The day at Maree starts with a bit of technical fiddling. We lower tyre pressures to ease the jolt of corrugations and help preserve both cars and bodies.
Out of Maree we pass the warning sign. ‘Remote Area Ahead’.
Later shreds of tyres remind us that this is serious.
Kangaroos, startled from their breakfast grazing, flee our path. Later in the morning a single dingo crosses in front of us. ‘Yellow-dog-dingo, always hungry, dusty in the sunshine’, immortalising Rudyard Kipling’s words. A sole eagle stands its ground, massive on the carcass. It puffs out and stares us down, not to be put off its meal by a mere Land Rover – until the last minute, flapping languidly away. Cows, when we encounter them, are slower still; domesticated but spooky, rearing away unpredictably as we pass.
On a lighter note, there is an update about emu’s intelligence.
‘Those birds are so stupid’, remarks one of James’s Australian friends.
‘At Pucka (Puckapunyal – the Australian Army Armour Centre) they have a habit of looking down the barrels of our tanks.
When you look through the breech to check ‘Gun Clear’ before loading it, you find an emu gazing back at you!’
Lake Eyre emerges as a white shimmer on the eastern horizon. No water here yet; the Queensland floods haven’t reached this far south. The shimmer is all dried salt. John’s watch tells us we’re 7.5 metres below sea level. On this journey we’ve been near to the highest (at Kosioscoko) and lowest parts of this continent. More wildlife. Flies arrive. the nets that have so far been unused suddenly spring into life.
We stop at William Creek in the afternoon, and retire from the flies to the pub. An Austrian bartender takes our order of city-slicker drinks. ‘If you can get an oat-milk cappuccino here, this isn’t the outback’, declares James. Despite this, he and John settle in to do some serious planning to get out of it.
Individually we’re getting a lot of correspondence about this trip. It means that someone is taking an interest in it. So are we! The aim has always been the Simpson Desert and crossing its longest and least-traveled route.
But the rain this year has closed roads and now, 25 days after the ‘Land of droughts…’ post, there’s still a lot closed.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service have told us that their end of the Simpson – the Munga-Thirri National Park – is closed till 31 May. By then, Guy needs to be back in the UK for his daughter’s wedding. We think we’ve identified a route out of the Simpson before Queensland; North along the Hay River Track to the Plenty Highway. The Northern Territory roads website shows the Plenty Highway open towards the East, but restricted to high clearance 4WD vehicles – us. But the Queensland roads website shows that last part closed to all traffic. That means we’d have to go West on the Plenty Highway, then North past Tennant Creek then East on the Barkly Highway to enter Queensland via Mount Isa; much farther north than we intended. Mount Isa to Brisbane is still another 1800 kilometers – some days travel. That means we need to get a move on now.
But, first an evening meal in the sunset with flies mostly gone to bed. Its pretty cool to be able to lie in our swags that night; only the insect screen zipped up, looking up at the Milky Way and stars.
After William Creek the track is flatter and rougher. Everything rattles. Weird sculptures dot the landscape; product of someone with even less to do than us, it seems. In places the track is well-fortified with hardcore, leaving a white scar across the red land. Good driving surface, though, and we need it. There’s been real rain here. The creeks are green with tiny growth and fleeting pools of brown water. Tyre gouges on the verge show just how fragile the surface is.
White clouds appear. Almost photoshopped on to the sky-scape, at least, for once, they don’t threaten rain. The Ghan still accompanies us. Ruins of stations and bridges show the effort there has been to build it.
A modern-day equivalent – a bright red road train full of cattle – tops a ridge and charges down towards us, billowing dust. No prisoners taken here; we pull right over. It’s a majestic sight, but too excited, we fumble the photo opportunity, and it passes by. Oodnadatta, itself, is a quick pause, notable for us only for its pink Road house and signs. Then it’s on again.
At the end of a long second day and the Oodnadatta Track, we trundle into Marla, dusty but satisfied with progress. Marla is road train central. Big trucks, three and four trailers, loiter while their drivers rest. James and Guy go off to investigate, and meet Luke, forty-something, who does the 6000-kilometre Darwin-Adelaide run and back every week. The cab is even more exciting than a Land Rover – springy seats, eighteen gears and lots of buttons and dials.
Back in reality, we’re losing oil. Peter’s rear left wheel been weeping for a couple of days – oil from the differential, and it’s not getting better.
I gulp, and James and I attempt an oil seal change.
It’s all back to together now and there’s every possibility I haven’t made it worse.
Tomorrow we’ll find out.
Never mind tomorrow. Today, together, we’ve raised over $15,000 for our four charities. It seems every person we tell brings in another donation. So please keep sharing the story and the gofundme link with your friends and colleagues so that we can keep giving more people the opportunity to contribute.
It seems that the “adventurous expedition” has now begun with the Oodnadatta track. Week done!
The photos are again, magnificent and show the grandure of this (very) “wide brown land”.
Good luck with the mechanicals and replanning!
Good to see the tank suits, that were still in ‘issue’ condition when you started, getting a little mechanical filth on them. ( that should have happened on the tank park Mike! I know that Guy’s ‘adventure trip’ tank suit must have been a spare that he had.)🤔
Sorry to hear that Mother Nature is getting in the way of your plans, just make friends with the flies. I am told that they only live a very short number of days, but they must fornicate furiously during that time because we never run out of them.
FN J&C
Good D&M skills, Mike.