Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 21:39
Hi Richard
From every Simpson Track that we have covered, this have be the best Simpson Track to drive for many varied reasons. We first made the trip in 2005 when that track had seen less than 200 vehicles ever travel the track. Now the track sees hundred of visitors every year, so the word has spread.
Permits??
This will depend on which way you travel and will be as little as only one if heading from
Birdsville and then up the
Hay River Track. You will only need a Desert Parks Pass if coming in from Dalhousie. If you want to go to
Poeppel Corner first from
Birdsville, come into the Corner the back way and you will not be travelling in SA and will not need
the Desert Parks Pass.
GPS Navigation??
Like I have said above, the Track now sees many hundreds of travellers every year and the tracks are very
well defined. There may be only a couple of
places where waypoints will make your travel a little easier. From
Poeppel Corner you head due north up the K1 Line as far as Beachcomber No 1 Abandoned Oil
Well site. This section can have wash a ways in it, but again with careful driving in dry conditions will pose no problems what so ever.
From Beachcomber, you head in a north east direction towards the turn off to the
Hay River Proper. Again this old shot line is easy and
well defined. From the turn off there will again be defined tracks in the hard packed ground, but in the dune country, tracks can be blown over and the waypoints to the bottom of the actual
Hay River can be handy. Once you have reached the
Hay River, the track is very easy top follow and in dry times, you will not need four wheel drive.
There are many great things to stop at along the way, so do not rush the trip and you will have a great time. The track out to
Lake Caroline will follow the actual
Hay River bed for a short while, so again here a waypoint or two will keep you on track. While you are passing, the drive is
well worth it. Don't waste your time driving up the
Hay River after doing the trip out to
Lake Caroline. The sand is very soft and suck the power out of your vehicle. Before we got to Batton
Hill, one group had driven all the way from the
Lake Caroline Turn off to Batton
Hill up the
Hay River, and Lindsay was not very happy.
Batton
Hill.
When you arrive at Batton
Hill, Lindsay will know you are coming and will have the kettle on the stove for you. His
camp ground was immaculate and a credit to him and the donkey showers are great.
Bush Tucker Tour??
This is a very debatable topic. When we did it there was no bush tucker in season. Lindsay would tell you what was available in season and where it is. The cost is high to do this tour, $80 per person when we did it. For the bush tucker part of the trip it was a waste of money, but it was worth it for the extra country that you get to see.
Make sure that you do the
Goyders Pillar Sunset tour, this was
well worth it, even if it was not on Lindsay's land.
Have a great trip and here a some picture of what you can expect.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: equinox - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:00
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:00
Hi Stephen,
Great informative pictures...
Are there any rockholes in the Simpson? There can't be many, never hear of them.
Regards
Alan
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Val - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:15
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:15
Hi Alan,
When we were there in 06 and again in 07 the river and
Lake Caroline were dry although the river had been in flood in early 06. Lindsay showed us how to find water by digging on the upstream side of a gum tree in the riverbed. The river is a green corridor through the sandhills, so I would think that's were the water would be collected.
Spent some time in 07 as part of a big survey group camped out among the rocky areas around Mt Tietkens that you pass though on the bush tucker tour but no rockholes were found. Tried to get to Mt Barrington but thats another story - the blog is yet to come.
Cheers,
Val
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Follow Up By: equinox - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:29
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:29
Hi Val,
Lindsay sounds like an interesting fellow. I'd like to have skills like that.
It looks and sounds like nice "soothing" country. Look forward to your blog.
Cheers
Alan
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Follow Up By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:29
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:29
Hi Alan
Sorry but there are no
rock holes in the Simpson. There are however 18 recorded native wells. The little know South Australian Explorer. David Lindsay in February 1886 nearly made the first complete Simpson Crossing and visited 9 wells.
All wells were very dug at an angle through the sand to reach the water level. The easiest remains of a
well can be found at the former
well site of
Kilpatha. Disregarding Aboriginal history, Oil crews bulldozed the
well in the hope of obtaining a good reliable
water supply for they desert work, but the
well yielded very little
well and was destroyed. Mother nature has almost reclaimed the Aboriginal Burial sites, with the bone fragment now paper thin and broken down to pieces the size of a pea.
Those with an eye on Aboriginal culture can however find these sites, complete with grinding stones. I made the biggest mistake years ago of telling someone where this site was. When a friend visited the site a couple of years later, the grinding stones had been removed.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:37
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:37
Hi Val
Very few people will be aware of this, but all tracks in that area were put in by my good friend, who you would have met when you were out on the field work, Ken Williamson. One track that Ken was doing was a circuit out to Mt Knuckey and back in a very big loop to Batton
Hill.
The times that I have been speaking with Ken, I never asked it that track ever got off of the ground. I will have to ask his when we next speak.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: equinox - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:42
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 22:42
Thanks for that Stephen,
18 wells hey? I bet there's more than that haven't been found; I guess most will have been delivered to antiquity and will never be found.
That's very interesting about no rockholes, there's obviously a fair bit of
rock around however must not be suited to the formation of them. Would hate to get stuck out there without any water in the dry, I hate digging :)
Regards
Alan
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Follow Up By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 23:05
Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 at 23:05
Hi Alan
The Simpson in general is 100% sand and it is not to you get to the northern sections, like around Batton
Hill which is on the far northern perimeters of the Simpson that you find that
hill type country. The only true
hill in the Simpson with stone on it is Geosurvey
Hill, which is more like
limestone. We did find on our Geo trip one very small stone covered small mound. It looked just like a
gravel pit, with lots of crushed stone on a very stone Dune. What it was from and what caused it will remain a mystery, as it was in the complete remote section of
the desert.
There is a lot of Aboriginal history out there and on nearly every small clay pan away from the tourist travelled track, there is a lot of evidence of previous Aboriginal occupation. When we made
camp one night, just on dusk, a small flock of swallows were in the area. we searched for a
native well and could find nothing. Seeing we were in a very remote section of the Simpson, I reported the area to National Parks in the NT in the hope they would send a team out to hopefully find yet another
native soak.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Val - Friday, Jan 21, 2011 at 08:01
Friday, Jan 21, 2011 at 08:01
Hi Stephen,
Yes Ken was a part of that expedition and we spent one very memorable day with him trying (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to find a new track to Mt Barrington. He did tell us about putting in the tracks and explaining why they jink about, but he gave Lindsay the credit. Ken is a delightful fellow with amazing knowledge of that area.
Cheers,
Val
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Follow Up By: Dasher Des - Friday, Jan 21, 2011 at 16:38
Friday, Jan 21, 2011 at 16:38
G'day Stephen,
We're planning on doing the
Hay River Track as part of a trip in August Sept this year.
I'll catch up with you on the other part of the trip soon by email.
We are planning to come up from the botton and my question is, Do we need a full permit for an overnight stay in the Simpson as we are only passing through.Catch up soon
Alpaca
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