31. May – 3. June

We couldn’t leave this area without doing part of the Strzelecki track so we turned right at Lyndhurst and kept going. I wonder why the Strzelecki track is declared 4WD only – it was quite wide, nice and even gravel road with several sealed sections in between... I guess this is due to the gas fields probably 350km on the track and maybe the track changes after that. We camped halfway at an area within the dunes which we used as shelter against the wind. There was another couple camping so we had a campfire going until midnight or so. During the night we could hear several dingoes howling close by and far away. Some of them most have been pretty close, but we couldn’t spot their tracks around the tent in the morning.

The next day we left the Strzelecki track and drove into the Gammon Ranges National Park and camped in Arkaroola where we met our friends from the Birdsville track. At one time we saw three Grand Vitaras which were going bush... We camped close to the creek and had a fire going each night. You can do several bush walks and drives at Arkaroola . We decided to have a look at the Paralana Hot Springs which are just 30km away. But the way was quite hard to drive – narrow and rocky. Most times you couldn’t drive faster than 25km/h and you had to use low gear. But it was worth the hassle although you can only stay around 15min in the area. I think some radioactive material heats the water and it might accumulate in the air (definite no camping)… A sign near the spring says that helium and radon gases evaporate here…  All trees and bushes must love this special water – they were green and  quite tall. The spring itself was hard to spot as it was underneath a rock but you could see bubbles coming to the surface all  around the rock. Sometimes they were really small and one at a time and at other times they were surfacing within the second. Driving to the springs is 4WD. Some parts of the track are pretty rocky and Anja had to move a few rocks to make it easier to get through. Great, even corrugations found their way to Arkaroola! Some of them really bad and it was a bumpy ride in a few spots. Other parts of the 4WD tracks had quite a bit of erosion damage and you had do drive carefully in low gear around and over them. – Oh, corrugations… getting to Arkaroola was bad too. The last 10-20km of the road were so bad that we had to slow down to 20km/h. Corrugations deep as mountain valleys… - Okay,  not so deep but at least very, very deep! If you don’t believe come here and check it for yourself! :-) 

We did the Ridge Top Walk enjoying the views. The walk is 5km one-way but you could use a shuttle service to get to the start of the track. You had to walk up the ridge and then it was easier as you were walking on top of the mountain which was at the peak around 600m above 0. It was amazing how many flowers we saw – red, yellow, purple... including the national flower of South Australia. You can enjoy the views to both sides of the mountain  and they definite look different – to the south it’s more rocks and to the north are more trees and bushes visible. We had luck with the weather – it was sunny but not too hot so we could see long distances...

 

Enjoy, Tom and Anja

PS: The pictures below are from our ridge top walk and yes they look fantastic. But you should have a look at the uncompressed photos for the web. They will take your breath away…

 

PS: Some more photos from the driving track…

24. – 30. May

Time to move on, we left into the direction of Innamincka. Or goal was to get to the Strzelecki Track, which would get us back to Leigh Creek. – Oh, I think so far we really didn’t mention that it’s winter down here. You might think that there is now need to note it here, everyone knows even the winters in Australia are warm… Wrong, they are bloody cold in some parts of the country. Especially in the region we are travelling! The temperature can drop down to zero degrees or below. Know you will finally understand why we were so keen to have stops close to hot bores/spas. :-) … And you can get a fair bit of rain here. During the night from the 23th to 24th it rained a bit. Maybe a bit more than we thought…

At first it was easy travelling on the road to Innaminck  but it changed after 140km when a really soft, muddy section started. It took us nearly 3h to cross the following 10km – only mud which blocked the tyres within seconds. The mud got so thick under the car and around the wheels that it started to block the steering. – Every mud is different and this one was a nasty one. Consisting of clay and tiny to small rocks mixed with sand. Sticks to everything and anybody. A pain to remove from the care when it’s still wet but a nightmare when it’s try! It get’s as hard as stone! But if you put a bit water on it and it gets instantly soft. Yuck, I think we had around 75-100kg of mud collected under the car. – Driving on mud is like driving on wet snow. The only difference is that you have to remove the mud manual, waiting for warm weather to melt it away doesn’t work! :-)

But we made it, just stopped every 1000m and cleaned the tyres… Some other cars were not so lucky – they were towed. We couldn’t understand how you could try this road in a normal 2WD or in a motor home. This road was tougher than the Birdsville track… Unfortunately we had to abandon our plan to go to Innamincka as the roads were impassable – one crossing got deeper over night and all other roads were closed. There was even no possibility to go to Cameron Corner… so we decided to return via the Birdsville Track.

