Submitted: Thursday, Jul 17, 2008 at 16:15

Member Brian (Gold Coast) Gayleen (SWMBO) Nicholas (Teenaged Son) & Dusty (GQ Patrol)

The story starts a few weeks ago, well, months ago in fact, well, really it all began years ago…. But I’m not gonna go back that far! We have been planning this for years, but the planning really started about 6 months ago when we made the decision to head to Birdsville and beyond! There were quite a few things to organize, our trusty GQ Patrol, Dusty, needed a service and a few more mods…. Long ago we took the mud flaps off, but a by-product of this was the trailer getting ‘sand-blasted’ with pebbles whenever we were on a dirt road. So we built a single mud flap to cover the rear end of the Patrol, and added mud flaps to the rear wheel arches as well. There are other things, but you get the idea…. We hired a HF radio, and joined the VKS 737 network. When our Desert Parks Pass arrived, it seemed that suddenly, it was real. We were going to the desert! All was set and the big day approached, us getting more excited by the day, when the day before, as we were rushing to put the final things in the truck, a last minute work-related emergency put us back 24 hours! Bugger!! So I worked the day that we were meant to leave but managed to get home a little early, so Gayleen and I decided to make sure that the hired radio worked. So we set it up on the bull bar while we were still parked in the back yard at home and listened to the 4:30 ‘Sked’ from Charters Towers. The Operator from Charters couldn’t hear us, but we could hear him, and another member, Terry, who could hear both of us, performed the relay to & from Charters. So our first ‘sked’ was from the back yard at home and we were amazed that we could quite clearly hear people from Adelaide and Melbourne on the airwaves. So the next morning at 5am, we left home and headed out on another adventure! It had been a long time since I had made the early morning trek across the Logan Toll way to Ipswich, and I was stunned by the amount of traffic on that road at such an early hour. We drove steadily on, stopping for breakfast at Toowoomba, destined for the town of Mitchell for our first stop. We stopped at a rest area at Wallumbilla for lunch, and had a look in the craft shop there. Here we spotted a fridge magnet with the words “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get” emblazoned on it and we thought it was apt for us! We have quickly adopted it into our vocabulary. We arrived at Mitchell at about 2pm and set up camp at the Neil Turner Weir, then headed into town to the Artesian Hot Springs for a relaxing soak in the 38°C water for well over an hour! Bliss!! Back at camp, it was ‘Sked’ time and today we got to talk to Charters Towers. We had dinner and after a couple of hours talking around the camp fire, we turned in for the night. Brrrrrrrrrr… it was cold!!!!! Thankfully we had bought new sleeping bags for this trip, and thankfully bought good quality ones! Getting out of bed on such a cold morning wasn’t fun at all, but we had breakfast, packed up and were on the road by 8:45am. Just as we were packing, we spied a large flock of ducks on the weir having their morning swim; they kept us entertained with their antics. After the town of Morvern, we headed towards Charleville, onto roads we had never traveled before, so for us the excitement grew. We stopped for lunch in Quilpie at the Quilpie Bakery, unfortunately they were sold out of their famous Bushranger pies, so we settled for just plain old pies, but out the front of the bakery was a 4WD with Terry & Meg emblazoned on the drivers door. They had a VKS 737 sticker on the rear, so I watched the car for a few minutes till they returned, and asked if he is the “Terry” who had relayed my message on my first “Sked” on Wednesday and indeed he is! Small world huh? We chatted for a few minutes, and then left them to their lunch while we ate ours. We drove through the afternoon onto Coopers Creek on the east side of Windorah. The landscape is ever changing, flatter and flatter as you go further west. Recent rains have the sides of the road where water runs off green with freshly growing grass. This has a two-sided effect, whilst it looks pretty, it obviously attracts wildlife keen for a feed, and the road kill rate seems to be rising. We soon learnt a new game, Identify-The-Dead Animal/Carcass/Skeleton. Coopers Creek camp site is right beside the road, and just after we arrived a road train thundered across the narrow bridge and we thought we were in for a noisy night. As it happened that was the last road train we saw actually moving east of Birdsville. We set up and as we opened the trailer, my lower back gave way again. Gayleen and Nicholas finished setting up, with me helping where I could, and then we called in on the afternoon “Sked”. A funny