laptop or note book

Stephen ,
I am intrigued - how do you know that you were the "First Ever White People" at that location ?
Willie .

Hi Willie,
In May of this year, I took a group of friends into the very remote Simpson Desert, under the name of Simpson Geo Expedition 2006. If you see topo maps or even good quailty maps like Hema, you will see the Details for Maginan's 1939 Expedition, where he crossed West / East through the Simpson. Today modern day traveller like to take his route accross the desert, to experience remote Simpson travel, yet still following a defined 2 wheel track. Another Important Simpson Landmark that sees an average of only 1 group per year is Geosurveys Hill, and further south east is the Geographical Centre of the Simpson Desert. Most poeple that are crazy enough to undertake such trips would know of these locations, and trust me it is no easy walk in the park out there.

I had been researching this trip for 2 years and part of my findings found a project called" World Dregree Confluence Project". Most poeple that do the Madigan line, head in a easterly direction from "The Twins" to the Colson track, then north up the Colson Track, before heading east for the next stage of the Madigan Line, and out to the Hay River. At this stage we were going to head south before heading east to Geosurveys Hill.

Seeing that we were going to be very close to one remote Simpson Confluence that had not been logged (S25º E136º) I decided that we would log this for the Degree Project. If you can see where I am coming from, we had to travel south/east from The Twins. just to get those magic figures on the GPS. It is purely 100% cross county out there with NO TRACKS to follow at all. Only someone crazy like me would think of such a trip, completely out of the way for the Remote Madigan Line Crossing. The area of the Simpson that we travelled to get to this confluence, had not seen any white people, purely for the fact that it is completely out of the way, and not ever the 1800's explorers were near we went.

You can read a full report of my trip at www.4wheelingoz.com
Download the 2006 winter issue and you will see my report. You can not cheat with the location shown on your GPS, and my pictures and trek logs show how remote we did travel into the very heart of the Remote Simpson Desert.

Hope this makes it a little clearer for you to understand.

Regards

Stephen

It's a bold claim Stephen. I wonder if Willem may ask you record his positions of the 1970s then, though he would not have had a GPS then to provide the reference that you have now. I would not be surprised where he got to way back then. He isn't around just at the moment to ask him!

Hi JohnR,
Firstly you are wrong with Willems North / South venture to locate the Geographical Centre of the Simpson Desert. It was in the Mid 1980's, not the 1970's. Secondly you have not looked at a map of where we ventured,and where Willem ventured, as you will see it is many hundred's of Kilometres to the West of where Willem ventured.

Stephen.

I may be wrong Stephen. I do know Willie hasn't documented all his trips online and he has a long 'must do' list of ones to enter. Have you asked him? I have heard a lot of stories that haven't made it there yet.

You are the one making the proximity claim mate.....

Steven and John ,

I did not mean to start an arguement here . I just wondered how this could be substantiated .

I often stand in a cave in some remote range way up some gorge thinking "Am I the first European to ever see this cave art ". It's a nice feeling to think / hope that I may be so.

Cheers ,

Willie .

Admit it is always a great thought, and in a place like the Simpson the proximity is all important. I certainly don't know that Stephen is wrong but it is criss crossed a lot these days and well away from tracks. Fun to get his claims verified. 120 years since whites crossed Australia but tens of thousands of years of indiginous exploration. Stephen could be very right Willie.

On another matter, have you got back into the market?

Willie and John,

I also like to research and travel the northern parts of the Simpson and I think there is a good chance that Stephen is correct. White man's travels have been fairly well documented, even though until recent times, a sextant was all that was available instead of a GPS. And I don't believe that any of the earlier adverturers had any interest in confluences (why would you?). Ted Colson in 1936 was well south; Madigan was further north in 1939. Then there was a break until the petroleum exploration went on in the early 60's. But there are no shotlines at the confluence where Stephen has visited. The Sprigg family in 1962 and even the Leyland Brothers in 1966 were well south of that confluence. Rumour has it that maybe the Leyland Brothers found the odd shotline to help them along! I'm just reading their book "Where Dead Men Lie" at the moment to see if I can sus this out myself.

The aborigines may have ventured to that spot, but thats not the claim.

I'll give Stephen the benefit of the doubt. And Willem's earlier adventures were on the other side of the desert.

