I had not planned a trip away in 2007 but as winter set in and the days became colder my asthma took a turn for the worse and I decided that I should go and look for some warmer weather to the north. I had however, set the wheels in motion to organise a gathering of Internet 4x4 Friends (ExplorOz
Forum) at
Warraweena Conservation Park in the
Flinders Ranges, with the penultimate date as 7th July 2007(07/07/07) and so there was no escape until then. I had not been to
Darwin since the late 90’s and decided that I should go there for one last trip and invited my mate, George, from
Darwin, to fly south and then accompany me back to
Darwin, promising to take the long way around along bush tracks we may not have been on before. We did just that.
Birdsville Track
We managed to get away from
Warraweena by midday on 11 July and turned right on to the
Birdsville Track at
Marree in the late afternoon arriving at Claytons
Bore a short while before sunset, to set up
camp. This delightful place has modern conveniences, a hot bush shower and a hot spa, fed by very hot artesian waters from the great Central Australian aquifer. The owners of Clayton Station have built this Rest
Camp, for the travelling public and they maintain it asking only that travellers look after the facility and give a donation towards its upkeep. We soaked away the southern cold out of our system in the hot waters of the spa. The first 50km of the
Birdsville Track is being reconstructed to an all weather road by the
Marree Shire Council and was in good condition. ‘Track’ is rather a loose meaning these days, carried over from a bygone era. The ‘Track’ is more like a big, wide graded road and could be classed as an Outback Highway. We visited Clayton Wetlands in the morning, drove through the
Tirari Desert and stopped at Mulka
Ruins before topping up with diesel at Mungerannie Pub for our trek across the
Simpson Desert to
Alice Springs. We also had lunch there and a pet duck hassled us for titbits of our food. Later in the day, driving through Sturt Stony Desert along the BVT, we helped some other travellers change their shredded tyre for a new one by supplying my trolley jack for the job at hand.
Warburton Crossing
This crossing lies 8km off the
Birdsville Track and 113km north from Mungerannie. It is a flood-out for Goyder Lagoon into the Eyre Basin and Lake Eyre and waters moving south along the Diamantina River. It had been closed for a while early in the winter season due to flooding but had reopened a few weeks prior to our arrival. There was only a small puddle of water in the creek and we pushed on to the outskirts of the desert. The
Warburton Track winds its way over the pastoral lease of Clifton Hills Station through some very flat and uninteresting country covered by spindly scrub. When small dunes start to appear the track also follows the fringe of numerous clay capped dry lakes. The Playa Lakes hold small amounts of water after rains and can be treacherous to drive on. Trees which have died a long time ago, are scattered along these lake fringes. We made
camp to the leeward side of a dune with plenty of firewood around. A stiff breeze however, persisted until late in the evening.
K1 Line
Where the
Warburton Track and
Rig Road meet, the K1 Line extends north-northwest to join up with the QAA line near
Poeppel Corner. To the west along the
Rig Road the traveller is met with a steep
sand dune with an early season sand crest. This dune is the first challenge of the
Rig Road and is more difficult to cross coming from the west. The K1 Line Track pretty much keeps to a straight line in a dune corridor. It is washed out in
places but presented no problems other than being bumpy and corrugated in
places and it was not necessary to use 4x4 mode until we had reached the turnoff point to
Poeppel Corner. A sleepy
Dingo in prime condition posed for photos along the way while Wedge-tail Eagles soared above looking for a feed.
Poeppel Corner
There were a number of visitors to the corner on the day we were there. Having been there before on a number of occasions we walked around having a look at the visitor impact on the place had some lunch and then went for a drive to the north for about 20km up as far as an old abandoned
airstrip, returning via the
western boundary of
Lake Poeppel.
