Day 16, Friday 6/07/2012, Poeppel Corner

What a gorgeous rest day, starting with a sleep in and then eggs on toast for brekkie. The kids decided to build Coober Pedy which became the entertainment for the entire day for the littlies. Jordan, Jack, Jess and Madison started it off with a bit of help from Col. It wasn’t long before Michael, Jamie, Haley and Chelsea came along to join in.

One of my favourite parts of the day was when our whole group went for a walk together, through Queensland, South Australia and then across the salt pan in the Northern Territory. Chelsea was so close to walking while playing on a fence wire on the salt pan.

Then it was time for the boys to potter around the cars, changing another bush on Stuart’s Pajero suspension. Bruce is desperately looking for something to fix under his car, then checking out why his winch didn’t work. Col needs to look at our water tank leak (maybe using the ‘magic tape’).  They also might have a play with Peter’s 12V outlets that are shorting out. Peter is topping up his oil again.

Fiona went for an extra walk, coming across a camel sculpture memorial amongst some amazing wild flowers.

After ‘happy hour’ around an early fire, Lisa, Bruce and I played with some night shots including sunset flash photography with the little kids.

It was such a lovely fire tonight which kept us warm while we had a fun game of charades. Talk about million star accommodation

 

Day 15, Thursday 5/07/2012, Lone Gum to Poeppel Corner

We were up in time for the sunrise over the Lone Gum (Box Eucalyptus Tree) and dunny. It wasn’t quite as cold last night. No frozen pipes. We fell asleep to the squeaking of little marsupials. Poor Peter and Anthea though, they can’t catch a break. The little marsupials had a party on their rubber ground mat, leaving droppings everywhere and they must like the taste of rubber as there were holes the size of coins in the mat.

Lisa was lovely enough to lend me some coffee this morning. The 4yr olds were a bit crazy so I sent them up the track in a running race to burn off some energy. Fiona had some to burn as well and set off for a big hike, to be picked up later as we leave.

I was able to entertain Chelsea with the Lone Gum, but particularly the kites in the tree. She’s good at saying “bird”! Another solo couple came up from the south and stopped to chat for a bit then Jack and Jess drove along the swale back to the Rig Road.

Anthea’s having a turn driving today which is awesome. She’ll get so much more out of the trip having a go. You should see the grin, and she’s a natural!

Heading east on Rig Rd there were a couple of camel carcasses. We were lucky enough in our car to be entertained by Aspire practice singing again.

Everyone got out to stretch their legs on a beautiful salt pan that 2 years ago was a lake. This is the southern end of the lake that cuts off the eastern end of WAA track after rain. We enjoyed a bit of a play here and then Jordan drove the 30km up the Knolls Track. Cool! There were salt pans, sand dunes, gidgee forests and gypsum rock outcrops. She did brilliantly. She even managed to do a hill start in high diff lock on a steep sand dune! Go girl!

We had a very dusty lunch at the base of the Approdinna Attora Knoll, an old gypsum encrusted dune. The gypsum hardens to rock and protects the dune. The views from the top are fantastic, surrounded by salt pans, gidgee forests, white glittery gypsum and orange sand dunes. We ran into the other couple again here, Matt and Heidi. They made it across the WAA Line to the Knolls, but still had to divert north around the lake as it was wet, with signs of recent boggings. They only did a really quick hike up to see the view as they decided to stick with us to Poeppel Corner.

Wow, so much fun heading east on the eastern end of the French Line! There are some fun dunes here. The bushes are also a bit more sparse so you get to see that orange dune look.

 

There was the occasional dune that needed a second attempt by some, then quite a steep one where the track veered to the left near the top and an unused old track straight over. A challenge that was calling to us! Lisa gave it 2 mighty attempts, almost making it. Col gave it a try, bottoming out on the amazingly soft sand on the crest, unable to go forward or back. He used a shovel, reversed back down, gave it another go and made it over with lots of cheers.

Williams’ turn. Not quite to the top, reversed back down. Second go bottomed out in the same place Col did with wheels spinning and sand flying. Bruce’s window was down and Jess got a lapful!

Col attempted to winch him over the top but it sounded as if the front end was ripping off Casper. A few people went to give him a push back down only to get a face full of sand. Matt couldn’t jump in his car fast enough. He was pretty excited to be able to use his recovery gear. He pulled Casper back using a snatchem strap. Left hand track for Casper. One for the Defender, yeah!

A bit further east we passed a group of about 10 cars, then we got a call from Matt to say he was bogged. Col and I went back to pull them out. We had to drive back through the 10 other vehicles. They were pulled off to the side as the track was blocked by Matt. I couldn’t believe they were just sitting there rather than pulling Matt over. I think they had already had “happy hour”. We only had to give Matt a little nudge over the crest of the dune with a snatchem.

