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Published: July 31st 2014
Magical sunset
Taken just outside of Kintore where we camped by the side of the track. Just beautiful.We said goodbye to the Olga's and headed down another dusty dirt track towards the west australian border.
The maps were out and we realised that we were driving through aboriginal land. Our permits were in place but there was nowhere on the map to camp! Ohhh well we decided to just drive and hope we find somewhere along a dry river bed or something.......
Now the real adventure begins!! We were all excited to be heading into the desert and in the direction of the canning stock route! Woooohoooo!!
The road out of The Olga's was really good until about 100klms down the road when it was obvious the grader had stopped and the corregations were dreadful!
The countryside slowly began to change from the flat, Barron land surrounding Uluru and the Olga's to becoming more mountainous as we approached the Peterman ranges. They were just gorgeous and were covered in beautiful flowering grevilleas and wattles.
On the way we stopped off at a rest stop called Lassiters Cave. The story behind this cave was really interesting.
Lassiter was out this way exploring in 1931. He sheltered in this cave for 29days after his
Sandy Blight Track
If you look in the lower left hand corner of this picture you can see our camp site. This picture shows just how vast the country is out here. camels bolted with all his food and water supplies approx 52 Kilm's from the site of the cave. After 29 days he left with 1.7 litres of water to head for The Olga's, 155klms away, where a provisions party was due to meet him. Unfortunately for poor old Lassiter he didn't make it and he died of starvation, dehydration and exhaustion approx 75klms away from arriving at The Olga's. If only he had the luxury of a car, we made it from the Olga's to his cave in about 1 1/2 hours!!! They really did it tough out here. Everywhere you go you hear the stories of the early explorers and pioneers. You have to take your hat off to these men and women - I know I couldn't have survived what most of them went through to open this beautiful country up.
We stopped in at Docker River. It is a small aboriginal community and the only place you are permitted to camp within aboriginal land. They provide a basic camping ground. We were surprised to find a notice in the front shed apologising for the current conditions of the camp ground, welcoming all travellers and telling us
Jack and Luke
The visitors tin we added our names to. all to please enjoy the place, respect it don't destroy it. Fair enough. We pulled in and found a great spot under some large native oak trees and went to check out the toilets. They were tin sheds really and we expected them to be basic drop loos. But boy were we wrong! They were proper toilets, sort of, you had to use the toilet then use the large container of water to pour water into the toilet before flushing it. However, some horrible people had been using these toilets and not flushing them properly - yuk!! I feel sorry for the poor bugger who has to clean up that mess. It was a nice spot so such a shame that people had done this to spoil it for others. They also provided a look out to climb and overlook the Peterman Ranges and wow was it a beautiful view. We took truckloads of pictures, had toasted sandwiches for dinner, enjoyed a great fire and hit the hay after a tiring day walking through the Olga's and driving out to Docker River. (Don't be fooled, there is no river - it's dry like all the rivers out here!).after a restful
Visitors tin
Luke and I added our card to the visitors tin. night camping at Docker River (and listening to Dingos howling in the distance), we had a late start because everyone slept in until 8.30. As we were leaving we stopped off at the little tin shed that welcomed us to this camp ground. We had abit of a giggle at some of the notices that were hanging up in the shed - great sense of humour those Docker River Rangers! (See photos)
A little way down the road we crossed the West Australian border! We stopped for the obligatory photos and continued on.
We headed up the Sandy Blight Track towards a town called Kintore. The track to Kintore was approx 350klms of teeth rattling, heart pounding corregations and provided petrol which we would need by that point.
We drove on to the start of The Sandy Blight Track. This track twists and winds it way along the West Australian and Northern Territory borders all the way up to Kintore to the north. The famous Australian surveyor Len Beadell surveyed this area and described it as the most scenic of outback tracks he surveyed. It was with great excitement that we set off, we were looking for
the Bunggsbiddi rock hole but we never did find it!
As we were coming around one corner on the track we came face to face with a herd of four camels! There are still lots of wild camels roaming the Australian outback. They are considered abit of a pest these days. The kids were excited to see them. I don't know who was more shocked - the camels or us! Haha
The scenery was beautiful and ever changing. After a stop for lunch on a clearing beside the track we found the first tree plaque placed to honour Len beadells achievements and the turn off to The Sir Frederick Range. This is a very steep rocky climb up the mountain. We noticed that at the bottom of the first climb there was a clearing to camp at, as it was getting late we decided to set up camp and tackle the climb in the morning without the trailers.
