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Day 19 - Poolowanna to Birdsville - Fri 30 Oct 2015
Pushed down and held by the Simpson yesterday and already carrying the effort of two and a half weeks of trekking, a series of events would ebb and flow our day. Bad day yesterday, hopefully good day today.
Early Morning Kerfuffle
Smashed the day before, we hoped for recovery through sleep. It was not to be. It was hot during the day and it stayed hot at night with little to no breeze. We sweated like dogs in and out and on top of our swags. In the heat around 2.00am there was a smattering of rain, a few drops of precious liquid into the sand. It annoyed many of us as we didn’t know if it would keep raining and dampen everything we had lying around or not. A few of us got up anyway just in case. Back to bed for half an hour or so and then we had the ‘A dingo’s got my Ohso’ incident. Eddie woke and saw that Ohso was not in bed. He had a quick boy look for him but couldn’t find him, so he went and woke Carl. Carl said to look in the car which he did but still no Ohso. Eddie goes back to Carl to relay this information. Three quarters of the camp is awake now and one or two are getting up. Eddie has another look around but still no Ohso. Carl gets up and gets Brock out. Everyone is awake listening and trying to remember where there clothes and boots are, as we start to think about Azaria. A Stibilj family trait is that when you get older your hearing drops away. Brock, who is pretty sharp with most things, hears a strange sound. At first he thinks that it’s Dingos. On closer listening it is coming from the top of a nearby dune and it’s a girl singing. The search party scale the dune and find Ohso there in a happy place. He is sitting in his chair, listening to Taylor Swift, happy to be here in the Simpson Desert. On waking him he explains that he planned to sit there and watch the sun come up but had fell asleep. Poor Ohso, his epiphany was broken.
The Leader is Up and About.
There is a bit of a positive vibe today as our man Carlos is up and about, despite the adventures overnight. Around 4.30 am there is a mix of sounds again. A bubble of voices and some laughter, the noise of a jet high overhead and in the distance the howls of dingoes as they relay the news across the dunes. It’s a mix of modern and primeval, but it’s all good. There is a good vibe in the air.
Salt Lake Spectacular.
Camp is broken quite quickly and the squadron of bikes is sent away in two waves. The first fly early to try and put some miles before the heat sets in again. Yesterday’s 46 would not be topped but it would get close. Smashed yesterday, we have a two-step objective today. If the going is hard we will stop at Warburton Crossing for the night, a distance of around 200kms. If we can get going hard we will aim for Birdsville, which is a total of around 370 for the day. The second wave of bikes is paused for the ‘salt lake spectacular’. Brad and Joc take a few runs up and down the salt lake with the drone up above to get some footage The runs are not all that quick as the lake surface is a bit soft and sucks at their power. Of course it quickly descends into farce as they decide to take turns at ‘rooster-tailing’ each other and the assembled photographers. Another good sign.
The Track is Good.
We push across to Knolls Track in three groups now. The first group of bikes, the second lot of bikes and then the cars. The day is warming up but the track is improving. Scotty had heard that this section was graded in 2013 and this mail looks to be true. The track is in good nick and we start to push on, with average speeds going up. The cars are now up to 50 to 60 kmph, the Bradsjocs™ average speed much higher. Good day? Yep, good day.
Good Progress to Lunch at Warburton Crossing.
Despite a couple of stops for a puncture and a photo opportunity we make great progress and we get to Warburton Crossing, just off the Birdsville Track but around 200 kms south of Birdsville around 1.00-1.30pm. Four bikes are waiting there for the three cars. We have lunch of salad wraps in the warm air and look around tiredly but positively. We are out of the Simpson. The dunes gave way to dry floodplain and a flat landscape with reeds and grass. It was dusty and dirty but allowed steady riding. Tyre pressures were now discussed and addressed. In the sand we were running very low pressures, in the teens even for the bikes. This gives great traction in sand but can be an issue on rocky surfaces. We brought them up to stiffen up the sidewalls, e.g. in Max we put 25psi in the front and 30psi in the back due to the weight and the trailer.
Innie or Outie?
From where we were, heading north to Birdsville, there are two options; the Inside Track and the Outside or just plain Birdsville Track. Not a lot of us had travelled the inside track before; it is often closed if damp or wet. It is shorter than the main track but it is a quantity unknown. The plan put in action at lunch was Brad and Joc going up it to check it out. They would leave a water bottle at the intersection of the Inside Track and the main Track to signify that it was good and they had gone that way. No bottle, go the main way. The second group of bikes got away from lunch before the cars with the rider on the plan being that they would wait at the intersection if they didn’t get the nod that it was good; if it was good they would just blast down the Inside. What could go wrong with this planning?
