Fussell Family Simpson Adventure - Knolls track to Poepple corner

Some of the sand dunes have little hollows between them where water pools if it rains. They are usually dry but have lots of green shrubs growing there, and birds living in them. It's nice to camp behind them as you get shelter from the wind, privacy from the road, a dawn chorus as you wake up and a nice outlook.

We had a gentle start today. The kids wanted boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast followed by honey & lemon drinks. However as our supplies are getting low the drink was brown sugar and lime juice.

We were only just starting to get some flys by 10am. The middle of the desert has the least flies. We played a few games of snakes and ladders with the kids before setting off at 10:30.

We've been within radio contact of Tanya and Shane most of the way across the desert, but they are taking a different route today. So we said good bye to them.

There's also a convoy of 8 cars that are doing the same route as us. We're trying to stay one step ahead of them as they drive quite slowly. We think they are about 5 k behind us at the moment. Our tea breaks tend to be determined by them. We take a break if they are far enough behind us that they won't overtake us. Alternately if they are in front and we've caught up with them we have a tea break to put some space between us.

We're back on the yucky French Line now. It's very very bumpy, although not as bad as it was last week. The Finke Desert Race people came through a couple of weeks ago and ripped the track to shreds. It's actually a lot more pleasant than we were expecting.

There is so much traffic here on the road and the radio, it feels like George St, Sydney.

We stopped for lunch and had a short game of desert cricket. Using dead shrubs as wickets.

Then I got Katie to chop up the cheese, cucumber, smoked chicken etc for lunch. She's learning to cook at the moment.

As we were coming towards the end of lunch we heard some traffic near by on the radio, so we finished up quickly and hit the road just as the first car crested the dune behind us.

There is now a convoy of 7 that we met on Dalhousie springs behind us as well as the convoy of 8.

We're now camping about 5km north of Poepple corner. We're bush camping overlooking a dry salt lake. A couple of groups have gone on through hopefully they're trying to get to Birdsville tomorrow and will be a long way in front of us. We plan to spend another night in the desert.

Katie is really getting the hang of helping with the cooking. Tonight she frying up the veggies on the bbq.

Jacqui & Tony Fussell