June 18, 2005
March 21, 2004
Sunday: To the East McDonnell's
Originally logged August 24, 2003
Rebuilt, reprovisioned, and refreshed, we hit the road early on Sunday morning. We filled up with truck diesel and stove LPG at a BP near the gap in the mountains south of Alice Springs.
We ran east along the Ross Hwy (8) out of Alice Springs, parallel to and south of the East McDonnell mountains. 28km later we took a turnoff for what Lonely Planet calls the Ringwood Beef Road which eventually brought us to a turn north, through the "Explorers Trail 4WD Only." This heads north into the mountains passing the N'Dhala Gorge Nature Park, Ross River Homestead, and eventually reaching the Trephina Gorge Nature Park.
Continue reading "Sunday: To the East McDonnell's"March 16, 2004
Friday and Saturday: Logistics Weekend
Originally journalled in August 2003
Friday
After licking our wounds at pleasant Mt. Dare we headed back to Alice Springs to fix our tires and get more supplies for the trip's second half. Since we had consumed all our good spare tires and had only a very marginal spare left, I decided to take the Stuart Highway back to Alice Springs. That offered the least chance of any more tire problems before we returned for repairs.
In retrospect we probably could have blasted home along the main Finke N-S road on higher tire pressure. The ride would have been more interesting and I could have taken some documentary photos of the Finke Route, but by the time I thought of it in those terms, instead of tire risk mitigation, we were halfway along the rig road that connects Finke to Kulgera town and the Stuart Highway.
Like I said, I only took the Stuart because it was best for our tire management situation. Otherwise we all hated any drive along it. Matt remarked, it's always a horrible way to finish up a 4wd trip -- it's both dull and dangerous. It scarcely deserves the label highway -- it's more like a secondary state road -- a narrow two-lane road with a wide, sandy berm and lots of fast oncoming traffic. . At night it's a lethal cocktail of drunk drivers and stray animals. For a long-term resident of Alice Springs it must be horrible when night falls -- any escape is a long drive on a bad road.
I don't remember doing much when we got in Friday night. We arrived just as evening fell. Even the car rental agreements in the outback proscribe night-time driving. The risk of animal strikes is too great.
As always, we settled for another night at the Todd Tavern. I don't recall where we had our meal, but probably it was... the Todd Tavern. We've eaten many square meters of breaded schnitzel and many kilograms of Three Vegetable Delight at the Todd Tavern in 2003.
Saturday
We had a lot of chores to fit in Saturday morning if we hoped to be able to head back to the Outback on Sunday.
We took Ling to the Laundromat next to the BP station and let Mom and Dad spend the day wandering around town.
Expecting no sympathy and no warranty, we took the trucks over to Budget. As expected, they told us the tires were our responsibility. They issued a purchase/install order to Goodyear along North Stuart Highway. We hurried over to begin the repairs. They were only going to be open until 1pm and would be closed Sunday.
Matt and I spent an unremarkable hour waiting for the job(s) to be finished. We did stroll over to former Finke champion Michael Vroom's Desert Edge motorcycle dealership. I don't recall what make he sold (I think all the bikes were red ... that makes them Hondas?) but he had all the models from tiny 125cc up to the 650cc giants. The curious thing about these bikes was that aside from the engine size, they otherwise looked almost entirely identical. Literally nothing but a different engine.
So after an hour or more the tires were finished. By now we're totally sick of Tire Talk so I don't even recall what the guy told us about the tires, but I think we ended up pressurizing them to the high side of his suggested range. [Even now I am sick of talking about those fucking tires]
Since it was a purchase order, we were hoping that maybe it might get lost in the mail or something, and that the replacement cost for three tires wouldn't ever catch up with us. (It ultimately did... Something like 900$AUD I vaguely remember) Regardless, we were now fully repaired and could get on our way.
So it was back into town, pick up Ling, and then over to Woolworths where we bought $180 of groceries. They filled up six apple crates. Throughout the trip we'd been using these teriffic apple package crates that were very sturdy and had a cardboard lid that covered the entire crate, essentially making it double-thickness. They worked substantially better than the cardboard filing boxes we bought at KMart earlier. Plus they were free! (thanks BiLo produce guy!)
After a mediocre lunch at the Sport Cafe we adjourned to the Todd Tavern outside patio where a cranky, unhappy waitress served us Coopers Original Pale Ales (my favorite beer) for the rest of the late afternoon.
