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Day 14	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Wednesday 16th July	Well 33	Well 37	256.9km
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed
6 hr 5mins	31.4km/hr	8 hr 11mins	79km/hr

This morning we needed to wait until opening hours to head back the 6.8km to the Kunawarritji Community to refuel, check on available stocks of food and as promised met Cathy and Carl the white managers who are responsible for the improved operation of the community.

The community is a modern example of the new and growing breed of aboriginal communities run by white management that have embraced tourism. The store is stocked with supplies for tourists including frozen meats of much variety including marinated chicken pieces in cryovaced vacuum sealed packets, fresh fruit and vegetables and the usual assortment of tins and packets, frozen bread, icy poles, toiletries, and even film. We all bought as much as we could. I topped up on potatoes, meat, and even onions and carrots. The community has been planning to advertise on ExplorOz for some time and we had been asked to drop in and explain it all to them. They also want us to build a small website, as the community really does wish to let travellers know they are welcome and that they are working to improve facilities and supplies. A new store is actually being built soon and enormous amounts of fuel is available - ULP and diesel. There are no spares, but regular truck and plane (weekly) transport can be arrangement for emergency requirements (ie. truck comes in from Port Hedland along the Wapet and the plane is the weekly RFDS service).

The most interesting thing we learned was that the Gary Highway (runs east towards the NT border) has recently been graded and you no longer need a permit to travel through the Kiwirrkurra aboriginal land because the community has actually been moved after they were evacuated for about a year in the last flood and the new road bypasses the new community. I even saw the community featured an ABC current affairs program that they have established the first joint NT/WA Police station there. In fact, Carl told us that the local plan is to encourage travellers to make the loop drive from Alice Springs along the Gary Highway through Kunawarritji and west to Marble Bar, then down to Newman and back east along the Talawanna Track and back to NT along the Gary. The Gary is now so wide and graded that you could bring in the caravans and that is exactly what they're hoping for we were told.

So, a couple of hours later after a few interesting chat with Carl and Cathy we all headed off on our quest to finish what is known as the northern section of the CSR. Just another 18 wells to go... with 1157km on the CSR already behind us.

Wells 34 and 35 were underwater, but the access tracks were driveable all the way to the sites. We stopped for lunch in what I could only describe as an enchanted forest of desert oaks between Well 35 to Well 36 via Bungabinni Native Well (a nice little spot where we wandered around in the reeds and found a little water). Well 36 was also underwater but visible from the shoreline. No room for camping for a group of 4 so we had little choice but to move onto Well 37.

Well 34, Flooded track to Well 35, Flooded site of Well 36

We knew we'd be lucky to make it before sundown and infact we, as the lead vehicle, made it on sunset, but tail end charlie made it by the light of the moon alone. This section of track is currently in pretty poor shape, and I would assume this is because the track we were following is not the original track, but a recently forged track across the tops of dunes in an effort by previous travellers in wetter times to avoid low-lying ground. The plains beneath the dunes were massively overgrown and we had no hope of finding the original track but I hope someone is planning to re-make it as the current track is pretty rough and slow going. It actually took us exactly 1hr to cover the 21km from Well 36-37 and we didn't arrive until 5.15pm, and the others came in about ½ hr behind us. It made a very long day, but it was a fantastic camp - full of mystery beneath a grove of desert oaks. This was a site I could stay at for a few days.

Day 15	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Thursday 17th July	Well 37	Well 41	?
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed
?	?	?	?

Just a few km past the camp we came into the site of Well 37. We spent ages here - in the Gard book was a mud map and directions to find some blazes on trees (trees that are now burnt and fallen down so markings not found) , but of most interest where the 3 graves all nicely restored with plaques and signage. One grave is for drovers Shoesmith and Thomson, another alongside is for Chinaman - all murdered here by bush natives in 1911. These 2 graves are situated to the left of the main carpark (!) on a slight rise - easily visible. To the right of the carpark, about 100m away is the grave of John McLernon, a camel driver in the Locke Oil Prospecting expedition in 1922 who was also murdered here in 1922.

Graves at Well 37

The well itself was underwater, but it made an excellent scene to photograph amongst the flooded ti-trees.

We stopped further on at the little cave by the side of the track that is marked on maps as "Rock Art". The inside walls have collapsed and most of the art is buried and is hardly worth a mention but it was a nice little stop and we found yellow pea flowers growing amongst the rocks above the cave.

Water 38 is in a fact a rockhole on the LHS of the main track and is well identified by good signage on a gravel rise. There is a 20m walk down to a rocky creek area to the actual site with various rockholes, stone sharpening marks and initials of early drovers easily seen on the walls of the rockhole.

When you reach Well 39 you come upon it quite suddenly after crossing a dune to a flat dry claypan - the well lies by the track on the RHS and is in total ruin with putrid water that is not suitable to use for anything. We found a few skulls of various animals here which the kids loved.