thing here; there was an old couple camped down by the river; we wandered down past them looking for firewood, and this crusty old fellow points out a sign post which warns of a $75,000 fine for cutting trees down for firewood. “They’re red hot on chopping trees here y’know” was how he put it. We had a chat with him for a minute or so, and then continued on our wood hunt. He sprinted off the other way to top up his wood pile!! We found a dead tree that had been washed down river by the recent flooding and lopped a branch off for our fire and he started up again about “Cuttin’ tree’s darn” although he had enough local firewood for a fortnight! Hilarious! Another “upgrade” to our gear was the addition of a Coleman Hot water system and shower head. In comparison to our old unit, this is a breeze to operate and we had the luxury of a hot shower to wash off the road dust. We built ourselves a fire and cooked dinner. Rugged up beside the fire after dinner, we were preparing for a colder night, reasoning that if it was so cold at Mitchell, it would be that much colder here at Windorah. But surprisingly, it was a very mild night and we three spent a couple of hours chatting. Our friend Mandy’s game of “Cruise Ship” was resurrected here. We awoke to a glorious sunrise on Saturday morning. Another quick breakfast and pack up (but not before I had stretched my troublesome lower back) and we stopped at the fuel stop in Windorah. Filling the tanks, we realized that the operator is blind! Gayleen went to pay him and he swiped the credit card and entered the correct details first go…. Chuckling that our $208 purchase “could end up being anything when I’m finished with it” Fuel here is $1:89/litre, on our first days driving I had driven quite sedately, not going over 100kph, yesterday to “make-a-mile” I put my foot down a bit getting the Patrol around 115-120kph most of the way. The difference was nearly 3 litres per 100 k’s… so today we went back to driving a bit slower and in fact we had to as further west the road narrows and gets rougher, although nowhere near as rough as we were expecting. Today we are heading for Birdsville, and the scenery just gets better and better! I am constantly amazed by how vast our country is, and how flat! Not quite halfway from Windorah to Birdsville, the road becomes unsealed and the dust begins! Amazingly we came across a small “compact” car, the driver carefully picking his way through the ruts and taking care not to get hung up on rocks! He pulled over to let us pass and we left him to his slow journey. Great clouds of fine powder spewing from the rear of the rig, hanging high in the air so that, on the occasions where we are cresting a ridge, our dust cloud was billowing behind us as far as we could see. Around mid day, we came to a rest stop at Deon Rock, a table-and-chairs picnic area, high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the road about 90 K’s east of Birdsville. A monument to Deon Brook, a 20 year old fellow who died in a helicopter accident nearby, stands at the edge of the area. The quiet here is amazing, serene even, which is apt for the monument and the view is awesome! We met “Jack & Shirley” who were traveling in their Troopy to the Tanami Desert and shared the picnic table with them, swapping travel yarns. Very nice people. Looking east, we spied a cloud of dust heading this way and decided to get back on the road in case it was a road train heading our way, but as we pulled out onto the road, the “compact” was pulling onto the track to the lookout. So he was an hour behind us! It would be a very slow journey in that car! We stayed about a kilometre behind Jack & Shirley, staying out of their dust. 80k’s east of Birdsville, the noise outside the truck changed, and I was trying to figure out what was different when I noticed our rear right tyre was flat. Bugger!!!! Can’t complain though, this was only the second flat tyre I have had in the Patrol, the first was a tyre “staked” at Janowen Hills a couple of years ago. We found a spot to change the tyre safely and continued on our way, arriving in Birdsville around 3:30pm. We set up in the caravan park and called in for the 4:00pm “Sked”, telling Charters Towers base where we were, Ron (the Charters operator) asked us if we had met Ian & Jeanette who were also staying in the caravan park. I said no, I hadn’t met them, exchanged a few more pleasantries with him, and signed off. Right then, a couple wandered over to ask what we thought of the VKS network and introduced themselves as Ian & Jeanette…… great timing! We spent an hour with them as they gave us more insight into the VKS network (they are operators as well) and we admired the set up in their Patrol. After hot showers, we went to the Birdsville Hotel for dinner, sirloin steaks with all the trimmings, then back to camp and bed.