Typically, we had dinner at Todd Tavern. It was something of a speed camp, though, because I had to run down to Andrew Langford's 'Sounds of Starlight' theatre in order to book Saturday night tickets. I was dismayed to find it was fully sold out and I was wait listed.
Happy endings, though, as we did manage to get seats. There was a giant high school class in attendance this time, so the room was much busier than our visit in June, during the Finke. Seeing it a second time was still entertaining even though it was 98% the same show as June. My parents certainly liked it; I think Matt was more neutral on Rick Wakeman of the Desert.
The show was over by 10pm at which point there is not much to do other than sleep, so we all headed back to Todd Tavern and got ready for hauling out first thing Sunday morning.
September 06, 2003
Day 4: Mount Dare
As agreed the night before, instead of the languid breakfast schedule, we were up, packed, and ready-to-go within 45 minutes. So long stinky Cattle Camp.
The GPS was handy in directing us back though the trees and around the deep, twisty stream beds to the main road. It was a quick hour's run to Mount Dare. We arrived by 9am.
The homestead operator, Dave, was surprised we had come in so early, and the rooms weren’t going to be ready for another few hours. We took this as bad news, as some of our early-morning efficency-motivation was coming from knowledge that we’d be enjoying a decent breakfast plus showers in only a few hours.
We decided to kill time by driving down to Dalhousie Springs, 70km away. Perhaps 20% of the way there we got a hailing call on the CB from Mom & Dad, that they had a ‘possible flat.’ Groan, we already had only just enough tires to go into the Simpson desert. Eating a tire here would fuck us.
We drove back, and sure enough, the front left tire had some huge rips in the sidewall. In fact, the back left one looked like it had seen heavy action too. I guess he ran off the road a bit and into and along the graded gibber scree that lines the road. This left us all extremely irritated and disgusted. After fixing the flat, we decided the plan would be back to Mt Dare, see if we could get a new tire there, otherwise, a conservative retun up the Stuart Highway, to Alice, to get a repair. Then try again. Mood was black – first the destroyed KAP rig, now this.
When we got back there, the owner, Dave, said he could put a tire on. We hung around for an hour or so, waiting for the rooms to be finished and the tire to be fixed. Matt went off for an hour’s hike. Mom and Dad baked in the car listening to more Orville Wright, the 30yo invalid, and Ling and I loitered.
Dave fixed us with a tire – a used one, but at least a safety margin.
Next we got our rooms. Mt. Dare is simply a house that’s been filled up with a bunch of beds. The style is the classic Australian home with a 10ft porch, enclosed, that runs the perimeter of the house. In places, though, they’d permanently enclosed it into a kitchen area. That renovation was less aesthetic, but the rest of the house was quite rustic and cool. Ling and I liked it quite a lot.
I kept getting smell tracks of my grandparents' former home, so that made it fieel quite homey. Cannot figure out what the smell is – the only commonality I can see was old linoleum and old wood. If I ever need a week's escape to just chill out, take walks, and work on a lap-top, Mt. Dare would be a nice place to do so.
After cleaning up, and eating scraps for lunch, we were in a better mood. Dinner would be after night, at 730, so we decided to drive down to Dalhousie again. We drove about 20% of the way when I picked up a shopping bag or debris around the wheel, as I heard the phft phft phft phft through the window. As I slowed down, the sound's period also slowed down. As I came to a halt, we still wishfully hoped it a bit of debris (in the middle of a huge desert...), but of course it wasn’t….. My right rear tire was flat. Absolutely staggered an dumbfound and disgusted and angry we stared at it. So I hadn’t run off the road, was only driving 80kmh, and hadn’t hit anything obviously nasty. So wtf is the problem?
So… change that tire too. Now we have no spares left except the stopgap Mt. Dare spare. During our training course with Jol, one of the first things we did was check the tire pressure. Jol and Ken declared the 50-55 psi the Budget rentals came with as deadly. So we drained them down to 30/35 (f/r) on his instruction. It worked fine the whole time.
But after the second flat, I looked at the tire… it said “55psi” on it. Not “55 max” or “35/55” No. it said “55 psi.” Well hell. So I checked the owner's manual. For the 7.5x16 tires (Dunlop Street Grippers SP) we were running, the recommended pressure was also higher 42/54 !! Ugh. So it appeared to us that the tires were simply too soft for the road conditions. We were in gibber country. The road is an amalgam of dirt and sharp gibber scree. Our idea is that the tires are just too soft and bounce and slice against the embedded scree. We bumped everything up to 42psi and drove more slowly back. It‘s still confusing to us.