There were several salt pans to cross before arriving at Poeppel Corner, setting up camp in a huge sandpit. After cooking tea we socialized around the lovely fire made by the teenagers. Matt and Heidi came and joined us, bringing their cask of wine to share and plenty of yarns were spun! The moon was late to rise tonight so it was a great opportunity to grab the tripod and get a few night shots.

 

Day 14, Wednesday 4/07/2012, Purni Bore to the Lone Gum

Although we all managed to keep warm enough in our beds, last night was pretty chilly. It is -2°C now at 7am. Peter is unable to get water out of the T Van as his pipes are frozen and there is a cup with water frozen solid.

The bolt holding Peter’s Foxwing awning onto the car has rattled loose. Lucky he noticed and could tighten it before leaving. All of Haley’s socks are either wet or muddy so she’s sitting in the car with gloves on her feet, making her look like a monkey. Hilarious!

It was such a wonderfully exciting day 4WDing across the Simpson today, heading east on the French line for a bit on baby dunes, then chucking a right to head south down the Rig Line. It is quite fast along here as it is a clay track following a swale. The Pockrans had fun chasing a camel along here and Jordan and Jack had a go driving. I then had a turn driving where the Rig Line swings back to the east, once again climbing dunes. This is our first taste of some larger dunes. We were treated to a dingo sighting again and saw a wedge tailed eagle take off with a rabbit in it’s claws.

The desert is so green. Greener than last time we were here. There were more flowers in 2010. Looking closer you can see that the majority of bushes have flower buds. We must be a few weeks too early. It will be amazing when they all bloom. It is so much more fun when you’re doing the driving. Don’t come out here and not have a go, it’s what it’s all about! For lunch we pulled over in a swale that had a big washaway and trees which made for some fun running around exploring.

 

The Rig Line now becomes the WAA Line which is where the real fun begins. No more packed clay track. We’re into the real orange, sand dune driving now with dunes from 5 to 20m. There are plenty of washaways and the track often zigzags up and down the dunes. Finally Fiona had a turn driving and you couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. Lisa and Stuart have been sharing 50/50, but Anthea still hasn’t had a go. I’ll have to keep encouraging her as it would make it so much more exciting.

Halfway along the WAA Line Lisa and Stuart noticed a clunking noise as they turn left. The rear stabilizing arm had come loose as the bush had shredded and disintegrated. The boys managed to fix it by cutting up some spare rubber matting into squares. They layered 4 of them and cut a hole through the centre using a pocket knife. They cut a 5^th one to use elsewhere as a washer. Great job boys, we were soon back on track. To fill in the time and stretch their legs, most of the women and kids set out ahead walking along the track while the repair work was done.

 

Not far along Peter pulled up as his car was making a loud tappety sound which was quickly fixed by topping up his oil. He has done amazingly well, getting over everything. You wouldn’t know he was towing a trailer.

Jordan, Jessica and Madison had a turn driving once we were heading south in the swale on the Erabena Track. It was Jessica and Madison’s first drive, how exciting for it to be in the Simpson Desert!

We arrived at The Lone Gum at 5.15pm to find it deserted. We have the whole place to ourselves in the middle of the Simpson Desert. Everyone set up a basic campsite pretty quickly. Dinners were all cooked at the same time while the kids got the fire going. It was lovely to all eat together around the fire.

Col and I lost our coffee today. The lid had come off and coffee was everywhere. Col did a great job of emptying and sweeping out the cupboard. He also took a quick look at the water tank as we have been losing water into our food storage (lucky they all have waterproof packaging). He thinks it is a leaking pipe connection. Time for the magic tape. Lisa and Stuart seem to have run out of gas. Maybe the tap was bounced on? It looks like they’ll be cooking on the fire more often, although they already were doing that a bit. I’ll share my gas burner if they’ll donate some coffee! Our radio charger doesn’t work either and we have to keep swapping radios with Bruce. It’s not fun when it goes flat and you can’t hear the conversations. The internal lights in the T Van have shaken loose and the wire snapped on one of them. Bruce lost a D shackle from his tow hitch. I guess we were all a bit “shaken” today.

There are a huge number of little marsupials running around us tonight. They are slightly larger than a rat and rounder, fluffier and cuter. After getting photos of the giant orange moon, the kids stole our cameras and were running around getting amazing photos of the little marsupial moles. They’re such great photos, I’m sure Australian Geographic would want them!

Casper had no trouble at all today over the large sand dunes even though it is only a “People Mover” (not)! It got to a balmy 21°C today after our frozen start this morning. Everyone is around the fire reminiscing about the day’s exciting driving adventures the cool bush fix and how clever our kids were at driving. Col set up the thunderbox with a sunrise view of the Lone Gum. He’ll have to be up early tomorrow!