So im sitting here in
Alice Springs after completing the
Hay river track via the
Birdsville track,
Warburton line, the K1 line and the beachcomber oil
well track. Ive learnt a few things along the way and I figure others may be interested in a bit of a run down of it all First off our group consisted of myself, Ness and our 2
young boys in our 2010 76 series land cruiser towing a "Getaround" camper trailer with Matt and louise in a 2010 hilux. The 76 has an EFS 3inch
suspension upgrade, 180 lt Long
ranger fuel tank and a set of drawers that I built for it after not wishing to sell my kidneys on the black market to be able to afford to purchase a set of commercially built ones. I also managed to borrow a roof rack for the trip. The trailer is bomb proof after now doing 2 Fraser island trips and 3 desert trips in 4 years. It has all the usual goodies as
well as room for 3 jerry cans and 140 lt of water. Im more than happy to give a plug for people or
places when I feel its deserved but I'll also tell you when it's not so good as
well. So here we go. We left from just North of
Melbourne on Sunday with a stop over in
Renmark at the golf club. Breakfast was in
Morgan at the
bakery and was
well worth the turn off the highway, we then copped the weather from a solid low pressure system till just about
Hawker. Monday night was spent in the refurbished shearers quarters ar
Beltana station just South of
Leigh creek. The owners Graeme and
Laura are lovely people that welcome you in and are always ready for a yarn, the roast lamb dinners are
well worth the $25 and there's always seconds if you can fit it in. It was then off to
Leigh Creek to fill the tanks, jerrys and pick up a few last minute supplies, the place shuts down on a Sunday so be aware. Fuel was $1.83 here, there's water at the servo but its
bore water. We stopped off at
Farina for lunch and a look around. There is a lot of restoration work going on here so its
well worth the look. The
camp ground has showers,
toilets, benches and even grass to
camp on in spots, not that we stayed. The oasis we were heading for was Clayton station. I'm torn between telling you how great it is and not wanting the place getting over crowded so I'll let you do your homework on that one.I'lll just say we spent 2 nights here. Got a chance to talk to Clayton of Clayton station and found out that he'd just finished grading the
warburton track and a large section of the
Rig road so that some trucks could get in and refurbish one of the bores. Feeling
well relaxed we headed onto Mungerannie for final fuel at $2.05lt and then onto the
warburton line. Compared to last year its in great nick but there's also a few more boggy sandy sections that's going to make dragging truck trailers interesting through there. We camped that night at the East end of the
Rig road and without a doubt you could drive a commodore over the first bit of the rig, its been cleaned up all the way back to the clay top base. If you ever wanted to do the Simpson this is your easiest shot at it now. It took about 3.5 hours to get to Poeppels corner (85kms) then about another 2 to get to Beachcomber oil
well number 1 .The Beachcomber track is in great condition with us cruising between 40 and 5km. There's a
camp at the old oil
well and one just before it near the start of the
Hay river track. The one at the oil
well can be a bit windy with the lower one a bit more protected.There's an even better
camp site a few kms back on the west side of the track. Dinner was roast beef and golden syrup dumplings with cream. Just because you're in the desert doesnt mean you have to starve! We dropped the pressures in the morning to 20psi all round and headed off on the
Hay river track. Whilst gathering all the information I could find pre trip I had read old reports stating the track was hard to find in spots and a bit of other out dated information. So here's a few facts current as of july 2014 1. The track is in pretty good condition all up. I had to drop the tyre pressure down a bit more for the last dune but so did the Hilux, you couldn't possible lose the track if you tried. 2 Get used to second gear for the next 2 days. Between dune crossings, dry creek crossings and the fact it's a track and not a road you'll be mostly sitting in second gear, but that's ok as it gives you a chance to take in the
views. 3 If you take it easy you can avoid most of the wattle branches growing over the track but remember I said most, you're still going to end up with a few pin stripes on your 4wd, but if you want to dance you have to pay the band. 4 With a trailer I would reccommend a South to North crossing. The dunes are less steep, more straight forward without as many bends, and is not as chopped up as the East side. Spoke to a family pulling a trailer at Beachcomber
well that had come from the south and from the way he spoke it sounded like he had a bit of an epic crossing the dunes. His wife made the comment that they stopped looking at the trailer getting airborne and just gunned it up the dunes. Not my style really. With just a 4wd do as you choose without much stress. 5 Go to
lake Caroline. It may be just another dry lake on the map but it's not. It's the only red dirt lake that I have ever seen and its
