Desert Walk
20-22 April 2007
Welcome Bog-onians, let me tell you about our adventure.
We'll start with a little picture of Oz. As we drove out to the west of the state, into the setting sun, we often came across large clouds of rising dust. The dust we soon found was being driven up by great mobs of sheep, hungrily walking around barren paddocks searching for tucker. Now how Australian is that?.
Camping at the corner of Albacutya rewarded us with crystal clear skies, and absolute silence apart from one Mopoke. Before dawn the south wind picked up though, generating a constant hiss from the red gums.
Saturday
Up in the pre dawn darkness about 6.10am. We had clouds and the threat of forecast rain. From the famous corner of Lake Albacutya where all fun starts, (You can still see the bleached bones of the dead roo mentioned years ago.) Peter was our pilot. Pete on compass and me on pace counter. We had a 7.5km walk to Archbold track. But the rain started, so on went the gortexs.
This navleg takes about 3.5hours. During it Pete had a good introduction to desert walking, the good bits and the bad. I think he sees the need for long clothes out there, regardless of temperature. The weather was cloudy and gloomy for most of this leg. We found two old mallee fowl nests along the way. Saw fresh "chook" scratchings in red loam areas, and Pete saw them first... very large golden orb spiders sitting there in their big webs, strung between bushes filling up their larders.
We took a little care and tried not to disturb them. Can you imagine a spider the size of your thumb stuck on your face as you worked your way through the bush?...shudder!!. As the clouds cleared and the sun came out we had a few stings from midges but only at low pest levels.
We found the fire zone again that Hans, Roslyn and I found last spring, we now know its a big nth/sth prescribed strip burn they are carrying out. And the good news is that its all springing back to life again...good old ozzy bush.
On Archbold track and besides Mt Slops, we had a good break. Water and scroggin. Leaving our packs very obviously on the track we climbed, unburdened to the summit and gazed out into the park. Vast and green, except for our fire scar. I showed Pete the target, the ramp shaped sandhill with its little neighbour to its east.
Our next navleg was to walk on the track for 4kms to my WP 2 position. While we were plodding along here, in the white sand, with bright midday sun I topped one of the crests and espied two emus just walking towards us enjoying each other's company, completely oblivious to us bendigonians. I silently signalled to Pete to back off and we moved back a couple of metres and hid in the bushes to wait.
Presently, the first one strolled over the crest, beautiful beast it was young and healthy looking. BUT, it spotted us, so it put out that alert "doong doong" sound they do, and reversed its tracks. When we stood up, we saw them pelting hell for leather away from us then darted off into the bushes. Thats a pretty rare sight out there, perhaps a small bonus for using the track!
At WP2 we dug up 5lts of water. (PS: Muriel, the water bottle with a message from Hans is still there, buried 12 inches down in the cool sand.) While sitting here we did a time and motion study of planned walk, time available, length of day and the return trip on Sunday.
We changed plans, So we walked another 2.5kms on the track to a nominated sandhill, from where I was supposed to take a compass bearing to ramp hill, and from where we could watch up and down the track for beasts of the bush. Just near camp we passed a putrid recently dead Roo. Boy was it on the nose!. Unfortunately it was only about 100mtr from our sandhill, but when we got up there we found we were out of smell ground zero, phew!
We set up camp, aired out sleeping gear etc. Pete mucked around camp and checked the footy scores while I strolled Nth up the track a bit, looking for familiar landmarks and objects. I "refound" some sinkholes in a red loam valley. Since the burnoff and track clearing, they were a bit more obvious. I saw there were lots of dog/dingo tracks along here. The rest of the evening was a normal desert "away from the world" one, with lots of insects chirping all around us.
Sunday
Up 0615, predawn. We were ready to rock and roll at 7am. As a warm up, Pete and I left our packs on Archbold track, and strolled about 230 paces north to investigate the sink holes. Quite a few. One even had a mini eroded cliff. Where does the soil and water go to, one would ask?
0715 packs on and head south as the sun rose. This morning we spotted quite a few Kangaroos, hopping this way and that. We stopped at Mt Slops (how do you pronounce that in Swedish?) for a spell. One last look from the summit, where we came from and where we were going to, then back on track.
Even with rare vehicle use the track itself is too loose to walk on easily, so we found it better to walk on the sides of the track where the sand is more stabilised. They have rolled it and widened the track verges so we had plenty of space. ( Always a bit of a worry not knowing where the famous ABC TV Rainbow dog trapping lady has set her traps? And whether her markers were knocked down but the traps left intact.)
We reached the treated pine logs barring entrance to an old track, had a drink, it was warming up now, and I piloted us away. Course was about S.E. Distance about 6kms. Apart from one really mongrel patch of interlocking cypress, the rest was normal and easily accommodated.
This navleg gave us a few midge bites, saw a few different bird varieties and was even warm enough to increase thirst. We had lunch along the way, sitting in the shade of a bush.
So there is the tale. No one else’s tracks, lots of animals, and we did about 28.5 kms which equates to about 42,892 paces plus some extras.
Thanks to Peter P for his company, and his reports of Collingwood's collywobbles.
Bill Clark