Margaret’s Travel Log 5: Simpson Desert Trip Days 10 to 12

Day ten began cool and windy and the sky was cloudless at dawn. For the first time on our trek, we would head south today. Leaving the campsite at around 9.30, we retraced our path back to Eyre Creek and, after crossing the creek bed, walked for about 20 minutes along a narrow vehicular track between coolabah trees. Before long, the northern end of a red sand dune appeared east of the road so we left the road to follow the dune.

The northern end of a long dune. All dunes run north/south, in the direction of the prevailing winds. The red sand stands out from the surrounding grassy plain and makes an excellent contrast against the blue sky.

Skirting around the end of the dune, we continued southwards along the swale, which contained the remnants of waterholes. The environment here was quite different from the other areas we had passed through because the sand in the swales was almost white in places and grey-brown in others.

A change of scene, with pale cream sand and more shallow waterholes.

The patches of water were more frequent and we observed many more cattle footprints, along with occasional small mobs of Herefords. We stopped for lunch on the side of a dune, having travelled 8.2 kilometres. Small clouds began appearing in the sky and the wind increased, making walking more difficult.

The effect of the strong southerly wind can be seen in the branches of the trees. Another long red dune can be seen along the horizon.

Because the wind was so strong, Andrew decided we should stop shortly before 3.00 pm, which was earlier than any of us expected. The campsite was located in a broad swale on the side of the dune. We only covered 13.9 kilometres today.

The campsite on day 10 was in a broad swale beside a low dune. The camels can be seen grazing on vegetation around the camp.

Day 11 began unfavourably, with T.C.’s load slipping as he began descending the western side of the dune we had camped beside. Although Andrew had checked each camel’s load before starting off, T.C. and Morgan (at the end of String A) made it plain they weren’t happy about something with continual grumbling and occasional refusal to move forward. Even sending String B ahead, failed to urge String A on. We soon discovered the reason for T.C.’s unease when his saddle and load slid sideways. The trek was delayed while the saddle’s girth was cut to release the load and the entire load was repacked. By this time it had also become obvious that Morgan’s load was insecure, so he was also reloaded and the trek could resume.

Heading along the dune to make it easier for the camels to walk down the slope to the eastern side.

We only walked 11.9 kilometres on day 11, stopping to set up camp at about 2.30 pm on the side of a fairly high dune, just before a boundary fence.
With encouragement from several of the trekkers, Ingrid agreed to run a yoga class on top of the dune at sunset – another good photo opportunity, although it quickly became too dark to record anything more than silhouettes.

Yoga on the dune.

Our final day of walking began with a cloudless sky and slight breeze, which soon became a strong and gusty wind. During the morning, this wind swung between south and south-south-east and it was impossible to find any shelter. Beanies and warm jackets were the order of the day.
We had to diverge to the east to pass around a fenced area and most of the morning was spent walking through low open scrub, with a much denser grassy cover than we had seen before. Occasional small mobs of Herefords were seen in the distance and once somebody spotted a herd of wild camels in the distance. They quickly disappeared over the dune when they sighted us.
An early stop was ordered for lunch in a dry claypan, where we found several discarded Aboriginal grinding stones and cutting tools (which we left in place for future visitors).

Lunch on day 12.

Aboriginal artefacts found at the day 12 lunch spot.

The dunes grew lower and more widely spaced as we continued south during the afternoon. At around 2.00 pm we came across a waterhole where there were two small coolabah trees crowded with corellas – and in the background a pair of brolgas. The latter spotted us as we drew near and sidled slowly away from the water – but not before I had managed to grab a quick shot of them.

The campsite that afternoon was beside the track that would bring Brendan and the OKA to collect us for our trip back to Adelaide. It being a couple of days after full moon, this was my last chance to attempt to photograph star trails and I called upon the expertise of Ryan (who works for most of the year at Arkaroola in the Flinders Ranges and has considerable knowledge of the night sky) to help me point my camera at the Southern Celestial pole. The resulting 40-minute exposure is shown below.

Star trails photographed with the EOS 40D and 10-22mm lens set at the 10mm position. Note the distortion in the vehicle on the left side of the frame.