Back from Alice yesterday. Last Tuesday seven of us hired two 100 series diesels and headed out for six days. We arrived in Alice at 1130 and it took us three hours to pick up the vehicles, buy provisions and head north out of town. The first destination was
Yuendumu so we camped out about 40 km short of there on Tuesday night.
Into Y early on Wednesday and spent a few very pleasant hours watching artists at work before heading south toward
Papunya and Haasts
Bluff. I love this track as it runs through open desert country with stands of desert oaks then winds through a pass at Mt Wedge before the run into
Papunya.
Papunya looks pretty sad as we pass through without stopping. The art centre at Haasts
Bluff is quiet as the artists are off at a meeting, but we acquire some excellent works.
Instead of retracing steps we head west out of the community and along a track which passes Mt Crawford and Blanche Tower. The track exists on the map more than in reality. This was an excellent adventure through remarkable terrain which we suspect hasn't been seen by anyone for many years. We emerged back into civilisation at Mt Liebig and headed west to
Kintore. We overnighted in the bush outside town and visited the art centre on Friday morning. Blown away by the brilliant work being done and the famous artists we got to meet.
Down the Sandy Blight
Junction Track on Friday. This track has everything: most of all isolation - until we nearly got cleaned up by the
Kintore coppers heading
home from Tjukurla. The Mu Hills,
Sir Frederick Range, Lens markers. We found a great camping spot about 20 km from the Grt Central Rd. A quick run into Uluru on Saturday morning, great
views of the Olgas from the dunes about 20 km out.
Heading along the Lasseter Hwy the other vehicle managed to lose its rooftop load of swags and tent. Very lucky to ask the right people at
Curtin Springs if they had seen anything and they had picked them up! We camped along the Luritja Rd on Saturday night (frost on swags) and did the Kings Canyon walk Sunday morning,
Mereenie Loop, Gosse
Bluff, Ormiston
Gorge and quick blast into Alice for a shower and a steak on Sunday night. Dropped vehicles back to hire place (sheepishly) on Monday morning. A bit of shopping in the mall and then fly out at 1.00 pm. From the plane I can make out the Colson Track which we drove a few years earlier. The
Simpson Desert seems to extend nearly to
Sydney.
Back at work today :-( but planning next trip.