French Line
I think that 2007 is the last time that I will drive this track. It is now badly chopped up especially on the western slope of the dunes. The eastern slope is steep in
places with very soft sand and I dropped the tyre pressures from 20psi on the Nissan and 15psi on the trailer to 12psi and 8psi eventually. These days I run MRF Super Traction 12ply rating, tubed tyres on split rims, and their aggressive tread pattern makes soft sand driving a little bit more difficult as they tend to dig in to the sand. This is especially noticeable with a trailer in tow. They are, however, of benefit when bogged in sand as they do claw their way out of trouble. One dune stopped us on the French Line and after reversing down the dune three times an alternative route had to be found. I am still amazed at travellers who try to drive these sandy tracks with the highest air pressure possible in the
vehicles tyres after asking various people what pressures they were running. This phenomenon, in my view, is the main contributor to track damage resulting in a scalloped out track on the western slopes of the dunes. We met with a group of people driving a 1969 Toyota Corolla car and a small Datsun Ute across the French Line. They were being snatched, by accompanying four-wheel drives, when they could not make it over the dunes. One driver was a
young girl on her L Plates. A good place to learn how to drive! I turned off the French Line to drive up to Lake Mirranponga Pongunna to recall a near bog on this lake in 1987 when we did a North-South crossing of the desert in two Suzuki’s. I had found the surface of the lake hard then, and was only cutting across small section of the
salt lake when we broke the salt crust and sank into the black ooze below, very quickly, I might add! Some hurried range and gear changes saw us get out of trouble while red lining the tacho to achieve this. No one wants to get bogged on a
salt lake. This day we camped
well off the track in a
clearing and the Gidgee wood burnt
well to
cook our tucker and keep us warm before turning in for the night. George had the Oztent
Ranger RV tent all to himself for the trip, while I slept soundly inside the Nissan where I had constructed a multi fold–up bed large enough to carry and fit my frame on to. I rang
home on my Sat phone to give a travel report and to catch up on local happenings. The next morning I found that some oil had escaped from the steering damper. It was still working
well but the time was approaching to replace it.
Erabena Track
I had been to Erabena Oil
Well to the north on a previous occasion but I had not driven it before heading south. So now was the time to include this track to my list. It was uneventful. We met up with some other travellers from Geelong whom we had met the day before. They were doing a similar run, driving all the tracks they had not been on before.
WAA Line
I had pumped the tyres up again to drive the Erabena Track but soon had to drop the pressures to the previous days levels. Again one massive dune stopped us and I had to go and look for an alternative route. The WAA Line got better as we drove further west. There were patches of light green growth in the dune corridors and desert daisies showing a field of yellow. At Lynnie
Junction the Geelong Group drove on to the WAA in front of us and we let them go on ahead dropping back slightly so to avoid the dust.
A desert apparition
A short while later we crested a dune and saw a brand new Nissan, spotlessly clean and not carrying a dune flag, on a claypan, waiting for us to pass. We spoke with the solo male driver who was immaculately dressed in denim clothes. He stated that he had no UHF or
HF radio or Sat phone, for that matter, and was out for a desert drive. I asked if he had spoken with the mob ahead of us. He said he had seen no one all day. I asked again and he stated emphatically that he had seen no one. We left it at that, said goodbye, and drove on. The following day I spoke with the Geelong Mob at Purnie
Bore and they said that they had not seen this fella at all. Strange…. very strange, indeed!
Purnie
Bore Track, Dalhousie and Mt Dare
I was amazed at the growth of the reeds at Purnie
Bore. It must be some sort of infestation, as I cannot recall it ever being so before. The tracks were ordinary getting to Dalhousie and Mt dare with stretches of bad bulldust leading up to
Dalhousie Springs. Along the way we saw a couple of Para-gliders attempting a desert crossing with a host of support vehicles, some towing garden
trailers. I wonder if they all made it across without getting into strife.
Andado Track, Old
Andado, Mac Clark Reserve
We camped a night near McDills Yard on the South Australia Northern Territory Border. Through cattle country the tracks were pretty churned up with bulldust patches. Parts of the track were quite overgrown through some of the light Mulga scrub. The track eventually firmed up. Molly Clarke’s Old
Andado Station is now a
Heritage Site. It is open to the public with no visible caretaker in sight. It is amazing that nothing has been pilfered so far. At Mac Clarke Reserve we had a look around and then needed to find our way out of it to take the Explorer Territory Track to the start of the
Madigan Line. The access track actually skirts right around the Reserve
East
Bore and
the Twins.
