Tuesday, Feb 09, 2016 at 19:42
I agree with the others about
Dalhousie Springs. The road from
Eringa Waterhole is better, even though you are going the longer route to Mt Dare.
We did The Madigan last year towing our TVan with fellow TVanners and had a great time. Beautiful country.
Keep your tyre pressures low...we were as low as 12lb on the front and 20lb on the back of the car (light truck tyres) and 12lb in the TVan. We didn't get bogged once!
We did a bit of
sand dune grooming as the dunes were "excavated" by some vehicles which had travelled before us (we have suspicions, Pat Callinan's crew did this damage to one of the salt pans you will come across). Much more than was shown on their DVD
This wheel track was nearly 2 feet deep
Drag Marks
Didn't have to go through it
https://cloud.hemaexplorer.com.au/public/ixombE8LxOtiI5GwAP6bdGXh/#?layer=hema1m,hema250&
alpha=hema1m:1,hema250:1
Coober Pedy to Old
Andado and
Madigan Line Camps 1 to 25 and
Birdsville to
Isisford 12/7/2015
I have put a track report on Hema Cloud. (above) If this link works, it will show you the full trip ....
If not.
here's what I wrote for The Madigan part of our trip
The
Madigan Line:
From Mt Dare to
Birdsville..758 kms
We used 174 litres of diesel in our 100 series turbo auto , towing our awesome TVan all the way....L/100 kms: 22L
We shared our Adventures with new found friends. Who were in a Nissan 4.2L Manual diesel ute with canopy and also were towing a TVan..They averaged 21L/100kms.
.The whole trip was spent in low range and we averaged 40ks a day.
We stopped at approx. 3-4o'clock in the arvo and often didn't leave to 9.30(on a good day), each day.
A very leisurely trip.
From Mt Dare, our last refuelling stop, we headed toward
Old Andado Homestead. There was a large section of bulldust not far north of Mt Dare, which coated our car, drowned our Tvan and filled the car with lovelly fine dust..unfortunately our fan was on. We didn't expect such a large plume/ hole, so before we could close our vents, our car was powdered with superfine bulldust. mostly outside thank goodness.
The TVan was following us and remained dust free inside.
At old
Andado, we enjoyed a bit of history and some fresh scones from the
homestead caretakers.
Our first night out was not far out of Old
Andado, still south of Mac Clarke Reserve.
Day 1 on the Madigan, as many have said, was interesting. The actual starting point to get to
Camp 1 was on the western side of the fencline, which begins at
the entrance gate to Mac Clarke reserve.
Following that fenceline, we reached the
bore and had a look around...
There were lots of tracks going in all directions, but after eventually having to cross over a broken fence, we discovered the next way forward was actually north,now along the Eastern side of a fence...virtually doubling back on our track, but on the other side of another fence!
The scenery to camps 1 & 1A weren't that remarkable, until we got past
camp 2
Camp 2 was near the old "fossil"..Case tractor which was very interesting. Why it was there at all is a mystery!
Camps 3&4 were not visited as they are on native title land, so we headed to the Colson,
camp 5 and then
camp 6. A bit longer day travelling
Camp 7 was really where the dunes started to get a little serious.. Deflated tyres even more, repair/ landscape a few dunes and move on peacefully..only one
camp that day.
Camp 8-10 a continuation of the previous days terrain, with some beautiful colours of the sand changing throughout the day.
We were blessed with prolific
wildflowers and flowering stands of Gidgee trees.
Camp 11 has quite a collection of logbooks, "I've been here" tags and mementos from many visitors.
We ended up camping there the night, then discovered some nice trees and wood just over the next few dunes :(
Camps 12-16 took us 2 days.
At
Camp 16 we placed our
plaque next to everyone else's and turned off the
Hay River Track, towards
camp 17.
Camped fo the night between 17 and 18..then it was off on a big day to
Birdsville.
Not visiting camps 23 & 24 as they are on private land.
The clouds were starting to gather and we needed showers, so It was off to
Birdsville for a bit of luxury.
As usual..the QAA was in bad condition, with side tracks veering off the track and around the badly eroded/ damaged sections.
No problems for our TVans.
We got to Big Red, just on dark, but we didn't want to miss out on another big dune...The tyres were still down, so we took it on in the dark. After carefully picking our lines, we made it up without banging, spinning or getting bogged...Love the TVans..they travelled so
well behind us...in fact...we forgot they were there, as you never feel any tugging and jumping from our "passenger"
Whilst now a very defined track, The Madigan is a great trip.
Some dunes show signs of "abuse", but no where near as bad as those on the QAA.
The colours and scenery were spectacular. The desert benefitted from rain in the recent months and bloomed beautifully.
Our total trip was over 5000ks, however only my waypoints for the Madigan are all intact!
Take it slow and you will enjoy the trip.
Allow at least 10 days from Mt Dare to
Birdsville...taking it easy and making it fun.
My husband & I will be doing the Geocentre of the Simpson and Geosurveyor
Hill this year. That will then be.. that area ticked off the bucket list!
Here's a couple of links.
This one is from our travelling companions:
One of the bull dust between Mt Dare and Old
Andadohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byYUh-o1YUc
Here's a link to a Youtube video I put on:
10 Days across the Madigan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1F0DKPOxyk
Apologies for the long winded, and maybe slightly off track reply, but I think you will be interested.
Cheers
Robyn
Near madigan Line Camp 8
AnswerID:
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