Tuesday, Jun 25, 2013 at 08:26
Hi
The Ghan
Heritage Trail is a great 4wd trail, from Alice to
Rodinga Ruins the road is quite wide and will be corrugated after the recent Finke Desert race, although there has been a little rain in the centre recently too, so it may also have wheel ruts, just drive carefully. Make sure you visit Ewaninga
Rock Carvings on the way (
well signposted - allow at least 30 mins). The side trip to
Chambers Pillar is
well worth doing, the road to Maryvale is
well graded as this is quite an active community. From Maryvale to the Pillar the road deteriorates a bit (or a lot depending on recent weather), the jump up
hill approx 30k west of the Hugh River provides great veiws towards the Pillar to the south. After this the road narrows and becomes sandy with some small dunes, keep left. Viewing the Pillar at sunset is best, there is a small national park
camp ground at the Pillar. From here you need to retrace back to
Rodinga ruins to continue south. The road now changes dramatically, from a road to a track. There are two tracks in fact in many
places, the one beside the original railway alignment which is usually used in the Finke Desert Race, it is about one vehicle wide and very lumpy with a roler coaster like alignment. The other track is atop the railway alignment, and in previous years I have found this the easier going, yes there are many corrugations and many railway spikes, but I have never had an issue with them (manage your tyre pressures correctly). There have been a few washouts on the alignment over the years, these may still exist so always drive slowly. The track is a wondeful drive passing many old fettlers
ruins, beautiful desert oaks, red sand dunes and probably a few
wildflowers after the rain. Making a
bush camp along here should allow you to see or hear a few feral camels too. The Finke rive is sandy but should present no problems in high range 4wd with appropriate tyre pressure. I recommend your first night at the Pillar, a night camped along the track and then into either
Lambert Centre or continue onto Mt Dare for some real comfort. See my book Vic Widman's Classic Outback tracks availbale through the Exploroz store for a detailed description of this wonderful outback track.
Regards
Vic
AnswerID:
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