Birdsville track Moods.

Submitted: Sunday, Sep 04, 2016 at 09:36
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Looks like yesterdays race meeting was called off , but all the eleven races will now be run today (sunday), to the joy of around 4000 who managed to get in, which is a lot less than usual.

10 days ago we drove up , turned around and next day drove down the Birdsville track , and Wow , doesn't it change in both short term and long term.

Yesterday friends had to give up trying to get to the races as all roads in were closed.
Indeed they had trouble just getting to Windorah on good roads.

When we were there we were surprized at how many were inplace or setting up their camps, 2 weeks out from the event.
They must have known something !

The caravan park was near full with workers and the lower tents sites were unavailable with workers marrkng out the wall to wall tent spots.

On the drive back down the Birdsville track I suddenly realized somthing I had never seen before.

On the entire 1000km of dirt we never saw a single corrugation , not even one.
I sort of used to enjoy the bone jarring sections of pure evil corro's, made you think you'd achieved something when you finally got there.

There were sections of gibber rocks but even these were much smaller than normal.

I don't think we came across a single "Killer Rock".

The road was so good its lost a lot of mystery, which wasn't helped by the increasing number of "No Camping" signs.

We only travelled at 80-90kmh but still I don't think there were more than a dozen grids/dips that couldn't be driven safetly at those speeds.

Indeed the only time we had any fun was when we were directed by roads workers to sit in behind 4 huge machines that were abreast across
the road , ripping it up an making drainage ditches all in one pass.

The huge ripper grader was leaving a berm more than a meter high and every now and then boulders it was shifting would roll down into out path
, making some quick manouvers necessary.

On the camping there were only 2 free camping sites I could see (Coopers creek and the less than inviting Tippipila).
There were 3 or so $10 stops and of course you could pull up in many others places.

Even hot bore water access points have almost gone , quite different from 20 years ago when some on our trip jumped into the smelly waters for a hot shower.
(Technically speaking you could still have a SPA at Claytons)

Lets hope the roads dry out soon and those leaving have a half reasonable drive out of town !


Robin Miller

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Reply By: Member - ACD 1 - Sunday, Sep 04, 2016 at 10:14

Sunday, Sep 04, 2016 at 10:14
Robin

I don't think you will have enough gas for that little heater to dry out all the the roads though LOL.

Hope you still had an enjoyable trip though.

Cheers

Anthony
AnswerID: 604090

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