Well plenty could, but as we were on a good day nothing did. The first 30 or so kilometres didn’t look good though. In this area you are in a junction zone of sorts of deserts with the Simpson to the west and the Strzelecki and Sturt Stony to the east. The first kilometres were definitely the Sturt Stony variety of desert, presenting an arid landscape devoid of trees, covered in red gibber stones, polished by the blowing sands and burnt by the infernal sun to present a landscape unlike any we had seen previously on this trip. The other issue was that the track was made of these stones as well, some of them quite large. It caught the Brock BMW out, puncturing his front tyre, luckily just as we came out of the landscape of the damned. Max temp gauge was showing 43 degrees at this time so it was no picnic, but great teamwork got him fixed up and under way before too long. Again here ‘good day’ kicked in, and the gibber country faded behind into a memory that would arise again one day in a nightmare. The country was dusty with shifting powdery surfaces but it enabled smooth sailing. Except for a brief stop to help Rohman with a fuel issue (FINE!), we all got safely into Birdsville a day ahead of our plan, which was fantastic for our physical and mental health and for our prep to push on to Byron Bay.
Birdsville: shut for the summer.
We found Birdsville to be pretty much shut for the summer. Half the pub was shut down, the bakery was closed, the airport quiet and things generally rolling into a heat induced summer as the tourists stay away from the hot weather. We are some of the only mad dogs (I won’t call us Englishmen!) to go out in the midday sun. Previous trips here had suggested to us that this place had lost its ‘bush town’ character and was now more of a brand than anything. Our thoughts were confirmed pretty much as we looked to get a feed at the pub and they only had burgers. We drank all the Coopers Pale Ale that they had in stock. We were pretty dry of course.
Anything can happen at a bush pub on a Friday night.
Some might remember that last time we came here we made the pub our own and whooped it up. We did this again. First there was a brou ha-ha with Joc’s hat which ended up in the RFDS donation tin high up on the wall. Then there was the matter of Eddie’s tooth. Eddie had been annoyed by a wobbly tooth for a few days, pestering Ohso to pull it out. Ohso wasn’t that keen on being in on this, so again we turned to our medical team, Doctor Joc and Nurse Brad. An operating table was prepared (the pub pool table) and Eddie laid out on it. What happened next was relatively surreal and is still hard to believe even though we have the photos to prove it. After a bit of pantomime which involved bandages, a splint and lots of tomato sauce, Eddie’s tooth was actually pulled out on the pool table in the bar of the Birdsville Hotel…with a Leatherman. Some more pantomime ensued, with a camel’s tooth being planted in Eddie and pulled out for the cameras, complete with some food still on it. That about sums up the night really, as we tiredly celebrated our victory of sorts over the Simpson Desert.
Pushed down and held by the Simpson yesterday and already carrying the effort of two and a half weeks of trekking, a series of events would ebb and flow our day. Bad day yesterday, hopefully good day today.
Early Morning Kerfuffle
Smashed the day before, we hoped for recovery through sleep. It was not to be. It was hot during the day and it stayed hot at night with little to no breeze. We sweated like dogs in and out and on top of our swags. In the heat around 2.00am there was a smattering of rain, a few drops of precious liquid into the sand. It annoyed many of us as we didn’t know if it would keep raining and dampen everything we had lying around or not. A few of us got up anyway just in case. Back to bed for half an hour or so and then we had the ‘A dingo’s got my Ohso’ incident. Eddie woke and saw that Ohso was not in bed. He had a quick boy look for him but couldn’t find him, so he went and woke Carl. Carl said to look in the car which he did but still no Ohso. Eddie goes back to Carl to relay this information. Three quarters of the camp is awake now and one or two are getting up. Eddie has another look around but still no Ohso. Carl gets up and gets Brock out. Everyone is awake listening and trying to remember where there clothes and boots are, as we start to think about Azaria. A Stibilj family trait is that when you get older your hearing drops away. Brock, who is pretty sharp with most things, hears a strange sound. At first he thinks that it’s Dingos. On closer listening it is coming from the top of a nearby dune and it’s a girl singing. The search party scale the dune and find Ohso there in a happy place. He is sitting in his chair, listening to Taylor Swift, happy to be here in the Simpson Desert. On waking him he explains that he planned to sit there and watch the sun come up but had fell asleep. Poor Ohso, his epiphany was broken.
The Leader is Up and About.
There is a bit of a positive vibe today as our man Carlos is up and about, despite the adventures overnight. Around 4.30 am there is a mix of sounds again. A bubble of voices and some laughter, the noise of a jet high overhead and in the distance the howls of dingoes as they relay the news across the dunes. It’s a mix of modern and primeval, but it’s all good. There is a good vibe in the air.
Salt Lake Spectacular.
Camp is broken quite quickly and the squadron of bikes is sent away in two waves. The first fly early to try and put some miles before the heat sets in again. Yesterday’s 46 would not be topped but it would get close. Smashed yesterday, we have a two-step objective today. If the going is hard we will stop at Warburton Crossing for the night, a distance of around 200kms. If we can get going hard we will aim for Birdsville, which is a total of around 370 for the day. The second wave of bikes is paused for the ‘salt lake spectacular’. Brad and Joc take a few runs up and down the salt lake with the drone up above to get some footage The runs are not all that quick as the lake surface is a bit soft and sucks at their power. Of course it quickly descends into farce as they decide to take turns at ‘rooster-tailing’ each other and the assembled photographers. Another good sign.