Along the way, and too my utter horror, Dad asked a passing convoy (including a 6-wheel Land Cruiser) what their tire pressures were, and mentioned that we had just destroyed several of our tires. . The other drivers were damn soft – low thirties. Somemore, they conditioned that by saying, “but we’re running a trailer [so our pressures are higher than normal]” The interim conclusion we reached was: “these are cheap tires (Dunlop SP Street Grippers) that must be run at high pressure, otherwise they rip. That running at 55psi makes the tires too hard on these outback roads is another problem. Basically these tires seem unsuited for safe and reliable travel on outback roads.”
Matt and I were totally sick of Tire Talk by the end of the trip and have no interest in ever talking about it again.
The other tiny bit of irony is that as Matt and I dialed in “MDS Flat” waypoints into our GPSs, we both commented, “there’s a problem, the GPS is still stuck at “Dave Flat”.” Well, after inspection it was obvious why… We had suffered our flats approximately 100ft away from each other!
As a random dirtball said to us later, “Maybe fate meant for you not to get to Dalhousie.” As my Dad later said as I was closing the gate out of Witjjira National Park/South Australia, “I am glad to be leaving South Australia.”
Somehow our mood seemed to improve after suffering the second flat. We suddenly became copacetic about everything. We took some photos, walked around looking for forensic flat tire evidence, and eventually drove back to Mt Dare.
Well, it was very nice when they opened up their pub/general store and we grabbed a handful of Coopers Pale Ale (my favorite beer – so so so so so refreshing) and sat around on the porch having a drink and discussing new plans and rexamining history. I love the screened-in Aussie porch, and my parents enjyoed the ant trails and not talking philosophy with the drifter sitting outside.
The rest of the night was enjoyable. Around 1930, just when I was aware that I was starving, dinner was ready inside the pub. It was homestyle terrific. Very nice chicken schnitzel (better than Todd Tavern), baked acorn squash, roasted potatoes, peas, and corn. Mmmmm.
Ling invited the owners Dave and Melissa to eat with us. Theirs was an interesting story that wasn’t what you’d expect. They’re both from Melbourne (look to be our age… 30ish) and were “at the right place at the right time” to give a shot at running the then-deteriorating, poorly-run homestead. Smartly, the also got an option to take it over if things worked out. Apparently they have, as they’re taking it over now, and we certainly felt the place was well-run. It was nice to have the chance to ask lots of details questions about life in the outback.
Telephones
Telephones used to be just via hf radio. Now it is a satellite radio that then re-broadcasts on a portable phone they carry around the station. Even the antenna has turned from tower to just a satellite dish.
I commented that it seemed to work seamlessly when I called the last time. Dave pointed out that the only drawback is that it’s half-duplex. Only one person can speak at a time. I didn’t notice it when I called, but perhaps that is because I am the loudmouth and not cognizant of the delay and he just took his time in replying.
Australia takes pains to try to provide the same standard of service to the Outback people as the city people, and for the same price. Apparently neither the city dwellers nor the outback folks are happy with the arrangement. The city dwewllers are subsidizing the outback dwellers, and the outback dwellers are unhappy with the quality of the service.
Internet
I asked if they had internet (“yes”) and how it worked (“poorly”). They'd no connection at all today. He said the technicians had been out for four weeks at a time working on it (and presumably other stations). It also sounded like the sat phone and internet only recently arrived in June. The dish was 1m and driven by 3-4m2 of solar panels.
Floods
In 2001(?) they suffered flooding. Mt. Dare is on a flood plain, so water from everywhere settles there. 65mm of rain regionally became 12ft of water locally. He pointed out that there was an enormous levee around the station, keeping the water out and them in. He had snapshots of his mud-bogged truck 3 weeks after the floods. Not suprisingly this flood set off a huge explosion of mosquitos and bush flies.
Gasoline
Matt remarked how it was surprising that their gasoline was only 35c/liter more than it was in Darwin. Doesn’t provide much extra money for the logistical problems of dropping off a tanker (once a month) from Alice Springs. Apparently a road train drops off the tanks along the route and recollects them on the way back. Dave didn’t share his fuel economics other than to say he had a reasonable fuel supplier. He was also amused that we indirectly praised his prices. Apparently he regularly deal with the tourists irate at the Outback prices.
