Wednesday 28/7/2010 Lone Gum Tree to Poeppel's Corner

(Lone Gum Tree to Poeppel's Corner)
Woke up at 0700hrs to find that we couldn't see further than the first dune due to fog!!

That was certainly unexpected! Surely this is a rare occurance?
Weirdly I took a photo of a gum tree, reflected in a pool of water, surrounded by fog, in the middle of the Simpson desert!

 

There is a falcon nesting in the gum tree.
Again, the poles put in by Desert Parks to protect the Lone Gum Tree may succeed in this, but ruin the natural beauty and the feeling of remoteness. What a shame beauty needs to be protected from idiots in the first place.
The other family here have a 4yr old and a 2yr old, and have been travelling since last November.
We were packed up and ready to go at 0830hrs, but now waiting for Col to visit the seat with the best view, one dune over.
Jordan was a bit crabby for about 3 days from Alice, but has improved a lot now after a good talk. I think she was a bit homesick. Travelling with a group the other day was a lovely "pick me up" for all of us. We need some friends. It is a shame they pulled out (no surprise), leaving us to travel alone, although it has been great for family bonding.
Left the Lone Gun at 0900hrs taking the Rig Line instead of the WAA Line for the next section as the other end is under a lake at the moment. We will skirt the south end of the lake.
Anyone out there that wants an easier trip, take the Rig Road, and for fun, big sand dunes take the WAA Line.

We are seeing dingo and emu tracks and just chased a quail. Again, there are plenty of wild flowers.
It is 1000hrs, we are on the Rig Road and it is raining, the entire sky is overcast and we are looking at ducks on a pond!! This is certainly a different Simpson Desert than usual.

It was sunny again by 1100hrs.
Once heading north on Knolls Track we saw 3 camels. One was a baby. So cute.

There's the lake we had to skirt south around. Along the Knolls Track there were hundreds of bright green budgies, a forrest of gidgee trees and ridges, outcrops of sandstone. Approdinna Attora Knoll is a gypsum outcrop. It is the highest point in the Simpson and used to be a mountain, worn down over millions of years. It is surrounded by clay and salt pans. We had a lovely family shot on the salt lake.

Had lunch and walked to the top of the outcrop to see a huge front building to the SW across a clay pan. Looks like we could be in for a bit of a storm later!

We hit the French Line and turned to the east. Again, very well sign posted. It started off easy but eventually became larger sand dunes closer to the corner (a slower 40km/hr). The dunes are larger but the swales also wider. The sand here is paler, a light orange rather than red.

The front is rapidly approaching from the south. I needed to stop often to take photos. Beautiful!
A group of about 8 cars passed us. You could hear their radio chatter and see their flags well in advance. They were a self drive guided tour, heading west.

Passing a couple of cars towing 4WD camper trailers, we stopped to chat for a bit. They recognised Jordan from the King's Creek Station camel show. "It's Video Girl!" they cried and wanted a photo of her. They said they saw the show the following night as well, and her video was shown again. Apparently the owner loved it and it is a permanent part of the show! Cool, Jordan is now a famous movie producer. She was very proud of herself.
His name is Brian. I remember him from the camel show and tea around the fire as he is loud and funny, and can really spin a yarn.

After crossing a few salt pans we arrived at Poeppel's Corner at 1600hrs, all puting our hands on the corner marker to be in South Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland all at once.

The black clouds are hanging over us with blue sky to the north. A strong cold wind is blowing and we tried to get shelter behind the north side of dunes and bushes.
That evening we watched the best lightning show we'd ever seen with Brian and his crew. There was no rain but the wind was fierce.

The clouds passed. The stars came out (must have been the eye of the storm). We went to bed and the heavens opened. It absolutely poured at 0100hrs.