We arrived home late Friday afternoon after a thoroughly enjoyable journey.
Our track was through Chowilla and Dangalli parks to
Yunta then up the Frome Downs road to
Arkaroola. We had a day there and went on
the Ridge Top Tour.
From
Arkaroola it was on to the
Birdsville Track to Mungeranie then the
Warburton Track to the
Rig Road. We followed the
Rig Road all the way over to Dalhousie and spent an enjoyable night at Mt Dare.
After refuelling etc at Mt Dare we returned across the Simpson following the French Line to the Colson Track, the Colson to the WAA. From the WAA we went up the Knolls Track back to the French Line and Poeppel's Corner. Then it was onto the QAA line to Big Red and into
Birdsville.
We had a celebratory meal at the
Birdsville Hotel and then next day headed for the
Cordillo Downs Road then onto the Arrabury Road down to
the Dig Tree and
Innamincka. From there we went out to Moomba for a look before heading through Merty Merty and on to
Cameron Corner. A huge dust storm blew up overnight there which made for an eerie morning with visibility very low.
A day was spent driving around Sturt NP and visiting
Tibooburra before we went via Mt Sturt to
Depot Glen and the road back West to the Border Fence. We followed the netting wild
dog fence South and then stayed as close to the border as possible all the way to
Silverton.
We called into
Broken Hill to meet friends and then travelled South along the Silver City Highway until the Scotia Sanctuary turn off. We then followed that road all the way back to
the junction where our trip had started near Chowilla
Nature Reserve.
The last night of the trip was spent in luxury at a motel in
Renmark then in the morning we visited the Old Customs House and the
Border Cliffs before following the Old Mail Road back to Merbein. From there we took the Meridian Road down through the Murray Sunset NP to the Nowingi Track and the highway home.
Altogether we did 5100kms. It was 680kms from Mungeranie to Mt Dare on the
Rig Road and took 91litres. The return trip to
Birdsville was 560kms and we used 104 litres. We were fortunate in not having any tyre or vehicle problems and the best thing was that "I drove up Big Red"!!!
Well, that wasn't the real best thing.
The desert was the best thing. We loved being out there and were totally amazed by its beauty. The wild flowers and trees, the small lizards and birds, the brilliant colours of the sand..it was just a pleasure all the way.
Thanks for the advice from so many on the
forum. We had a great time. We took lots of photos and hope to put a report with photos together as soon as I work out how to do it!!
Viv