Cheers
Phil

Hi All,
I have had a number of contacts with Willem (he only lives less than 100kms from me)
and the remote Simpson is a very great place. The trips that Willem have undertaken can be read on his own private web site. I have never taken anything away from him, as when he made his first venture, it was one hell of a trip any we must take our hats off to him. You will know that when he tried to be the first vehicle at the Geo Centre, he was about 6kms west of the actual site, and he has made trips to try and locate the marker that he put out there, and he his again going out there next year again and try to find his elusive marker. If you get out a map, you will find that the confluence that I visited is about 130kms approx north west of the line that Willem took.

Most poeple that do remote Simpson trips usually venture either from the Colson Track or from the South. Most people have a goal, and it usually is to locate old shot line etc. The confluence that we visited, was just one of those side trips on the way to Geosurveys Hill and the Geographical Centre.

I do say white person, as when we were in the remote Simpson, we found many sites the Aboriginals had visited and would have been used during good seasons in the desert. I could be wrong, but all modern exploration in the Simpson was all concentrated in the central areas. Even when Reg Sprigg made the first South / North venture in 1964, he was still about 100kms to the east.

My challenge now is for someone to go out there and make the trip and see how remote and hard the Simpson can be.

Stephen

John,
I sold more stuff when I got back from my trip at the end of June and I have been trying hard not too weaken and get back in . So far I have been strong ! All I have really now is BDL , CGX , OSH , AWE , ROC , WPL , MOS and FAR and off course , my dog DEG !
It will be an interesting year ahead . What about you ?
Willie .

Willie, been a buy and hold strategy for some years really, but have not bought any for a while. Did sell some SKE we should not have bought last year. Glad we didn't buy the extra ABS we had been offered at $7.60 we got into those pretty right that we hold.

Down a few on the *scopes though, one of those I bought after going to a trading seminar, bad choice! The other was the brokers suggestion. They are the only two we are down on. TOL is up again after we bought it on the phone the day before the takeover was announced last year. Bit of a roller coaster.

Hi Stephen
Came across your information, so thinking the area was familiar- checked out your S25deg E136deg location. In 1985 (summer) we had a large but discreet Army exercise in that area, and as a Comms Op with SAS, I was aware (most of the time) of our location. No GPSs- just maps, sextant & compass.. From memory, most of our trecking was SE of Camp 2, down and across to the Colson Track- meeting up with a detachment that had come almost due East of Camp 1.
If we didn't cross your area, we must have been very close to it.
Interesting country!!!!

Troop-a-dour
Seeing that you were in that area, it must have been very hard for you, as only you will know just how hot it would have been out there during summer. Were you on foot or vehicles? If on foot the rocky section down from camp 2 would have been very interesting. One would presume that you would have dug in during the day to save energy and used the night to your advantage.

Stephen

I think they are of interest to me Phil. I did find a Samsung Q1 that is between the two with a 7" screen and no keyboard Site Link sort of twice the size of the Playstation Portable. I reckon that mapping would be one of it's best uses. Interesting the test has not given it big marks but the users do. USB x 2, wireless, Bluetooth, all the functinality within one package but over US$1000 making it less attractive some ways.

Looking at it again tonight I think the car dash would be a good place for it........

John,
It looks like a very nice piece of gear. Hopefully the resolution would be enough for the Auslig maps. Decent size HDD too, but the processor looks to be on the slow side. Should be easy to mount. Interesting that it has the touch screen - mine needs the special pen.

Saw a couple of T400's on Ebay. I think people buy tablets to replace their laptops, then find they really miss a normal mouse and keyboard. But a lot of them are fragile - thats probably a major downside with mine, but I look after it. Also I find my 10.4 inch screen barely big enough when doing other stuff, like surfing the net, so I'd wonder how usable the 7 inch screen will be.

I thought there were a few things about the Samsung to interest too Phil. Yes the slow processor would be a pain but limited applications help that. Mapping does not take too much processor capacity, many are telling us 300 mhz is fast enough, but we have a 624 mhz PDA! The screen size, yes, I am in agreement with you there but some are using foldaway 7" screens which would have equivalent or lower res.

I like the idea of a tablet with a USB mouse actually though Des Lexic has sent me a pic of a pretty compact system that is out of an aircraft that would nearly fit in the glovebox ;-) 12volts too

I must say, I was very happy to see the mouse go. I find the tablet pen to be much better in the car. Using the on-screen keyboard is a bit clunky though, and if I were using it for word processing, I'd use the USB keyboard.

Tablet was mentioned in my first reply...

jeez, you getting uptight we are agreeing with you Bruce? Yeh you did mention it up higher but I think we can all see different items functioning for us. Nearly like a good foot throttle...........

i was replyin to the first post :P