Day 16 and 17 - Mini-Desert Trip 2011

We were up and ready to go a little after 8 am but Brett found the milk in his fridge had leaked so he needed to do a bit of a clean up first. Then it was off to Windorah to refuel. We really noticed the wind on this leg of the trip, it seemed to be coming from the north and most of the driving was north to north east. The fuel economy meter on the Paj was saying about 13.5 l/100km. After WIndorah we were heading south to south east towards Quilpie and the economy improved to around 11.5 for the Paj, Brett's V8 was also much better. It was a fairly boring drive to Quilpie with the only sights really being the occassional Emu and chicks crossing the the road. Then it was onto to Charleville in another boring drive and Brett didn't refuel as he thought he could make it to Roma OK, so we continued on.

 

However, just to be safe he refueled at Morven. It was getting late in the arvo and the roos had started coming out beside the road but they didn't give us any problems. We continued onto Roma where we arrived about 7 pm. Brett found a luxurious motel while I put the tent up, for the final time at one of the caravan parks, and after a long days drive the hot shower was wonderful. I headed to bed early so I could be up and ready to meet Brett for Brekky at Maccas at 8:30 am.

 

I was up relatively early and packed up quickly, then went and got some cash out after phoning the Bank's fraud people to temporarily unfreeze my card. I refueled the car and made it to Maccas on time. Brett had also been up early and visited the local car wash, his shiny clean Cruiser just didn't look right next to the dirty dusty Paj in the car park. We then hit the road for an easy but boring drive home, stopping in Toowomba for lunch and I got back to the coast about 3'ish in the afternoon. I unpacked the car, which took awhile and it finally sunk in that the trip was finished, although I was tempted to use the remainng firewood in the back yard to cook dinner. A nice long hot shower afterwards and then an early bed time in a very comfortable bed. The End.

Day 15 - Mini-Desert Trip 2011

The generators at the pub fired up pretty early (about 6:30 am) but as it was a bit chilly outside we stayed in our nice warm sleeping bags until the sun had come up a bit and warmed the place up. We were packed and ready to go about 8:30, so we headed down to the Pub for brekkie, which consisted of a coffee and a very nice bacon and egg roll. Then it was over the actual surveyors marker for Cameron Corner where we took a few photos before hitting the road north to Omicron and Episilon as the Bore Track was currently closed. When we hit the main road to Moomba and Innamincka we took the northern part of the Bore Track instead of the fairly boring main road. This was in pretty good condition until we passed the last working bore on the track and then it was obvious no track maintenance had been done in a while. It wasn't particularly hard to drive just slow.

 

Then it was into Innamincka for Brett to refuel and we headed back along the Adventure Way stopping in at Burke's Grave for a look and some photos. Then it was north again until we turned off to see the Dig Tree where provisions had been left for Burke. Finally we drove north again through Arrabury to Haddon Corner. It was getting a bit late so we decided to camp at the corner for the evening. There was a nice shelter shed there that had a collection of wildlife using it for home, a largish rat lived in a hole under the shed, some largish ants were crawling around the table and it looked some mud swallows had made their mud nests in the ceiling. We had our last fire for the trip, cooking up some of the steak left from Marla. We sat around the fire for awhile until it got cold and we went to bed.

Day 14 - Mini-Desert rip 2011

We got up early and packed up up before the sun had hit the awnings. We went for a drive around the 4WD loop in the national park and although the 4WD'ing is not very difficult the views were amazing. We drove into Arkaroola about mid-morning so that Brett could refuel, it looks like quite a civilised place to stay for a few days and explore the tracks in the area. Then it was a fairly boring drive to get to the Strzelecki track, coming out just to the north of Mt Hopeless.

 

We then had to endure an even more boring drive along the Strzelecki Track until the turn off to Merty Merty and Cameron Corner. This road went through a lot of sand dunes and as I was starting to feel almost sea sick from the up and down motion of going over the dunes, Brett called over the radio to say how much fun he was having as he crested each of the dunes. We ended up in Cameron Corner about 5'ish, where we refueled and camped at the Pub for the evening. The hot shower was well and truely worth the $3. We had dinner and a few drinks in the Pub before heading to bed with the sound of the diesel generators lulling us to sleep.

Day 13 - Mini-Desert Trip 2011

Woke up and had a leisurely pack up as it was quite warm overnight (8 deg C). Then we headed south through William Creek and onto Maree where we refueled and had a bite to eat. Then we headed further south to Leigh Creek where we refueled, Brett picked up a spare 20 l fuel container as we weren't sure where we would fuel up next. Then we back tracked a bit to Copely where we took the road to the Gammon Ranges National Park. The road was in good condition but very dusty and Brett had to drop back a few kms to dodge the dust stirred up by the Paj.

 

We found a nice camp site at Weetootla Gorge and as we were setting up camp we had a bit of a laugh at how Caravanners seem to need to crowd in around each other while we try and get as far away from other campers as possible. We got the camp fire going and produced probably the best meal of the trip, cooking steak and onions over the fire before slicing them up and adding some packet Thai green curry and canned tomatoes and heating up some rice. It then got quite cold very quickly, so it was early to bed as a couple of native mice were scurrying around the camp site.

Day 12 - Mini-Desert Trip 2011

Packed up and headed off relatively to Stuarts Well, where refueled the cars and us (they make a great bacon and egg sandwich). We left here about 10'ish and had a boring run down the highway to Marla, where we refueled. We also picked up some steak and other supplies before heading off on the Oodnadatta track. Got to Oodnadatta and Brett refueled and then headed south to find a camp site on the North River (about 30 kms away). We eventually found a great spot in the river bed under the old Ghan railway bridge. We set up camp and cooked the steak over the camp fire for an excellent meal.

Day 11 - Mini-Desert Trip 2011

We slept in a bit as it was pretty chilly overnight and some cloud cover kept the sun off us. Eventually we packed up and drove to the lookout for a pleasant walk and some photo taking. Then we continued the drive out of Palm Valley to Hermannsburg where Brett refuled and we had a bite to eat. Then we hit the road to Alice Springs before turning off to the Owen Springs reserve. This wasn't as secenic a drive as the previous couple of days but we stopped for some photos at the ruined homestead.

 

The road was pretty good and the small sections through the river bed were easy. We stopped early for the evening (about 3 pm) and set up camp at Red Bank Waterhole. I collected some fire wood and had a lazy afternoon catching up on some blog posts. We sat around the fire for awhile before heading to bed early.