Tuesday 27/7/2010 Purnie Bore to the Lone Gum Tree

(Purnie Bore to the Lone Gum Tree)
All slept in till 0830hrs. Awoke to sunshine and an orchestra of bird sounds. Wow, amazing sound! It's the warmest day yet. We are wearing T-shirts and shorts, and the flies are thick.
The kids played on the dune again while I had that shower. It took a full 35 minutes for the hot water to get there!! Lovely once it did.
Well we didn't leave untill 1100hrs. Big mistake! Got to the Lone Gum Tree at 1830hrs. It was a long day. Up down, up down, up down. Absolutely beautiful though. So many flowers and much greener than we expected. No plain red dunes, but plenty of partial ones for pretty photos.

The dunes started off small, at about 5m along the French Line.

The signage was very good. It would be hard to get lost if you stick to the tracks out here.

We headed south along the Rig Road and had lunch in the swale before heading east along the WAA Line.

The swales were pretty big on the WAA line, especially just west of the Erabena Track (about 20 to 30m).

It was much wilder in there. About 3 of the swales had water across them and we had to make our own way around.

Then there was another smaller puddle on the track that looked OK, but we sank and got bogged. Col had to dig and use low range to get out. I think we should have been playing with diff lock sooner. We didn't use it at all until after we were home from this trip.

We learnt our lesson. Deffinitely stay in the well used ruts, even if the water is deeper. The mud is compacted rather than like quicksand if you veer off. It's either the main track or a much larger diversion. Our next step would have been using our fire wood to cover the mud behind us, but luckily we didn't need to.

Had to add a bit of drama to the day!
We only passed 2 groups today. First was a single man in a single vehicle. Col and Jordan new him from the Kalgoorlie car park!
Next were a group of 4 cars. One of them had a 5yr old, a 2yr old and a newborn (very brave)!
This group had been stuck in Innamincka for 2 days with a broken chassey. The mechanic kept puting them off so they borrowed a welder and reinforced it themselves.
We won't be able to continue along the WAA Line east of Erabena, as it is covered by a lake at the other end according to this group.
Everyone updates each other as they pass, learning from each other's stories. It's also quite entertaining.
The final trip south to the Lone Gum Tree was in the dark. It didn't take long as travelling south is flat in the swales.
Our average speeds today were about 15km/hr most of the way (while heading east) and getting up to 50km/hr (when heading south) in the swales. I had fun driving some of the French Line and Rig Road, but the WAA Line was the most impressive.
There were so many white wild flowers mostly topping the dunes, while the yellow flowers seem to cover the east walls of the dunes.
It was a quick setup, tea and dishes, then relax around the campfire with a glass of wine. The full moon came up at 1910hrs, huge and orange.
There is one other family camped here, about 100m away. They have little kids and went to bed early, so we didn't try to socialise.There was no wind and it wasn't cold. Col, Jordan and Jack all went to bed early but I enjoyed reading by the fire for quite some time.