The next morning we.packed up and started off up the steep climb to the lookout and boy was it worth the effort. The scenery was simply stunning! The kids found an old visitors tin amongst the rocks so we
added one of mum and dad's business cards with our names and the date, you never know our grand kids might be back one day to find it!!
We had some more trouble with the springs in the trailer along the track. We have only been able to travel on average between 15 and 16 Kilm's per hour due to bone rattling correlations and a very rocky track. It took us four hours to travel sixty kilometres! The trailer and the car have been copping an absolute hiding! I swear I was laying in bed last night still rattling!! At one point dad came over the radio telling us that there was something hanging from under the trailer that didn't look right. It turned out to be the shock absorber - it was stuffed and ended up breaking the bottom mount. So Gav, who is turning into quite the bush mechanic, just took it off, replaced the spring and hoped for the best. A little while back when we were having problems with the spring popping out Gav placed a padlock on the chain that stops the spring from over extending to try and keep it in place. Well
Poor Gav.
Broken shock absorber, more roadside repairs. to our surprise that padlock held for a bloody long time, the lock had fallen out, it had been trashed by rocks, but to our surprise it had hung In there all this way!
Camping along the track can be hard to find and it took some looking to find a flat spot under some trees not covered in spinifex grass but we managed to find one and set up camp for the Night. We enjoyed a great fire and of course the best star display you could ever wish for.
The next morning we were surprised to see a couple walking down the track! It turns out they had camped 4kms up the track and were just our for a morning walk!
We left camp to head for an aboriginal community called Kintore, it is here we would get fuel before heading onto Gary Junction Track heading towards The Cannong Stock Route ( still approx 400klms away).
On our way we came across a bloke riding his bike down the track. We stopped for a chat and gave him some water and a little information about the condition of the track ahead. It never ceases
to amaze me the number of people riding bikes around this country. We had the Dutch girl riding up at Cape York and this bloke is the third rider we have seen on this trip! Not sure if they are adventurous or mad - sure is a tough way to do it!
Throughout this part of our trip there has been plenty of ongoing debate about what time it is.. Confusion has raged about whether we are in WA or NT and what the actual time is. We have now decided to eat when we are hungry, sleep when it is dark and not worry about what time it is.
I think that's one of the things we love the most - not being sure about the day, the time or where exactly we are!
We continued on until we reached the indigenous community of Kintore. Kintore has an indigenous population of 300 to 400 people. It offers basic facilities. A community shop, petrol during prescribed hours. It offers diesel and opal fuel for unleaded vehicles. Opal fuel is a special unleaded fuel that is unable to be sniffed. Petrol cost us $2.20 per litre which was
Mum and dad
Trackside lunch stop pretty good because we got petrol at Kings Canyon that cost us $2.78 cents per litre!!
We were really lucky. Dad was standing in line in the community store and he asked the bloke in front of him if he wouldn't happen to know the local mechanic and the bloke said "yep, sure do" We were taken to the local council depot to meet Henry. He was a local indigenous welder who could help us. Dad and I went down to the part of the community where all the cars are dumped to find an old shock absorber on one of the cars that we could take off and dodgy onto the trailer to get us through. Henry then dodged the connection and placed it on the trailer for us. Not sure how long it will last but hopefully it will get us through to Broome where proper repairs can be carried out. (Fingers crossed).
The shock absorber came off what we have labelled an ATF ( all terrain ford) haha! When driving on The Sandy Blight track we counted over thirty car wrecks in the bush and they were all old fords, so dad labelled them All
Dad
Dad had a go at pumping one of the bores along the track. This one worked! Terrain Fords! Haha.
The dodgy repairs took about an hour and a half and the boys had fun playing football with some of the local indigenous kids while we were waiting. That's one thing I really admire in kids. They don't see colour or differences in each other and with something as simple as a football they play together like they have been friends their entire lives. It's a shame most adults arnt that easy going!
We found a clearing on the Side of the track to camp for the night, it was getting late and we were all tired and hungry. It's been really wonderful to see how the kids pitch in and help with every set up and pack up. They have their jobs to do and they just get stuck into doing them. Olivia helps mainly inside the tent - bed and kitchen set up, jack and Luke help outside - chairs, firewood, fire starters. They both fly out of the car to start collecting firewood every time and as the mischevious boys that they are they are always keen to get the fire started. They also spend a lot of time looking for lizards,
bugs or any small animal they can look at, always being careful to have a look and then set them free. They mainly find lizards and beetles. There is very little obvious wildlife out here.
