Hi all,
Here is a rather vague trip report for anyone who might be interested .( I apologise now for all the spelling mistakes and do not wish to be told about them. )
I left
Sydney on April 20 and met Willem at
Peterborough the next day- he gave me a great tour of those beautiful stone cottages of the town . We left the following day and travelled up the
Oodnadatta Track after picking up one more car and Willem's passenger . An uneventful trip to Alice , although one day was a long one , with 600 klm on the dirt .In Alice we met our last touring companions to bring us up to four cars - a good number for a trip like this . Three Exploroz Members and one Exploroz Lurker .
We left Alice and went out past Hermansberg on the
Mereenie Loop where we turned off West onto a side track clearly marked "Keep Out " etc - but Willem had obtained permission for our trip from the Land Council , so we were legit . Beautiful scenery on the trip west to the
Cleland Hills . Huge red escarpments and superb stands of desert oaks - it is hard to think of this as a desert as it is so green , but when you try to find water you understand why it is classified as such .
We reached the
Cleland Hills on the second day -
Mount Winter was the highest point on this huge red escarpment .We had some trouble finding a track into the Muranji
Waterhole where we intended to
camp .We went exploring and found many signs of aboriginal occupation - grinder grooves in the
sandstone of
the rock shelters and a bit of fairly basic
rock art . Also around the plains there were various bits of broken seed grinding plates etc .
The Muranji
rockhole is actually two rockholes - one is a large basin of water surrounded by
rock walls on three sides and issuing out into a creek bed . One of these walls has been carved out to make a large 12 metre long
rock shelter which has many grooves in the
sandstone , as though wooden spears had been sharpened there over thousands of years .
The other
rockhole is totally different and only a hundred metres away. To get to it you must climb up from the valley floor to a
rock ledge where you see a small
rock pool , then climb another ledge to see a larger rockpool and then look through a narrow cleft in the rocks to find yet another deeper rockpool . I thought this would have been a wonderful place for Ernest Giles to have found , but he was not so lucky . He finally found water to the North East at two spots which he named "Glen Edith" and the "Vale of Tempe".
There are a number of rockholes in the Clelands which we wanted to visit . One was Thomas Reservoir ( approx 18 klm WNW of Muranji ( - I think !) , the second was on
Gill Creek ( we found one of them , but not the main one ) and to the South West and there was "the dream waterhole" for which we searched for two days without success , destroying quite a few tyres on stakes in the process . In the end we used up so much time trying to find it , we left ourselves no time to get to Thomas Reservoir where there were some
rock engravings I wanted to photograph which were similar to those I had photographed in the
Carnarvon and Calvert Ranges and Mungkulu Hills .
We all had deadlines - Willem in the Simpson and I had to get to
Broome to meet my wife for a weeks R&R . So , after five days we reluctantly upped anchor and drove back to Alice .
After reprovisioning we set off up the Tanami for an uneventful trip tp
Broome . After a week there I met up with Godfrey and his wife Judy from
Perth . Godfrey is a long time LURKER on this site and we had met on a Murchison Safaris Pilbarra trip last year . Off we went up into the
Kimberley , optimistically thinking that the
Gibb River Rd might be open all the way "very soon ". That did not happen , but for me , on my first trip to the
Kimberley , it was no problem as all the gorges we went to ( Windjana , Bell , Adcock , Sir
John and the stunner on Mt Elizabeth Station ) had heaps of water pumping through them and most had big beautiful waterfalls .
The big let down for me in the
Kimberley was the virtual lockout of aboriginal art sites . One of my main reasons for going up there was to see the art , but I was discouraged by all and sundry from doing this . Since the aboriginals won a land rites claim of the
Kimberley , the art sites are being kept " secret ". Ask a Nat. Parks / Calm
ranger type person at Windjana or
Bell Gorge where you can see some art and they just look at you and say they " I know nussing "- absolute crap of course , but they have been told to deny knowledge of it .
Mount Elizabeth Station used to conduct tours of art sites by paid local aboriginals , but now have been told they cannot continue to do this . So the western Australian Tourist Bureau should be taken to the cleaners for showing aboriginal art in their promos .