Arriving at East
Bore gate, we were greeted by a sign ‘Explorer Territory’. I knew that the owners of
Andado Station didn’t mind travellers accessing the
Madigan Line from their property as the late Ian Stabler of Mt Dare, had been doing a lot of work in that area, mapping tracks and working with the station owners. For one minute I thought that that it must be a through road and that there was actually access to the Colson Track from that point via
The Twins. Not so, we were to find out. We drove for another 20km and then we left the cattle country behind. It was a sandy track and I had to stay in 4wd mode as the truck lagged a bit. Just before
The Twins we spotted an old Case Tractor, which had been left there some years before and wondered about its history. We climbed
The Twins and took photos of the plaques placed there, commemorating Dr. Cecil Madigan’s adventure. Then we pushed on further north to see if we could pick up tracks of an acquaintance that had been in the area. We soon found the Hummer’s wide track but they seemed to be all over the place. The drivers had wanted to access the Allitra Tableland going north from
The Twins. I found the sand very soft and cresting a steep dune remarked that we would have fun if we were to turn back at all. A short while later I bogged the Nissan to its diffs with the trailer in a jack-knifed position. Ten pounds pressure in the tyres saw me crawl my way out of the predicament like a traxcavator. I could see that in this very soft sand country we were not going to have enough fuel to reach our objective, which was
Geosurveys Hill via
Camp 8 on the Madigan, and decided to turn back. Now we had a couple of dunes to cross before we could get back to
The Twins. I could only get up three quarters of the very steep dune and had to drive almost 5km before I could find a place to cross over. The same went for the two more dunes. We made
camp on an open pan below
The Twins. A friendly
dingo came to watch us no more than 5 metres from the campfire and trotted away into the darkness before we could take a photo.
The following morning the
dingo brought his family along and they hung about for an hour before deciding we weren’t going to give them anything. The dingos are getting too familiar hence their Latin name, Canis familiaris and not many people go out into that region for them to become tame. Just cheeky, I think!
Old
Andado Road to Alice
Decidedly the worst road I have been on for a while. The countryside is quite scenic through the
Rodinga Ranges and Train Hills but the road hasn’t been graded for a while and with increased tourist traffic there were some humungous bulldust holes. I tried to avoid most of them but caught the side of one and the trailer dragged the Nissan in to a hole about 1.2metres deep. We were not going very fast but suddenly all light was obliterated and we were in total darkness for a few seconds and then daylight appeared slowly again as the dust ran like rain from the windscreen. The road beyond Santa Theresa Community wasn’t in good repair either with rounded shoulders and endless corrugations.
Alice Springs
We spent a leisurely 5 days in Alice, catching up with friends, doing some repairs to the Nissan and changing the oil, oil filters, fuel filter and air filter, and stocking up for the next leg of the journey. While we were there, our host obtained permission from the owner of
The Gardens Station to visit
Jennings Gorge, which lies on the eastern perimeter of Mordor Pound. We tried to drive up
Bitter Springs Creek to get to
the gorge but I opted for another track as the creek escapade was getting too rough and I had already put a small dent under the left hand front mudguard. Further on we turned off the Arltunga Road and followed another track, which led to a
gate. Our journey took us through some hills to a
bore and then a later the track into
Jennings Gorge. We met the station owner’s daughter and her friend, both riding quad bikes, on that track, and had a chat. The track was quite rough and steep, with broken
rock everywhere and took us across a saddle into the Mordor Pound below, from where we accessed
Jennings Gorge. We walked to
the gorge, after a spot of lunch, when we had driven as far as we could go.
Jennings Gorges are a series of narrow gorges and quite spectacular. One can clamber to the bottom of the gorges by using a scree of fallen
rock but it is definitely only for the
young and fit people to do. On our journey out we followed the track along and around the Georgina Range until we got to a station track heading south. Looked out for some old mining activities along some disused tracks. Along the way there was a natural spring as a stock watering point. The spring had been fenced off and it would seem that it is perennial. The whole area is very scenic. After exiting Mordor Pound we found some recently graded station tracks until we came to an illegally
locked gate. So it was down to the creek where we put the fence down and up again and made our way back to the
Ross River Road where I pumped the tyres back up and drove to
Alice Springs.
East MacDonnell Ranges and
Cattlewater Pass
We did the touristy bit on the way out to Arltunga and beyond as George had not been in this are before and visited
Corroboree Rock,
Trephina Gorge, The Big Gum and Arltunga Reserve.