ROCK HARD unlike all the other dry lakes in the area, it's like red tarmac. 6 Lindsay is a top bloke in at Batton station. He may be illiterate but what he knows about the area could fill 100 books, he came over to the
camp fire and must have answered a million of our questions while lighting up about 10 smokes...as I said good bloke. 7 After a week in the desert those donkey showers are the best, the mens shower has better water pressure 8 Apparently you're meant to pay Jol for the permit before you go and Lindsay cash for the camping when you get to Batton
hill. 9 The trip out to
Goyders pillar is worth it but from everyone I spoke to the bush tucker trip is a bit sparse. It's just too dry and there's not much out there to eat. But you do get to see some good spots. 10 is the Simpson UHF channel but unfortunately not everyone is on it, was rather suprised to come around a corner and find a tour operator with 7 tag along clients just north of the blaze tree. I pulled over as it was obvious he wasn't going to, I then asked him if his radio was working and with a bit of a sneer he said he wasn't on our channel they were on their own. I wanted to remind him that 10 was everyones channel and he could scan another to use with his clients but what's the point, you can't change stupid. 11 Don't fret about making a certain
campsite, there are literally 100's of spots you can pull over and
camp with plenty of firewood. 12 Expect to use a bit of fuel, the 76 was averaging about 20lt per 100 kms and the hilux was doing about 15lt per 100kms. We camped just South of
Madigan camp 15 then headed north from their for another day of second gear. You need to reengage 4wd just before you come out of the riverbed as you start getting into some loose sand from here to the
camp site on the west side of the river on the
lake caroline track. We camped on the west side because some one told us its a good site, my mistake. Same person had already told me 2 other furphys that I had followed and been led astray. Camping on the East side looks much nicer in hindsight. We headed out to
lake Caroline and as previously stated its
well worth it. I woke up in the morning knowing that we would be at Batton
hill today and looking forward to a shower. The track for the day was sandy in spots but still pretty good with third and
forth gear getting a bit of a run. We were a bit dissapointed to find out the
plaque was gone that marked when you crossed into the
tropic of Capricorn but a game of Paddy melon cricket made us all feel better. We were starting to see animal life today as we got closer to the "
dingo well". The concept seems to be working
well. Batton
hill was a welcome sight and after sorting out some confusion with lindsay (he hadnt been told we would be earlier than planned) we settled in for a comfortable lazy afternoon. Ness joined in the tour to
Goyders pillar whilst I played dodge with all the flys. Our desert part was nearly over but first we had 1 more place to stay before getting to Alice. The drive out to Jervois felt strange as we sat on 80kmh for the first time in a few days. Jervois was where we aired up a bit and bought fuel at the price of "dont look just get enough to get us to Alice" price and continued on our way to Gemtree caravan park. Gemtree is a nice little place with staff that happily answer all our stupid questions about the local gems and how to find some. It turns out that unless you have the equipment and the right permits then its just as easy to join one of their tours where they supply you with what you need and the right place to find some Garnets or Zircons? Much to my 2 boys dismay you are not going to get rich finding Garnets and retire early, but find Garnets you will! Some are too small and some like the lovely older couple digging next to us manage to find a decent enough chunk to make a a pendant from, cut down a 7x 4 mm chunk. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer couple. Now when we first started hunting for Garnets I knew my wife had Garnet dust in her eyes already but I didn't realise how bad until later that afternoon when I had to physically drag her back to the car having heard "just one more shovel full then im coming" call from somewhere in the diggings. Hahah. They do the grading of your Garnets back at the caravan park and cut them for you at $45 a pop which is usually more than what the stone is worth but that doesnt matter, there something about making a ring for your wife or mum out of a stone that you found yourself that is worth more than money. It happened to be Territory day whilst we were in Gemtree which means fireworks and a bit of a party, it was guite civilised with the fireworks kicking off around 9.30 and everything quite by 10.30. One thing that needs a bit of work is the hot showers. I got about 2 minutes of hot water then about 30 seconds of warm water before it went cold, the bloke in the next cubicle only got about 30 seconds of warm water. The place needs a gas booster for their donkey unit or you need to time your shower when no one else is around. All in all Gemtree is guite a nice place and I would go back again, actually the wife might make me, now she likes the look of zircons haha NOTE. I took a break from writing this in Alice and now im
home. I hope you get something out of this and I will get around to posting the second half of our trip including the bit about poisonous catfish spines.