The Track is Good.
We push across to Knolls Track in three groups now. The first group of bikes, the second lot of bikes and then the cars. The day is warming up but the track is improving. Scotty had heard that this section was graded in 2013 and this mail looks to be true. The track is in good nick and we start to push on, with average speeds going up. The cars are now up to 50 to 60 kmph, the Bradsjocs™ average speed much higher. Good day? Yep, good day.
Good Progress to Lunch at Warburton Crossing.
Despite a couple of stops for a puncture and a photo opportunity we make great progress and we get to Warburton Crossing, just off the Birdsville Track but around 200 kms south of Birdsville around 1.00-1.30pm. Four bikes are waiting there for the three cars. We have lunch of salad wraps in the warm air and look around tiredly but positively. We are out of the Simpson. The dunes gave way to dry floodplain and a flat landscape with reeds and grass. It was dusty and dirty but allowed steady riding. Tyre pressures were now discussed and addressed. In the sand we were running very low pressures, in the teens even for the bikes. This gives great traction in sand but can be an issue on rocky surfaces. We brought them up to stiffen up the sidewalls, e.g. in Max we put 25psi in the front and 30psi in the back due to the weight and the trailer.
Innie or Outie?
From where we were, heading north to Birdsville, there are two options; the Inside Track and the Outside or just plain Birdsville Track. Not a lot of us had travelled the inside track before; it is often closed if damp or wet. It is shorter than the main track but it is a quantity unknown. The plan put in action at lunch was Brad and Joc going up it to check it out. They would leave a water bottle at the intersection of the Inside Track and the main Track to signify that it was good and they had gone that way. No bottle, go the main way. The second group of bikes got away from lunch before the cars with the rider on the plan being that they would wait at the intersection if they didn’t get the nod that it was good; if it was good they would just blast down the Inside. What could go wrong with this planning?
Well plenty could, but as we were on a good day nothing did. The first 30 or so kilometres didn’t look good though. In this area you are in a junction zone of sorts of deserts with the Simpson to the west and the Strzelecki and Sturt Stony to the east. The first kilometres were definitely the Sturt Stony variety of desert, presenting an arid landscape devoid of trees, covered in red gibber stones, polished by the blowing sands and burnt by the infernal sun to present a landscape unlike any we had seen previously on this trip. The other issue was that the track was made of these stones as well, some of them quite large. It caught the Brock BMW out, puncturing his front tyre, luckily just as we came out of the landscape of the damned. Max temp gauge was showing 43 degrees at this time so it was no picnic, but great teamwork got him fixed up and under way before too long. Again here ‘good day’ kicked in, and the gibber country faded behind into a memory that would arise again one day in a nightmare. The country was dusty with shifting powdery surfaces but it enabled smooth sailing. Except for a brief stop to help Rohman with a fuel issue (FINE!), we all got safely into Birdsville a day ahead of our plan, which was fantastic for our physical and mental health and for our prep to push on to Byron Bay.
Birdsville: shut for the summer.
We found Birdsville to be pretty much shut for the summer. Half the pub was shut down, the bakery was closed, the airport quiet and things generally rolling into a heat induced summer as the tourists stay away from the hot weather. We are some of the only mad dogs (I won’t call us Englishmen!) to go out in the midday sun. Previous trips here had suggested to us that this place had lost its ‘bush town’ character and was now more of a brand than anything. Our thoughts were confirmed pretty much as we looked to get a feed at the pub and they only had burgers. We drank all the Coopers Pale Ale that they had in stock. We were pretty dry of course.
Anything can happen at a bush pub on a Friday night.
Some might remember that last time we came here we made the pub our own and whooped it up. We did this again. First there was a brou ha-ha with Joc’s hat which ended up in the RFDS donation tin high up on the wall. Then there was the matter of Eddie’s tooth. Eddie had been annoyed by a wobbly tooth for a few days, pestering Ohso to pull it out. Ohso wasn’t that keen on being in on this, so again we turned to our medical team, Doctor Joc and Nurse Brad. An operating table was prepared (the pub pool table) and Eddie laid out on it. What happened next was relatively surreal and is still hard to believe even though we have the photos to prove it. After a bit of pantomime which involved bandages, a splint and lots of tomato sauce, Eddie’s tooth was actually pulled out on the pool table in the bar of the Birdsville Hotel…with a Leatherman. Some more pantomime ensued, with a camel’s tooth being planted in Eddie and pulled out for the cameras, complete with some food still on it. That about sums up the night really, as we tiredly celebrated our victory of sorts over the Simpson Desert.