Cattlewater Pass is an Explorer Territory track as
well and connects to the
Plenty Highway from the Arltunga Road. It was rough in
places with frequent washouts and it hasn’t been maintained for some time. Along the way we went
fossicking in the hills for garnets and found a few low quality stones. At the
Plenty Highway we met some ExplorOz Website Members and had a chat.
Plenty and Sandover Highways
The Plenty Hwy was in good repair and soon we were on strip bitumen heading towards the Stuart Hwy. I topped up with some fuel at Gemtree at an exorbitant price and we also bought some cold drinks and a few nice gemstones. Once we were on the Sandover Highway the road surface deteriorated markedly and it was difficult to maintain a speed over 80kmh. The rounded shoulders of the road had rivulets washed out from previous rains and it seemed as if the road had not been graded for years. There were also hundreds of small dips in the road which one had to slow down for. It was a long corrugated 243km to Ammaroo, where we turned off on to the Murray Downs Station track.
Davenport Ranges and Frew
River Track
The
grader had just been over some of the tracks and we chatted to the driver over the radio when we met up with him on the Murray Downs Road. The Davenport Ranges tracks are now in a much better condition than when we last visited here in 1996. Had a good look again around the Hatches Creek Wolfram
Mine and then pushed on to
Old Police Station Waterhole. Along the way we met up with another traveller who advised that Parks and Wildlife were conducting cool burns and that the Frew
River Track was closed. This track, which is not suitable to tow
trailers over as stated on the sign at the
gate, takes around 2 hours to drive the 17km of its length. We didn’t see a
Road Closed sign on the
gate so proceeded to drive the track. About halfway along the track we met the Rangers who were burning the Spinifex in the centre of the track to create a firebreak. The fella asked if we had seen the sign and after saying No, asked where the sign was. On the Stuart Hwy, he said. Ah but we didn’t come in that way! OK No worries and we were let through to drive over the small flames.
Old Police Station Waterhole is a lovely spot but this time around there were a number of travellers and a whole contingent of Parks and Wildlife people including a helicopter buzzing back and
forth to disturb the peace. We had a good
camp there all the same. The following day we pushed on to Epenarra Station and the
Barkly Highway only to find that the station has closed the connecting track to the highway. When I asked as to the reason the station manageress got hot under the collar and started an unnecessary tirade about this and that and then apologised when I calmly agreed with her. So we took the long way around via
Tennant Creek to the Barkly Hwy.
Rockhampton Downs/ Brunette Downs Track
This road was marked on our Hema Road Atlas and we drove the first part along a
well-maintained road to
Rockhampton Downs but there the road ended. I drove into the station and a very nice
young fella drew a mud map for me on the rest of the track to Brunette Downs. Without the mud map we could easily have lost ourselves out there. The Barkly Tableland is in
places, a bigger treeless plain than the Nullarbor. Covered in
Mitchell Grass, which is good feed for cattle, the early
explorers from Queensland settled here to build up their herds. At one place we could see thousands of Brahman cattle on the plains. We met the Tableland Highway just on dusk and soon found a roadside
camp with some wood about. There was some early traffic but nothing passed through the night and all we could hear was cattle lowing in the distance.
Tablelands Highway
George was bemused at my antics on the
Tablelands Highway beef road. Being a single lane bitumen road I tend to want to get out of the way of oncoming traffic so as to save getting my windscreen cracked by rocks thrown up by either a Road Train, or a careless traveller. So I get right out of their way to the side of the road and give them the bitumen. It works most of the time except that some people, especially those towing caravans, are so conditioned, that they go off the bitumen anyway. We refuelled at the
Heartbreak Hotel Cape Crawford, after nearly running the tank dry and set off again to drive the
Savannah Way to
Roper BarSavannah Way
This road is in reasonable condition with a few bulldust patches and some corrugations. There are quite a few wet creek crossings. I was amazed to see so many people towing conventional caravans along these outback roads. We made it to
Lorella Springs Campground by early afternoon.