And what a change it was… the track looked completely different! The first part (Birdsville to Mungerannie) was a bit tricky. This time we had to cross over 10 flooded areas and not just one like the first time. Sometimes they were creek crossings and other times they were muddy sections. - Luckily we didn’t clean our car – it would have been dirty all over again. – Two or three creek crossings were pretty deep, the water was over our bonnet and went up to our windows when we crossed. - $500 well spent for the snorkel! … 1st or 2nd in low gear, high RPMs and the little Grand Vitara Diesel gets you through it! – The track was officially open for 4 wheel drives with high ground clearance and heavy trucks. As you can see in the photo trucks didn’t have a problem with the mud and water. 40 tonnes and 500 PS, nothing stops you! – Don’t get me wrong! The truck driver of this truck waited for us at the next very deep creek crossing. He wanted to make sure that we were able to cross safely! – Outback Australia, you care for people!    

This time we didn’t had to stop to get rid of the mud, we had to clean our windows instead. Basically the hole trip was driving from one muddy section of track (collecting mud) to the next creek crossing (washing away the mud). But we reached the campground with the bathtub while the sun was still up and enjoyed the relaxing spa. And then it got cold – suddenly a cold breeze has started. We even had to think about sleeping in the car due to the heavy wind. The wind didn’t stop during the night neither the next day – so we’re hoping the wind would stop otherwise we might have to change our future plans. – Oh, just for the record and the curious people… the last part of the track was muddy and we had to remove the mud ‘manual’… No, there wasn’t a carwash in the area! :-(

The area around Maree and Leigh Creek has changed as well – they received rain and it was much greener and there was water over the road as well. We were camping in Leigh Creek and saw the big coal train going from the coal mine to Port Augusta – it has 170 carriages and 3 locomotives. At least that was the length as I counted it. The train comes every day to carry coal to Port Augusta using the railway tracks of the old Ghan line. We had to camp for two days as the grocery shop was already closed when we arrived and won’t open on a Sunday but a bit of R&R was coming handy.

Bye, bye,
Tom and Anja

21. – 23. May

Now it was time to start the Birdsville Track which connects Maree with Birdsville and was used as a drover route covering around 500km. It’s a dirt road and you and your car collects a lot of it. - The first night we’ve spend in Clifton a camp area with a bath tub. While pitching the tent the tub got filled with nice warm artesian water. So we could jump into the bath after the work was done. The best part was it had pressure jets so you could get a neck or lower back massage (depending where you were sitting).

There is another accessible bore bath along the track but that was not so nice. We had just a quick look, were amazed by the cockatoos in the trees and drove on. The last 40km were a bit challenging as you had to cross some water… if they couldn’t create a detour. One crossing was long and around 50cm deep but luckily we didn’t have any problem. Later we learnt that another Grand Vitara had to be towed through this crossing. - It didn’t have a snorkel to breath underwater! ;-) The air intake is at the front section of the engine room and positioned very low. So, ‘breathing’ water was pretty possible for a car without a snorkel or very high ground clearance. 

In Birdsville we drove in direction Big Red – but could just go until little red and then the road was closed. The lake had flooded the whole road and it must be deep. We could see one National Park Sign and it was standing half in water – no possibility to enter the Simpson Desert from Birdsville. We looked at the Waadi trees – an ancient tree which only grows in three areas. It looks like a pine tree and the wood is so hard you will even have problems with a chainsaw. They assume that the trees are around 500+ years old.

Cheers, Tom and Anja

 

 

 

15. – 20. May

Now it was time to cross the border into another state – South Australia. We had to pass the check-point for fresh fruits and fresh vegetables as they’re not allowed to be taken in. We stayed in Peterborough in a caravan park which had a guard cat – actually the cat was just lying around and you had to come close to check if it’s alive or not.

Later we drove to Port Pirie – we wanted to see water again but just saw the harbour with some coal/oil vessels. From Port Pirie we did a daytrip into the southern Flinders Ranges – via the Germain Gorge to Melrose. The Mawson and Heyson Trail (long distance walking and push-bike track from Adelaide) are going through this town. We did a little bit of the Mawson track – actually we walked to the lookout to the Cathedral Rock but were disappointed – there was nothing which resembled a Cathedral or everything was covered by trees. It must be great to do the push-bike track as it meanders through the forest. We returned via a Scenic Route and stopped at another Gorge hoping to see a yellow footed wallaby but we were not lucky.

We drove further north to have a look at the Northern Flinders as well. From Hawker we followed the road to Wilpena and then turned left into the Brachina Gorge a scenic dirt route going through the mountains. At the first stop we met a tour guide and he included us into his tour – so we received some background information about the mountains, the animals and other events which occurred in that area. One side track is actually called “geographic track of the Flinders”. In one area it is possible to see some stone pieces which were blown into this area by a meteor crash some hundred kilometers away. In another part you notice that the rocks have been under water as they show the typical wave lines. We saw a little mite which eats ants… it creates a little crater and when an ant tries to walk through/ over it, it normally falls into the middle and can’t escape. And we saw some yellow footed wallabies – at least there were some wallabies and they looked a little bit yellow through the camera lens. They were only 45m away but were so small you could hardly see them – well camouflaged and tiny.

