thread of 19th century high tech stretching through hostile country, usually dry but flood, paradoxically, a major hazard, and occupied by occasionally hostile people. The colonies of Victoria and South Australia were in competition to gain the commercial benefit of building the line. Part of the motivation behind Victoria’s Burke and Wills expedition was to find a suitable route. Stuart was largely financed by James Chambers who hoped to have a large stake in the resulting enterprise.

The railway followed. Construction went in fits and starts. Construction began in 1880 and the railhead moved slowly north to Hawker, Farina, Marree, reaching Oodnadatta in 1891. Here it took a pause until 1926 before pressing on to Alice Springs three years later. This was a narrow gauge line constructed for steam locomotives. The route needed to follow a line of artesian springs supplemented later with bores. The service ran at a loss and was notorious for washouts of the track and other delays. A flat car immediately behind the locomotive carried spare sleepers and railway tools, so that if need be the passengers and crew could work as a railway gang to repair the line.

It wasn’t until 2004 that the track reached Darwin. By this time diesel had replaced steam making it possible to reroute the southern section westwards to less flood prone ground. The railway still runs on the new route. It is now called the Ghan to commemorate the Afghan cameleers that it largely replaced (this seems to have started as a pejorative nick name). It’s in the non-urgent section of my bucket list – please give it a go to keep it running until I get around to it. Read all about it <HERE>.

As I said, the sky is huge and the veg is scarce, this is the Oodnadatta track …

It passes ruins that would have housed telegraph and railway workers and the occasional mound spring. This spring is producing the merest trickle of water but it shows you the form …

Now imagine yourself on a bigger and more productive example …

At Lake Eyre South the road, railway and telegraph are all very close to the lake edge. It is the ideal place to meditate on the way it was. Imagine yourself piling off the train and being put to work repairing the track, or simply stranded here for a week or so (click to enlarge) …

The water that issues from these spring comes from the Great Artesian Basin that lies beneath 23% of Australia’s surface area, that’s the 1.7 million square kilometres shown in blue on this map.

Water enters at the margins, mostly the eastern margin and is trapped in a layer of sandstone. It travels at a rate of one to five metres a year. Water coming to the surface in the south-west of the basin has been underground for about two million years. It comes out pretty warm and mineral rich but has sustained life in the desert where local rainfall is scant.

We overnighted at Coward Springs where the water flows freely enough to form a wetland. It is a commercial camp site but thoughtfully laid out. You can take a spa in the spring water but rather than do that I found a quiet spot in the reeds to look for the local inhabitants …

Ausstralian Spotted Crake — Australian Spotted Crake