Lorella SpringsLorella Springs Station is 1 million acres in size and it is a working cattle property. The place has an interesting history, which can be accessed via the Internet. The station has branched out into tourism as
well and has a
well-maintained
campground with modern conveniences. A
thermal pool at the
campground, bar facilities, and
Satellite TV all add to the presentation of the site. There are a number of drives around the station to points of interest, and after a late breakfast, we drove out to
Sliding Rock, Muster
Cave, Bill’s
Camp and
Eagles Nest. Saw some good country and also some orchids growing high up in a tree. There were small Freshwater Crocodiles in Rosie River.
Lorella Springs also caters for the fishing enthusiasts and there is an 80km track to a special Fishing
Camp near the mouth of Rosie River on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The station offers a look into the wild serenity of the tropical woodland savannah country and a chance to discover new knowledge of an otherwise untamed landscape.
Southern Lost City and Limmen National Park
I had heard of the ‘
Lost City’ way back in the 1980’s but never got the chance to visit. Now I had the chance to see some of it as the NT Government has set about to create the new Limmen National Park. It is named after the Limmen, a Dutch vessel under command of Abel Janzoon Tasman, who in 1643, looked at the coastline of the Gulf of Carpentaria. At this stage visitor facilities are few. There are two lost cities within the park. The
Southern Lost City, is the more accessible of the two, is 35km south of the
Nathan River Ranger Station. It's a three-kilometre track in from the main road with a two-kilometre easy walking trail among
the rock formations. We opted for walking only part of the way, as the sun would have been at the wrong angle for the rest of the viewing.
One can wander amongst almost identical
rock towers on a one-hour walk. It took 1.4 billion years in the making and these rocks are some of the oldest in the world. They consist of 95 per cent silica and are held together by an outer crust made mainly of iron, giving them a unique reddish colour. Access to the
Western Lost City formations is by 4WD vehicle only
You will need a key from the
Ranger Station to unlock the
gate at the start of the 28km track. It begins just north-west of the
Nathan River Ranger Station and ends at a 300-metre walk and short climb to
views over the O'Keefe Valley. Call and organise the key prior to your visit, as the
Ranger Station is not always attended. Travelling on to the north you cross the Cox, the Towns and Limmen Bight Rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria to the east and there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy fishing. Boat ramps and basic campgrounds are provided at the
Towns River. You may
camp at Butterfly Springs, a beautiful swimming hole surrounded by paperbacks, fern-leaved grevillea ablaze and
Kurrajong flowers during the dry season that attract hundreds of birds to the oasis. It's also
home to thousands of common crow butterflies that cover the
sandstone wall to the right of
the pool and arise as one when you approach.
Butterfly Springs is the only place in the park considered safe for swimming, although not suitable towards the end of the dry season as
the pool could become stagnant. At Butterfly Springs I bumped into another ExplorOz
Forum Member whom I chat with via the Internet occasionally. Another good
camping area is the
Lomarieum lagoon beside old
St Vidgeon ruins. It is a short distance from the
Roper River and the large water lily covered lagoon is a haven for bird life. It is an ideal place to
camp if you have time on your side. There are no facilities though and do not attempt to swim in
the lagoon. Further along the
Roper River we came a across what looked like a tent city with vans, RV’s and boats all huddled around a popular
boat ramp. I sped past not wanting to be anywhere near such a throng of people. We camped at an idyllic spot under the trees at Rocky Bar on the Old Hodgson
River crossing about 5km upstream from Queensland Crossing on the river. I could hardly recognise Queensland Crossing with the new
bridge being built in the time that I had been absent from these parts. At Rocky Bar there are many ancient petroglyphs pecked into the rocks. A bumpy bush track leads top this
campsite.
Roper Hwy
It is a short distance to Roper
Bar Crossing on the
Roper River and then from there to the west another 35km of gravel road before reaching the strip bitumen Roper Highway and as further 140km to the Stuart Highway.
Stuart Highway
Once on the bitumen we passed by
Mataranka and
Katherine, visited some old friends at
Pine Creek, took the old mining road to Grove
Hill Pub where we had a drink with the owner, and eventually arrived in
Darwin in the late afternoon. I was amazed at all the traffic between
Katherine and
Darwin and stunned that there were now traffic lights 35km out of
Darwin. The price of progress, I guess.
We had driven 5000km and bush camped every night for close on three weeks.
Cheers