Hawker has a seismograph at the Information Centre and of course we had a good look at it. Unfortunately it didn’t record anything while we were watching but anyway it was interesting and informative. One bloke explained that it even recorded the 2004 Tsunami. The seismograph is so sensitive, it records when the kangaroos eat the grass close by. Normally it gets two or three shock waves each day – when the coal mines in Leigh Creek and Roby Downs blast. The coal mine in Leigh Creek is an open cut and you could have a look at the hole. They even have two big machines on display – one tip-loader and a crane plus one old tyre. It was possible to touch the tyre and crawl into it as well as walk through the crane and sit behind the steering mechanism. – Leigh Creek is a mining town which means that all the grocery and petrol is sponsored by the mining company. With other words, you can get all the essential stuff for a decent price. In any other place out here you have to pay at least 50% more.

Have fun, Tom and Anja

 

 

 

 

9. – 14. May

We decided to do some part of the Darling River Run and followed the river up north via Pooncarie to Menindee. It was quite interesting that the Darling River had much more water in Wentworth (where it ends) than in Pooncarie or Menindee. In Menindee we stayed two nights at the Pamamaroo Lake which is a catchment area of the Darling River. The weir regulates how much water runs down the river to Wentworth and at the moment they’re still filling the lakes which we could notice very well. We had a camp fire going and the next morning that place was under  water. There are several lakes close to Menindee. – Menindee actually means “lakes made by man”. The nights felt like sleeping at the beach as the lake is so big it creates a lot of waves. We weren’t the only ones enjoying the free camping next to the lake. There  were a lot of other people doing the same. One Caravan or Campervan next to each other. Not at all a big surprise because these lakes are full of water only every 10-20 years. – Thanks to the flood water from Queensland!

 

Our next stop was Broken Hill – I wanted to see the “Living Desert & sculptures” again. This meant we drove directly to the Tourist Information to obtain the key and then headed out to the place. We arrived in the late afternoon and several  other people were waiting to see the sunset from this hill as well. But we could still have a look at the sculptures with the afternoon light and to be sure that we didn’t miss anything we returned the next morning to see them in the morning light. I have three favourite sculptures – the horse, the motherhood and the tiger moon. We went to the mining monument as well to see the city from the top and checked if the big red bench was  still there. While we were sitting on the bench, one long train rolled through Broken Hill – it looked like 3km long. Unfortunately we didn’t see the Indian-Pacific going through (wrong day or wrong time).

See you later, Tom and Anja

 

 

 

1. – 8. May

Finally it was time to leave Dubbo behind. We drove via Griffith to Mildura. We camped two nights in Griffith. This camp area is the main reserve from Griffith as well and I guess they like to teach their children how deer and donkeys look like – there are little fenced areas with the animals in. Keep that in mind and you know how we woke up  in the morning. - The donkey took over the rooster part and was responsible for waking everybody up in the morning.   

We spent some nights in Mildura enjoying the gym, the Murray River and bought new bigger tyres. When we bought our first set of all terrain tyres in the size 225/65R17, the selection was pretty limited. Only 3 different tyres were available. We bought Pirelli ATR, which are reinforced road tyres. Excellent on the road but wear  down ‘pretty fast’ offroad (we used them for 30000km). At Midur a (1.5 years later)  it was much better and we decided to go for wider tyres 235/65R17. The bigger size allowed us to choose from a bigger pole of brands. We narrowed it down to Pirelli AT, Bridgestone Dueller 694 XL and Cooper AT tyres. All of them are well known tyres and we ended up with the Bridgestone ones. There was a special on, $235 for each tyre instead $295. - All tyres cost $295 when not on special. – We choose wider tyres to get better performance on sand, which would become very important in a few weeks!

Unfortunately we didn’t see the paddle steamer “Ruby” in Wentworth as it was in the shed to be restored. But we saw several house boats on the Murray and Darling River. Again we were out of luck and no boat went on the Murray River into South Australia so the weir did not open while we were visiting. Anyway we enjoyed the view where the rivers joined and stood right in the middle of the two rivers. This was possible because there is a nice walk going up to the point where the two river become one.

Just 5km west of Wentworth are the Perry Hills Sand dunes an area in complete contrast to the rest. Suddenly the big sand dunes appear and you could think you’re in the desert. You can only drive around and walk up the dunes which we did. We played a little bit and let some Paddy Melons roll down the dunes. But we had to be careful not to open one of them as they are poisonous. The Paddy Melon is also known as Camel Melon. We saw so many of them and not only in this area, a lot of roads are lined with them. – As soon as you get some rain out here, these melons grow out of the ground like a ‘pest’.

Cheers, Tom and Anja