We found numerous little camps in flat clearings under shady desert oaks between here and Well 40 but continued on as it was only just past 2.30pm.

We reached the site of Well 40 and found a large lake! The well itself is underwater on the eastern bank (not accessible) but we were able to walk around the banks of the lake to within 4m of the well to obtain the approximate GPS reference. 

After parking a little too close to the crusty mud, Kim and Ian in the Navara ute found themselves a little stuck so needed a little tug out with a snatch strap. They were most surprised as they were a fair way back from the edge of the "lake". We are constantly reminded how the stock route would surely be a glue-bog in wetter times.

A track leads up to the top of a hill behind the Well site to the grave of Michael Tobin who was speared in 1907 during the main survey of the stock route. His grave has a marble cross and clear embossed lettering with all the details of his death.

Well 39, Tobins Grave, Flooded site of Well 40

Finally, we moved on to Well 41 and the hope of a good campsite. We certainly didn't expect to find it underwater. Thankfully, we had spotted a pretty decent campsite 1.2km before the well site and as the lead vehicle we radio all to tell them we had chosen our campsite for the night and please bring some wood! Tonight we were having Pork Roast with Peach Compote.

Day 16	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Friday 18th July	Well 41	Well 45	(day 15 and 16 combined) 286.7km
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed
7 hrs 25min	32.3km	8hr 53min	73.1km/hr

The group lifted camp around 9am and went back down the track to Well 41 for a better look at it had been too late in the afternoon yesterday to investigate properly. This was yet another Well found underwater in an area densely surround by ti-trees. By this stage, all the kids (Leah included) were finding the novelty of the mud just a little too tempting and the boots had to be taken off before getting back into the car and put into a plastic bag.

Well 41 - underwater

We didn't drive to Gunowarba Native Well signed 11.5km as the track appeared to be completely overgrown, in fact we could not find any trace of a track at all.

The track to Helena Spring (also marked) appeared in reasonable condition and showed recent tracks within the last 24hrs. The Toodyay convoy couldn't afford to make any major side trips as their itinerary was rather stretched, and we were happy with the company so didn't care one way or another. We were going with the flow, but Helena Spring is a place we have put on the "must return to" list.

The track between 41 - 42 however was very overgrown in places with yucky scratchy branches scraping down the sides of the car and whacking the windscreen with frightening noises - but its just all part of it and you plough through regardless.

Overgrowth alongside track - must have closed windows to avoid whipping faces

Yet in other places, the terrain between 41 - 42 was fantastic with wide open plains with what you almost believe is green grass in the interdune systems.

Refreshing view change between Wells 41 - 42.

Well 42 lies in the middle of a small claypan on the LHS of the track. It is silted up with salty mud and the water is unusable. The track then crosses Guli Lake - hard dry wheel tracks across a totally dry salt bed and pops out at a junction where we TR to Well 43. Here we found 2 lakes (flood) and a dry well site. No signs of previous camps here although there is a campsite symbol on the current Hema NW sheet. 

We all enjoyed the track from Well 43 to Well 44 immensely! For almost 30km we had a fantastic run along some excellent dunes which were all crossed at right-angles with straight-on approaches - a very welcome change. Liz took the wheel in the Rodeo and we could tell by the radio comments that everyone was greatly enjoying this part of the trip. The only thing that marred the trip was passing a convoy of 9 vehicles heading south as we headed north. Our little group of 4 was always quite spread out but unfortunately this wasn't ideal for such head-on dune passing but with good use of radios and most vehicles carrying dune flags we all passed one another safely. (Again, we were known to most of the vehicles we passed).

Well 44 was almost a let-down after such an enjoyable jaunt across the dunes. It was just a depression with a sand-filled trough with metal ruins laying about.

Well 45 was also dry - and just a hole in the ground although some troughing, a-frame supports and the rusty old bucket lay nearby. There were a few gums and campsites behind the turning circle where we stayed put for the night. 

Day 17	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Saturday 19th July	Well 45	Breaden Pool	?
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed
?	?	?	?

We were able to take the direct track from Well 45 - 46 even though the track was totally flooded in a massive arc as the NT travellers we had met earlier at Well 6 had advised us that they had cut a bypass around the flood. By the time we took the track, it had been used by probably another 50 or so vehicles so although it was pretty rough and slow going, it was definitely the way to go. The flood waters entice the water birds and once we made our way all the way around the flood and picked up the original track we ventured down to the water's edge and found literally scores of black swans and hundreds of ducks. 

Diversion track around original Track between Wells 45-46.

It was an unusual sight after so many days of seeing nothing but red sand and spinifex that we spent a fair bit of time down by the water's edge. Leah enjoyed putting her feet all the way down into the deep depressions left by camels that had left knee-deep footprints through the salty-crust on their way towards the water's edge.

