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Our first day driving in the Simpson Desert was pretty easy going. The road had been recently graded so our average speed was 70km per hour. The flies were shocking at our lunch stop and we ended up quickly making our lunch at the camper and eating in the car. We set up our first night camp next to a picturesque salt lake we took some beautiful photos at sunset. The boys collected some great fire wood and we had a big fire whilst we enjoyed a roast lamb for dinner.
Day 9
We headed off and the graded road turned into a rough single lane track and our average speed dropped to 20 km per hour. Some of the sand dunes are pretty steep and soft and a little scary (Sue) boys were cheering. We had to have a second run after reversing back down at a couple of the dunes (not fun with the trailer). We saw camel footprints on the road and have been looking out for camels ever since no luck yet.
4.00 pm set up camp ( in the Simpson Desert you can camp 50 metres from the road anywhere you like) we prefer to camp on our own. Save the getting to know people for the caravan parks where you are on top of tourists.
Nice fire, plenty of wood. Off to bed now.
Day 10 Mark's Birthday
Sue, Zach , Evan sung me Happy Birthday this morning what a sight first thing in the morning. Bacon and Eggs for breaky and a warm fire. Another day of slow going and many sand dunes to climb. Average speed was 20 kph and fuel consumption was 30 litres per 100km. The further we headed west the more the landscape changed. The sand got more red and there was more green vegetation. After a long day we made it to the western side of the desert and camped the night at Purnie Bore which is a natural wet land created by a bore sunk many years ago in the search for oil. We got some great sunset photos of the water hole and we saw lots of different birds. Can't have fires here so we had a nice BBQ and headed into bed early with a movie. Watched Marley and Me and all ended up crying. Ha.
Day 11
Got up early and had a walk around the waterhole. An easy drive and we were at Dalhousie Springs. Wow. This was amazing. This natural spring is fed from the Artesian water course and is a huge big swimming hole with the water temperature at 38 to 40 degrees. We got into our swimmers and jumped in and it felt great after a few days in the desert. It was full of tiny little fish that, if you kept still, would come up and nibble on your skin. Weird feeling. It was quite cold today and our first overcast day and we enjoyed our lunch at the springs without the flies. After lunch we headed off for Mt Dare and arrived at about 3pm. We set up camp at the back of the hotel and enjoyed a hot shower and a hair wash. We updated the blog having a few drinks in the hotel with a nice fire, AFL on the TV ( wasn't game to ask them to put the real footy on). Having dinner and breaky here and will decide tomorrow if we head to Alice Springs via a direct route or if we drive 2 days via the Andado Track.
Day 12
Overnight rain! b*****! Dust has turned to mud. It's like ice out there and you can hardly walk on the road let alone drive on it. Decided to have breaky at Mt Dare Hotel and wait a while. It stopped raining after breaky and by 11am the mud had started to dry out a bit. With a weather forecast of rain clearing we decided to pack up and head off to Alice Springs via Finke and Kulgera. The roads were recently graded so it was a bit slippery but mainly fine. As the day went on the roads got dryer and our speed increased. Nice to see some bitumen at Kulgera and a speed sign of 130. Yeh. Arrived safe at Alice late and we had to find a car wash to remove some mud so we could find the door handles. oh man. When we finished at the car wash the place looked like we had left half of the outback mud behind. Ha. With it getting dark, wet and 11 degrees we decided on a cabin at the Big 4 park in lieu of setting up camp. Will stay here a couple of days and then head down to Uluru and Kings Canyon.
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