We went to
Mornington Wilderness Camp after Mt Elizabeth , as the
Road was still closed through to
Drysdale River .This was a pleasant spot and had two nice gorges to
check out and nice showers etc and a great restaurant and bar .
I must say though , that there was less wildlife in their much touted sanctuary than there was at Mt Elizabeth Station ( where all the station
dogs have been trained not to chase the wallabies that wander around the place ) .
Then we set off for
Meekatharra to meet Alick Edwards and his partner Willi who run Murchison Safaris - for a
Gibson Desert tagalong . The plan for this was
Willuna , Gunbarrel to
Carnegie , then
Eagle Highway up to the Warri and Yatunga site . From here we would go west to the Mungkulu Hills , then North via Constance Headland and the Calvert Ranges ,
Durba Hills then North again .
At
Karrarinarri Claypan we left all wheel tracks behind us for the first 50 klm because we were going to look for some things Alick had seen on a previous trip into the Gibson. In the first few days there was some tough sandhills and many staked sidewall punctures . I think in three days we totalled fourteen punctures - all but one in the sidewalls . It was impossible to see some of the fire hardened grevillea stakes in the spinifex which still had the metre long seed stalks on it and we had regular puntures . To minimise this , Alick's car was used as a sacrificial lamb and we followed exactly in his wheel tracks - exactly as is possible for an IFS TD Landcruiser to put both wheels on the track of a Troopy , but that was the idea , and it certainly worked . Alick in the lead had most of the punctures , but with all of us helping , we had them repaired pretty quickly . For the first couple of days of the trip we headed roughly towards Mt Madley , then WNW towards the Mungkulu Range . It was beautiful , wild country with high parallel sand dunes always on two sides of us as we moved along the corridors between them .We avoided crossing as many dunes as possible , but often there was no other way . They were very soft and difficult to get over first go - not nice and compacted like they are on the CSR .
The Calvert Ranges are my favourite place on this earth and we stayed there for four nights . I had been itching to get back there since my first visit two years ago .The aboriginal art in the many gorges is sensational - both the 20,000 year old ( plus ) engravings and the more recent
aboriginal paintings and peckings .
While there , we met Ozexplorer Member Wayne who was in charge of a Great Divide Tours Tagalong Group doing the CSR .
The Martu ( a collective name for the aborinal tribes that used to live in the area ) have been successful on a land claim on the CSR and the surrounding areas and they are already starting to ask people to get permits and demanding money to go in there . Talking to a 4WD journo at Durba Springs I was told that their tagalong was not going to the Calverts because the Martu demanded $5000 from them as an entry fee . But the Martu are still disorganised and some tour groups and individuals had requested entry permission only to be told that it was "too much trouble this year " and they would get organised and do it in 2007 . SO GET TO THE CALVERTS WHILE YOU STILL CAN !
We stayed in Durba Springs for three nights and spent a lot of time admiring and photographing the art in Killagurra
Gorge . We all had lots of washing to do . One morning I put my pants on with a bull ant in them . It bit me right on the bum and I did not have time to see who was watching before I ripped off my duds to find the culprit . Not a pretty sight for the amused onlookers ! From Durba Springs it was North and then a hot foot back to
Sydney to avoid a pending divorce on the grounds of desertion .
In summary , I did 15,400 klm , ruined 5 tyres with staked sidewalls which were OK to use offroad , but not so hot for highway use ( but no tread punctures ) . I had no mechanical or electrical failures at all on the Landcruiser TD 100 . I was bogged in mud twice - once I was snatched out and the second time it took two shovels , my 9000 lb winch and a snatch block to get me out . I used narrower 6.5 inch wide rims which I ordered specially from Toyota Japan with Bridgestone V steel tyres . I carried 75 litres of water , 270 litres of diesel and enough food for three weeks , enough coke to have two cans a day and enough red wine to have half a bottle every night . I ran a 73 litre Autofridge as a fridge and a 60 litre Wayco as a freezer .
This is all a bit vague but it was an eight week trip and it would have taken pages to give you detail . I am sure I have made a few spelling errors and other mistakes , so I apologise again for that .
Nice to be back
home after seven weeks in a swag , but it was a great trip .
Willie .