We now headed to the east to pick up the alternate track running north-south via Mt Ford in the South Esk Tablelands. We took a brief detour to the flat topped Mt Romilly so that we could all do a bit of climbing to reach the trig marker at the summit and then discovered at the base of the range what we guessed were fossilised tree stumps.

Views from Mt Romilly

From here we had an easy run north to the Breaden Valley just on sunset. 

Sunset views at Breaden Valley

Then turned onto the track into Breaden Pool that was full of soft bulldust and found a dusty and burnt-out campsite at the start of the walk to the Breaden Pool. We just had enough time to explore the Breaden Pool just a few metres from our camp but unfortunately it was stagnant and putrid. The downside of visiting the CSR in a dry year!

Breaden Pool - stagnant in 2003

Day 18	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Sunday 19th July	Breaden Pool	Billiluna	265km
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed
1 hr 16min	34km/hr	7 hr 48	80.3km/hr

From our camp we were also able to easily walk to Godfrey Tank (15 mins) along a well marked (by stone cairns) trail across the top of the range. 

 The boys (mostly the energetic 14 year old variety) wanted to climb down into the rockhole known as the "tank" to get a better view of the inscriptions on the walls left by drovers and even Canning himself. 

We were back at the vehicles by 10.30am and moving on towards Well 48 which is just a burnt out hole filled with sand and spinifex in an area that is totally burnt out also.

Views of vehicles at camp in Breaden Valley

It was just 13 km from Well 48 that we came across the burnt out wreckage of the Ford Explorer that we had heard on the CSR grapevine had come to grief just a few days earlier. Our team of "experts" concluded from the evidence that it was caused by a fire in the engine bay, probably from an electrical fault of some kind. The front end of the vehicle had melted and the remains of fibreglass revealed the flimsy body work of the engine bay.

So it was after midday by the time we reached Well 49 so we all stopped for lunch under the ti-trees, tested the water from the reconstructed well and took a short stroll out behind the well site on a little track that led to the grave of Jack Smith.

6.5km further on we found excellent camping areas under desert oaks. In hindsight, we should've stopped here and celebrated our last day together on the Canning, but I think the pressure to get everyone to Halls Creek quickly was becoming a bit of an issue for Rob who was leading the Toodyay group. They were all well over their expected time-frame for completing the CSR and their were schools, families and work commitments for everyone to return to. So moving on, we came to Well 50 and found more good camps under snappy gums about 150m before reaching the well.

Finally, we came to Well 51, which is just a depression in black soil besides a windmill with a broken shaft that no longer feeds the huge dam beneath it. We had finished the desert leg and had come into open pastoral country but we continued on in the hope of reaching Stretch Lagoon but stopped about 50km short and took a very rough bush camp but found loads of firewood and had a lovely night just out of Billiluna.

Day 19	Start	Stop	Trip Odometer
Monday 20th July	Billiluna	Halls Creek
Stopped time	Moving average	Moving time	Max speed

Everyone woke early and packed up the quickest I've ever seen. Finally, everyone has it together now that its the final day. So with an 8.25am start the 4 vehicles, 8 adults and 5 kids moved off on gravel roads where we managed to travel at 60km/hr (we had all inflated tyres a little after leaving dune country yesterday).

I had been told by Eric Gard to make sure we stopped at Stretch Lagoon, that we'd find hot showers and new tourist facilities. We found the lagoon and it was magnificent if you didn't look too closely at the sawn off cattle trotters and pieces of offal lying around. It was still very much an aboriginal camp and didn't have the impression that any work had been done to make it into a welcoming facility for travellers of the stock route. We wandered around on what we knew was private property feeling a little uncomfortable. Later in Billiluna we were told that yes indeed Stretch Lagoon was in the planning stages to become an eco-tourist resort but it wasn't happening this season, although I was presented with a colour brochure all about it.

In Billiluna we spent time meeting Anne and Tom in the store, Bill in the office who was interested in setting up advertising on ExplorOz for the community but was in his last month in the job.

So, after purchasing about $50 worth of chips, drinks and iceblocks our convoy departed Billiluna and headed into Wolfe Creek Crater and reached Halls Creek at 4.30pm for our final night together before everyone went their separate ways.

With showers and resting the priority no one was up to cooking so the boys were sent into town to find some takeaway. They returned with enormous burgers which went down well with the beer.

It was the strangest night - sleeping under lights in a caravan park on grass hearing arguments being shouted around the town after 19 days of bush camping in the quiet of the desert under the light of the moon and stars.

The ExplorOz Team continued to Broome and spent another 20 days travelling through to Exmouth and then into the Kennedy Range before returning to Perth in mid August.