A few hypotheses about fuel prices wouldbe that maybe the traffic/business of regulars and locals is more vital to success than the business of tourists. And presumably the locals have fuel buffers and can simply avoid one station for another if the station is charging tourst-rape prices. As another metric, gasoline in Finke was 1.30/l – 5c cheaper. (Are there tax breaks for Aborigine pumping stations?)
Roads
Another 'Outback Right' is that there is at least one good road out of each community.
Airstrips
Mt Dare has two airstrips. The old one, located farther away, is for wet-weather but doesn’t get flooded. The second, newer one is closer. Both are day-time only strips. Dave is renovating the new one with procedures to make it “nighttime emergency certified.” It won’t be for regular night use, but only in emergencies. Sounds like not too much is involved, simply putting out strings of lights during the hour it takes for the flying doctor to arrive, for instance. Both were the same distance.
The flying mailman flies in each Saturday to deliver the post.
Flying Doctor ServiceEach station is given a huge, exhaustive cabinet of medicines. Everything is carefully itemized and audited. If there is an emergency, a radio-based doctor can authorize the station to open the case and dispense a certain medicine.
Cars
Dave runs a basically stock Nissan Pathfinder or Patrol truck. It has a limited slip differential, because that is all you need in sandy country, because all four wheels are on the road generally. The Simpson Desert isn’t the Rubicon Trail. They normally run their tires at 28psi. Sand pressure is 20psi. They drive the road 110-120mph and have had only one puncture in twelve months.
Supplies
They go to Alice Springs once a month to get supplies. 4.5 hours up the Finke Road and then back along the StuartHwy/Kulgera/Finke route because the truck is so heavily laden. At times they go two or three months without a trip.
Remoteness
I asked how much they talk with the other stations, expecting that there was going to be a lot of ‘Bush Camraderie’, but it didn’t sound like that was the case. Everyone too busy or too remote to bother I guess. They mentioned that some Aborigines occasionally drive in 100km from Finke to grab a beer and then head back.
September 05, 2003
Why Hello....
So I'm been back from our trip through the Outback. There is a lot of stuff to post -- more blog entries, photos, and even some video. But oil has fallen approximately 3$ (30%) since I returned, so I've been busy.
However, in an effort to at least make some progress, I popped up a prototype album online, using still-broken JAlbum, Stas's stock 'MindHive' template, and a small pile of unadjusted photos.
This gallery is not permanent, only an experiment so that I can make some more serious progress this weekend. In the meantime enjoy the photos.
September 03, 2003
Mother was, at times, 'gripped' during the trip
Mother, before our first stream crossing, near Ross River Homestead.
September 01, 2003
Day 3: Nasty Cattle Pasture
Last night wrap-up
Yesterday, after having written the second day's blog entry, we played around skywatching for the rest of the night.
As always, the Southern Cross (Crux) is the quickest constellation to find. Then we worked up to the two stars above (supposedly part of a camel). Also tried to find the other star that the southern cross points to that somewhere along the line they form marks the southern pole rotational axis.
We saw what turned out to be an airplane (could make out the white, red, and green blinking nav lights) that slowly disappeared into the horizon, but along the way did the “sudden right angle turns” optical effect. This phenomenon is so definitely visible that there is no question what the ufo people are seeing. When I get time, I should go research the cause of this effect. My guess is that it is some combination of atmospheric disturbance and some trick where your eyes lose any other point of reference and start freely rolling about, searching for a reference frame.
Mars burns very brightly, as it will the whole trip. Lots of bickering over star descriptions, with one book using ordinal numbering (which is ludicorous) and the other using sgtrange greek lettering and no real name for the stars.
So eventually we went off to bed. Ling was irate over my lack of tooth-brushing. Matt lasted about half a hour in our tent before the sensation of being trapped in a nylon coffin w/ a spastic, bickering husband-and-wife team overwhelmed him. For that night and all further nights he slept on the folded-down seats of a LandCruiser.
I slept fine – if anything it was too warm. Next morning woke up, Matt had gone off for a walk. Fussed around for a while and eventually packed up and headed off to finish the rest of the Finke Race Course.
Destroying the KAP Rig
After another hour+ of slow driving, we got to the Bundoooma railroad ruins, formerly a watering waypoint oasis for the Ghan train.
Took an hour to set up the KAP rig, a chronically slow process. In that time a convoy of railroad enhusiasts showed up along the track. In each car was a tiny 1.5hp rail car which they run on old lines for fun. They didn’t stay long enough to see us launch the rig. (which is good, we hate company)
We got the rig up, finished a half-roll film that was left in the camera from Norway (unfortunately 200ASA print film) and then unwound the string spool, rewound it, and relaunched.