Sunday morning was again glorious, not too cold but clear blue sky. After breakfast we organized Peter at Birdsville Auto’s to check our tyre, unfortunately it was deemed beyond repair, so a new one was ordered from Adelaide. While here, a couple wandered over to me and mentioned our ExplorOz stickers; It was Robin Miller and Co, and in fact I remembered him from forum discussions in the past! It seemed that once again, like our last trip, we were bumping into people we knew of, or who knew of us! Late morning, after airing down to 26 psi, we left the caravan park and headed due west, destination…. Big Red. For those that don’t know, Big Red is the largest sand dune in the area at 40 metres and is a draw card for most 4wd’ers. We had local advice that there was some water over the road in places, but as long as we stayed to the track, we would be ok. The first such place was just outside town, we watched an older guy roar through at full noise, and thinking that must be the way to do it, we copied. Muddy water splashed over the bonnet as we pushed through the boggy road, but we made it out the other side and carried on a few k’s to the next bog. Again, engine racing, we thrashed into the water and again a fountain erupted either side of the truck. The 3rd boggy spot was worse, and I theorized that by going a little off-track to the north, we could probably get through without having to go through the deep-looking water in the middle. 2nd gear, low range and lots of revs and suddenly my vision disappeared as the windscreen was covered in mud! And too make matters worse, I had forgotten to wind up my window and mud came spraying in covering my arm. At the next bog, Gayleen volunteered to walk through the middle to check the depth, when another GQ comes along, slow as you please, no churning fountains of water spraying everywhere. He stopped alongside us and gave us some insight of the track ahead. There apparently were several more to cross, one of which was about 50 metres long. So we slowed at the next one, low range 2nd and wandered through quite slowly but successfully. Same with the next one and also the 50 metre one. We aired down at the entrance to the Simpson Desert to 18 psi, and then went to the first of the sand dunes, Little Red, climbing to the top with ease. Down the opposite side after photos, we were now in yet again a different kind of vegetation. A further 3 k’s to Big Red, but then we hear a call on the UHF, “Is there anyone can hear us on the Simpson?” When there was no reply after the second plea, we answered and asked “what is the problem?”
“We’re stuck at about the 5th boggy hole from Birdsville and need a tow!” came the reply. So we turned around and headed back the way we came, about 15 k’s to a stranded Hyundai Terracan which had gone WAAAAY off track and sunk to it’s axles in mud. They also had no recovery gear on board! They were outside of the reach of one snatch-strap, but luckily, another 4by, this one a Range Rover came along right about then. He lent a strap, and Gayleen, who did our clubs Ladies Refresher DAP day in June, demonstrated how to properly join 2 straps together, sacrificing her new copy of New Idea along the way! (It got very wet here!) I appointed her winch boss, and she got everyone out of harms way and gave us the signals to start and Voila! One rescued (and relieved) Terracan family! We pressed on, the Rangie and the Terracan following, and soon we came to the base of Little Red. We paused at the bottom momentarily, and then drove straight to the top, stopping along the way to pick up a petrol jerry can that had fallen from a motorbike that was part of a group of riders attempting to make it to Poeppell Cnr today. We gave them their can, and then it was on to Big Red. Again, we paused at the bottom, and then drove straight up to the top. The view from here is spectacular, and the silence is awesome! Gayleen hopped out with the cameras and I drove back to the bottom. Our biker friends were here now and watching what we were doing, I lined it up, hit the bottom and drove hard, and stopped less than a car length from the top! Bugger!! I reversed back down, now there were more riders plus the Range Rover watching, so with a little more momentum, I drove back up to the top. We played around the top of the dune for a while, taking photo’s etc, and Nicholas jumped out and had some fun leaping over the edge of the sand, then rolling his way to the bottom. Mid afternoon now, so we made the decision to head back to town, we stopped at the other side of the 50 metre crossing, I let Gayleen out and then drove back, then back towards her again while she took photo’s and video. Further toward town, we came across an X-Trail, stuck to the axles in a bog. Again, he had tried to drive around the middle part, and again, he had no recovery gear on-board. His wife was alone in the car as he had started to walk back towards town for some help. I drove down the road, found him and gave him a lift back. We were lining the Patrol up when along comes a Land Rover Defender, the driver has an extra long recovery rope which will do the job nicely. And indeed it did! In no time the X-Trail was pointed back towards town and we were on our way back to the Caravan Park, happy hour and dinner!