We set off expecting to again cross the WA border, unsure what the time was and not really caring anyway! We were now heading down the Gary Junction Track toward The Canning Stock Route well 33.
The Gary Junction Road was excellent the grader had just been through so the travelling was smooth. The spring on the trailer was jammed in tight so it wasn't going anywhere!
We found a clear flat spot to camp overnight, lit a great fire and sat down to another great feed and another debate over what the time was!
The repair job carried out at Kintore lasted for the whole of ten kilometres. The following morning Luke mentioned to mum that the black thing was broken. It took mum a while to work out what he was talking about and it was only when she asked him to show her that she realised it was the hitch on our trailer. Luke showed Gav
Camp set up
We used our car awning to give mum and dad some shelter from the rain. and all our faces dropped - bugger. The hitch connecting the trailer to the car looked like it had been split in two and totally mashed up. We certainly weren't having any luck this trip! We were approx 600 Kilm's from Alice Springs and 550klms from the nearest very small indigenous community and it was a closed community so we couldn't just head into town anyway. Besides the possibility of getting any significant mechanical help was miniscule anyway. We had no choice but to push on and hope for the best. As we continued on the road deteriorated into rough corregations again, the trailer was pitching very badly to the right and it was only a matter of time before something else broke and it did in the form of the wheel. The fixings had come undone - one bolt had come out and the other was in the process of coming out - these bolts hold it onto the chassis. So more road side repairs were carried out and a group discussion was held as to our next course of action.
We decided to try for the aboriginal community of Kurawaritji, camp along the track just outside of
town and gav would use to sat phone to call RACQ and see about the possibility of a tow.
The maps came back out and we looked to see that the closest significant town of sorts was Marble Bar and then Port Headland. RACQ was willing to come and get us but it would cost, so Gav spoke to the tow bloke and carried out a dodgy bush repair job by replacing the shock absorber with elasticised rope to help nurse the spring and we made a run for Marble Bar. (550klms Of corregations away!)
We were all still smiling, making jokes about towing just the frame of the trailer by the time we got there. We asked Gav to ask the tow bloke in Port Headland what the time was but he forgot. We need to go into Kurawaritji for petrol but they only operate Monday to Friday, today is Saturday, so we have made ourselves comfortable for two nights and will guess when it is 8am on Monday and line up for fuel then. We are enjoying a rest in a beautiful spot and some great camp oven cooking over the fire. We plan to have
Kintore
The boys played football with the local kids while repairs were carried out. repairs carried out, come back this same way and start the Canning Stock Route. It would probably put us behind by about a week.
We limped into Port Hedland - it took us two days - this is roughly 1500 Kilm's away from where we were supposed to be! The trailer now has two new shock absorbers, a new hitch, and new bolts and fixings.
Port Hedland is a typical mining town. Very busy, dirty and dusty as you would expect. We plan to now continue up the coast to Broome, Cape Leveque, Derby, Gibb River Rd and Kalumburu. We will still do The Canning but we will do it from north to South rather than south to North and it will be on our way back down to Alice Springs.
Feels wonderful to be in warm weather again and we have even worked out what the correct time is! Haha
We had a good look around Port Hedland today. It is an unusual town. Such a contrast of the beauty of the country surrounded by the ugliness of mining. We found ourselves standing on the edge of a gorgeous sparkling blue bay, under a crystal
clear winter sky but all the while still hearing the never ending machinery of the mine and if you looked over to the right, you could see the huge iron ore ships being loaded and towed in and out of port by the tug boats. It would be a great place to come to later in the year as the turtles come up to lay their eggs on the beach here.
We took the kids down to the beach for a swim and were a bit shocked to be confronted with a sign saying clothing on this beach is optional from 1klm east of this sign! Gav and I had no idea which direction was east so we thought it best to just stay at the part of the beach we were at! Haha.
It was a great spot but really disappointing to find a dirty nappy and two hyperdermic needles on the beach - yuk!
It is obvious that the mines are working hard to establish Port Hedland as a family friendly community and there are community building works going on all over the place but gee they have a long way to go!
From
here we are heading north towards Broome. Hopefully all mechanical issues are now behind us!
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Christine
non-member comment
What intrepid explorers you are.
My Goodness you have met all the repair work you have had to do with courage and determination. I think you all deserve a special commendation equal to that of the early explorers!!! Love Christine