Across the Simpson Desert (Day 4)

To Mt Dare, a 'forceful' fella, old bones, bogged and Blood Creek - literally!
~ Dawn broke bright and clear - then all hell broke loose!


One of the more, shall we say 'forceful' personalities in the group woke up to a flat tyre. I wandered over for a look just as he was inflating the air bag so he asked me to keep an eye on it. As I watched, his vehicle rolled backwards - my fault he said, I wasn't watching!! Before I could answer, Tloml and some other onlookers stepped up and enlightened him to the fact that perhaps putting the hand brake on first would've been a better idea ;-)  
All that excitement got our juices flowing for a great day's travel. 


As we drove out of the campsite we passed under some old telegraph lines, two wires. It made me wonder about all the important messages that must've raced back and forth through those wires. Their only means of communication back then. 


A little wait while the trip leaders were driving backwards and forwards, referring to their co-ordinates, trying to find the track they wanted to use. We checked out a pile of long dead, sun-dried old bones, and, after the right track was found, comments flew over the CB musing that we were perhaps a lot luckier than those other travellers!! 


Travelled via the dry Finke River, which had some interesting outcrops of limestone in places. Passed through various homesteads and leases and quite a number of other dry creek beds. It must be hellish trying to travel this way after rain. 
Crossing the Goyder Creek, everyone was warned not to change gears midway. Unfortunately one vehicle did,'forceful' from this morning, his wife was driving! It was firmly bogged in the dry deep sand. Apparently he'd been telling her to use more acceleration to which she'd replied "it's flat to the floor, how much [expletive] harder do you want me to go?" No worries though, it took a few good men but they pushed the vehicle out ok.

De-bogging in Goyder Creek

Further along and once again travelling alongside the old Ghan line, the country is very open, flat and stony. It was ironstone and rather beautiful. All the stones were nearly black in colour and shiny as though they'd all been polished, I wanted to take some home (can't just stop when you want to in a convoy unless it's an emergency!)

Gidgee tree (not my pic, found it
on the internet)

Saw about 20 head of cattle, all in fine condition. It was the variety of vegetation available.  Came upon groves of Gidgee trees, which are a lovely shaped tree (their dropped limbs made the best firewood too).


A few more corrugations thrown in for a while - just to remind us of the previous day! Bit of a to-do as a couple of vehicles got caught up on the berm in the centre of the track, one vehicle actually straddled the berm with a large rock turning them into a see-saw!  This, of course, brought a comment over the CB by who else but 'forceful' about women drivers!  A quick response by others was that there was a lot of bulldust from the CB as well as the track!! Ha ha, 'forceful' lived to regret those words for the rest of the trip ;-)
We had a lot of laughs that's for sure, sometimes, we'd be toodling along with tears in our eyes at some of the comments and comebacks that'd be flying across the CB waves.


Arrived at the start of the Witjira NP mid arvo. Stopped for firewood near Blood Creek to take into that night's camp at Mt Dare. Tloml was chopping wood with the axe and I was gathering sticks nearby.  He quietly called to me and said "I've cut my foot". The axe had glanced off a hard piece of Mulga, down through his sneaker into his little toe nicking the bottom of the next one. Ow .. it didn't look good. The first aiders in the group tended him and, while it really needed stitches, they'd dealt with it more than adequately he felt. They had an excellent first aid kit and, together with some extra strong pain killers, he had a painfree night.  All bandaged up, I gave him a tent peg bag to wear over everything - just as an extra precaution and to everyone's amusement! 

Tent peg bag being put to better use

(That night's group journal entry included a reference to Tloml's misadventure "......he took the name of the creek literally and decided to shed some by way of his trusty axe.")


We continued on to Mt Dare camping ground and revelled in the luxury of showers, and eagerly awaited the trip leader's call of "Come and Get It" ... What a day!


Mileage for the day 196 km