We awoke Monday morning to a glorious sunrise, had breakfast and set up for our next part of the trip. We were leaving the trailer here at the caravan park for a few days while we went tenting in the desert. Leaving around midday, we headed south along the Birdsville Outside Track, stopping to take photos at the South Australian border. Some wag has put a XXXX sticker on the South Oz sign!! The Track is corrugated, but not too bad. Traveling at a modest pace, with lower tyre pressures, we continued on, admiring the scenery. Some would say it’s all the same, flat! And sandy! But somehow, we find it beautiful. Still heading south towards the Warburton Track, we started to look for a campsite about 4pm. Right where the Inside & the Outside Tracks meet is a beautiful area, perfect for camping. We set our 2 small dome tents up and started our fire. Gayleen took some beautiful sunset shots with the camera, and we enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine with our steak and vege, with sweet potato cooked in the coals of the Gidyea fire. Delicious!! Gayleen, Nicholas and I gazed at the stars, unspoiled by light pollution way out here, played Mandy’s “Cruise” game and chatted by the fire till bed time. We climbed into our tents for our first night truly camping alone. With our nearest neighbours Clifton Hills Station about 10k’s away, the first thing that struck me was the silence. It was deafening! Just as I was drifting to sleep, I heard a noise and woke with a start; listening intently for the source of the sound…… convinced it was some night creature come to check out our gear…. But it was actually Nicholas turning in his sleeping bag in the next tent. I slept fitfully, waking just before dawn to almost total silence. Quite eerie, since I am not used to that. We broke camp and, making sure we had left no rubbish behind, headed further south to the start of the Warburton Track, where we stopped to air down further. I had been running 26psi all round on the Track, but now in the sand and going much slower, I dropped the tyres to 18psi. This gave us much traction and a lot more comfort. The countryside is starkly beautiful and changes frequently, from sandy desertscape to wooded greenery, but always beautiful. Driving across the floodplain was not as challenging as we had expected after the recent rains, and as we joined the K1 Line, the track became sandy and hugged the corridor between dunes for most of the way. The dunes that we had to cross were a fine, pale white sand and quite soft. Along once such stretch behind the dunes, we unknowingly disturbed a herd of feral camels; they broke into a canter up and across the next dune then parallel to our truck for about 2 kilometres before disappearing over another dune. We kept up with them, albeit at a distance so as not to panic them too much and Gayleen took some great pics of these comical looking creatures. Pressing on, we made good miles to the Kuncherinna Junction, where the Rig Road meets with the K1 Line. It’s also the site of the Kuncherinna Well, which was spudded on the 30/12/1981 and plugged just 32 days later. We stopped here for lunch, and then continued north along the K1. We were still in the corridor between sandy dunes, with spinifex bushes dotting the ground. Squinting against the sun’s glare, I spied a dingo wandering across the track. We have only seen dingoes on Fraser Island previously, this one was not so sleek, and he looked to have a wound on his right rear flank, but otherwise looked in good condition. Certainly he didn’t appear too concerned at our presence, stopping to “pose” for Gayleen’s camera. Further on, as the afternoon sun beat down, the sand turned to red as we neared our destination, Poeppel Corner. We did the tourist thing, photo’s of each of us in a different state Qld, South Australia and the Northern Territory… we chatted with some motorcyclists who had crossed the desert on their bikes and then found a camp site for the night. Back on the K1, just north of the French Line intersection, we camped up behind some dunes and pitched our tents. We saw the afternoon Red Sand up close as the sun sank in the sky. Gayleen took more sunset pics, and we climbed the dune behind us to drink a glass of wine and marvel some more at the beauty of the desert. Nearest campers to us were a couple of hundred metres away, so again, once the night set in and the traffic along the K1 slowed, the silence grew deafening. We cooked right there on the fire tonight, chicken fillets wrapped in foil and laid across the Gidyea coals, sweet potato foiled and cooked in the coals and veges heated in their tins! A superb meal! We laughed at how we were now truly Bushies, cooking on an open fire and without the luxury of our trailer and its mod-cons. Afterwards, we again admired the night sky, not a cloud to be seen and no Moon either, so the Milky Way was visible in all its glory! The heat of the fire made us sleepy, so we turned in and slept soundly.