The wind was damn strong. It was a struggle to control the kite. As we were walking the kite around to different vantages, Matt was noticing sudden pan control problems, and that he was seeing the picavet in the video. This is wrong.
I was busy concentrating on keeping the kite under control when Dad said, “oh no! it fell!” Staring around in confusion for a moment, I saw on a distant dune the silver body of the kap rig, and up in the air, nothing but the picavet. This was a 200+ foot fall.
We brought down the kite and Matt recovered the frig. The aluminum chassis was severely racked, and it was immediately obvious that the pan mechansim bolt had worked itself free -- - essentially unscrewing itself in the sky. nauseating.
The Yashica camera is toast. The KAP rig chassis is twisted too. The camera took the last fall (at Death Valley) ok, but this plunge was too much. I tried to repair it, but I couldn’t undo some of the tiny screws without tearing their heads out, so I gave up. A repair shop in Singapore will have to treat the camera.
Prognosis? This is repairable … we probably can bend back the kap chassis, rebolt it into the picavet, put some locktite on the bolt that worked free. For a camera, we’ll use Matt’s Olympus, which will be fine. But it certainly cast a pall over the afternoon…. two+ hours spent and we had hardly even warmed up the camera before it all came crashing down.
Whooping the Finke
After that disappointment, we loaded the cars and headed off. After Bundooma, the roads got realllly tough. Whoop after whoop after whoop.
A "whoop"? It’s just undualating road bed about the frequency length and amplitude of a car. up down up down up down. You can’t go fast at all on them (20kmh or often less), otherwise it throws the contents of the car all over the place.
Even then, trying to avoid the punishment for speeding, the whoops' variation is enough that despite driving at what appears to be safe levels, you still get a rogue, resonant launch every tenth hump. These freak mini-crashes desertroyed a foam cooler after about twenty minutes of driving and also exploded two boxes of UHT milk, which spilled over the car, ruining a star atlas, and leaving an awful fucking stink that stays with us three days later.
The cars and bikes that come through this same section average 100khm! That's five+ times faster than we could cover it. The buggies have 26" suspensions with enormous 44" wheels. This combo allows the buggies to compartively float their bodies across all the whoops, their suspension arms taking all the movement. Madness!
You drive though this set of dunes for a long time until you come to a plain. It gradually gets better from there, although the course and its signage got a bit confusing. For short periods we were back on the main Finke/southern road, but I think we held the course properly. Only once along the route did I get off the course. Ling and I were barrelling along at 90kmh wondering where Matt and my parents were behind us. They were on the whoops, doing 5kmh wondering how we were managing to drive so maniacally in a Landcruiser identical to theirs.
Managed to get Oziexplorer ‘moving map’ working during this leg. It’s not particularly nice or easy to use in moving car. I could imagine vastly more usable systems. It’s a shame Oziexplorer is not Open Source, then we could redesign it properly. You’d probably want the thing, groan, to be run inside Linux, so that you could have a very robust, minimal on-board computer managing things.
Finishing the Finke
Anway, finishing the Finke route took the better part of the day. It was obvious by the afternoon that we were not going to make it to Mt. Dare. We crossed the Finke finish line at around 1645pm and headed out on the west-east road towards Old Andado Homestead.
Halfway between Finke and New Crown we found a camp site. It wasn’t so nice – just parked a kilometer off the road in a cattle pasture. Of course, in that stretch of road between Finke and New Crown, that’s all there is. So tough luck.
We made a minimal camp compared to the night before … no campfire, no charcoal pits. Dinner was italian sausage and onions, with the ubiquitous baked beans and peas&corn.
It was exceptionally dark and we kept having bands of low-hanging clouds sweepover us. Everything was a bit glum, although not horrible. Mom and Dad listened to a book-on-tape about the Wright Brothers “read by Boyd Atkins” and the three of us stood in the dark making wisecracks and talking shit.
We went off to bed but didn’t even bother climbing into sleeping bags – it was hot that night. Probably still in the 70s. Ling cajoled me into putting up the rainfly, which seemed unecessary, but it was a good idea befcause a few hours later we had some intermittent rain, although it didn’t even show in the ground the next day.
We agreed that night to make it a morning speed camp so that we could dash to the comparative comfort of the Mt. Dare homestead early morning of Day 4. I slept fine, but I think all night the Parentals were worried a freak rain would come, flooding the creeks, and trapping us in this cattle heath. No such luck.