I woke just before dawn, what day was it? I simply didn’t know, and didn’t really care. Breakfast, then pack up time, a last minute check to see we had left no rubbish behind and then back into the truck. Lulled into a false sense of security from our two days desert travel so far, I made a blasé comment that we should head for the Apporadinna Attora Knolls for morning tea, then back to Poeppel Corner for lunch, and onto Birdsville in the afternoon, after all, it was only 40 kilometres! We set off across the French Line, and 2 hours later had traveled not quite halfway to the Knolls. This got me thinking about fuel consumption, and timing. I couldn’t see us getting back to Birdsville today if we kept on with this trek, and I wasn’t sure we had enough fuel. Staying out camping tonight wasn’t really going to be a problem, but we were expected back in Birdsville and didn’t want the possibility of people out searching for us for no reason. So we turned around and headed back, again marveling at the ever changing landscape. The French Line is a continual series of dunes, broken by the occasional salt pan or clay pan in between them. Some of the dunes are rather soft on the crest, and several caught me out, stopping our progress and requiring a reverse-back-and-start-again procedure. We didn’t stop for lunch, deciding instead to press on so as to make town before nightfall. From Poeppel Cnr, we joined the QAA line just inside the Northern Territory and started the long journey across. Again, the scenery changes, sometimes from one side of a dune to the other but we were amazed when, on two occasions, we noted a change in the vegetation and sand as though a line had been drawn! Incredible! We passed a few other travelers, both east and west bound, one lot were a chapter of the International Scout Club, and we were chatting with the trip leader, he was staring at our Patrol, in particular the stickers on the rear quarters, and eventually asked if we were from Brisbane. A few questions later we worked out they recognized our truck from the Mackay Corroboree in 2007! More sand dunes and salt lakes before reaching Big Red, again we drove straight to the top, to the cheers of those watching! We didn’t stop though, just kept going, reaching Birdsville just before sunset. We quickly set up the trailer, had a quick hot shower and headed for Pizza Night at the bakery for dinner. The Pizza’s were delicious, so much so that Nicholas and I had seconds! Superb!
As it happened, we did have plenty of fuel, and could have made the Knolls, but would have had to have camped out again which wouldn’t really have been a problem. It taught me not to underestimate the distances involved out here, what should have been a relaxing drive turned into an 8 ½ hour stretch! And we covered just 210 k’s in that time! So be careful when you look at distances on desert maps, 40 k’s in the city is NOT the same as 40 k’s in the desert!
Thursday morning, again a glorious sky greeted us. I was in pain though, yesterdays drive had left my back screaming in protest. I rested and did some stretches, rested and stretched, over and over. Lucky the day wasn’t too hot and I could relax in our trailer in relative comfort. Our tyre hadn’t arrived from Adelaide yet, but Dusty was due for a grease and oil, so we had delivered the Patrol to Birdsville Auto’s for a well deserved service. I walked up the road to the Information Centre to check/send some emails etc, and then returned to the trailer for more rest and stretches. Gayleen spent most of the day airing/drying/cleaning the tents we had used on our desert trip and cleaning bull dust from the camping gear. Nicholas spent the day reading. I had missed the Wednesday “Sked”, so made a point of joining in today so that VKS 737 knew we were ok. Friday was a similar day, except that today the tyre arrived and was duly fitted to our rim and bolted onto the spare rack. We “did” the Museum tour today, John Menzies, who operates the Museum, is a real character! It is a must-see in this quaint town. We also tried the Bakery’s Curried Camel pies, (splendid!) and drank at the public bar in the Birdsville Hotel, a room with a life of its own! There are hats hanging on the walls of past locals, an airplane made from XXXX cans hanging from the roof and posters, pics and puns adorn just about very surface. We spent the rest of the afternoon sight seeing, had dinner and settled in for the night. The caravan park is an ever changing neighbourhood, as travelers come and go, and tonight’s new neighbours were in a rented camper trailer but didn’t seem to be enjoying it much. We had a yarn with them for a while and tried to encourage them, and their spirits seemed better after that.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances at home, we had to abandon our plans to visit the other two “corners” and so the next morning set off on the long haul home. We had enjoyed our first trip to Birdsville immensely, and in particular, the Desert. What a magical place! We are already planning our next adventure out there and simply can’t wait! Along the way home, we camped again at Coopers Creek, Gayleen spotted a stand of dead trees along a back road on the way, and amongst them was a dead Gidyea tree, so we lopped a branch and threw it on the roof rack. That night, and the next at Mitchell, we sat by a Gidyea fire, just like we had in the Desert, again playing “Cruise”. At Mitchell, we shouted ourselves a spa at the Artesian Hot Springs again, but stopped at one of the hotels for a counter dinner on the way back to camp. The Hotel Richards served up the BEST pub fare I have eaten in a long, long time! Delicious sirloin steaks cooked to perfection with steaming vegetables and gravy! So if you’re in Mitchell and looking for a feed, I can recommend it!

Camp at Mitchell: Neil Turner Weir, 2 K’s north of town and follow signs. Hotel Richards for a good old fashioned counter meal!
Camp at Coopers Creek: 10 K’s east of Windorah on the Diamantina Development Rd
Birdsville Caravan Park, easy to find….. it’s the only caravan park there!
Dearest diesel was at Birdsville, $2:04/l at the Shell and $1:99/l at the Mobil.
“Must-See” things include the Museum, the Bakery and the Birdsville Hotel
Meals and drinks are a little more expensive in Birdsville, but considering winter is their tourist season and the freight involved in getting supplies out there, in my opinion it’s a small price to pay for their hospitality.

Many thanks to Ruth D (Qld) & Footloose, you both know why! ;-))

We’re already planning our next trip out there!

Member Brian (Gold Coast)

Tags: 4WD, Camping
Views: 480

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