22-23 July 2012
STAGE
3 CSR Days 20-21
BREADEN HILLS, BREADEN POOL, GODFREY’s TANK,
Well 48 – Yawalyawul, well 49 – Lampu, well 50 – jikarn (82 km)
A howling wind came
in at night and was around till about 9:00 am. It then calmed down to
something stronger than a breeze but not quite a wind. Moving air is what it
was.
After engines were
reving, the usual morning call of „Gas off“ saw all the men jump out of the
cabins and go around the side to turn off the gas. A frequent morning ritual.
Rarely no one gets out at the call before moving off.
An interesting day
today.
The Breaden Hills
are just spectacular. One looked like it had a chimney top.
Wind and water over
thousands of years had carved the hills into interesting formations. A short
walk into Breaden Pool revealed a lerge rock hole/cavern. When the rain comes
it would be a beautiful sight as water falls would run into the pool.
A bit further on on
the other side after a climb over a rocky hill and a walk was Godfrey’s Tank.
I chickened out of going up after climbing half way up. I was told that it was
very interesting. Hubby took some photos so I could see the pertoglyphs that
were on the rocks.
We met a convoy of
three vehicles going south whilst here.
On the way to Well
48 we came across a flowering corktree. There are quite a few cork trees on
the track but this was the first flowering one we had seen.
Well 48 was a
depression in the ground where once had stood a well.
From Well 48 to 49
the spinifex was very green. You would think you could see fields of grass.
How deceptive – it is the sharp spinifex. We are out of dune country and the
landscape is quite flat.
Well 49 had good
water and had been reconditioned. Not far from the well was the grave of Jack
Smith who died droving in 1939.
Lots of termite
mounds were in the vicinity of the well.
As we drove to Well
50 we got somewhat concerned as we could see smoke in the horizon. After
sometime we determined that it seemed contained as it was not spreading. We
camped not far from Well 50 on a claypan. No spinifex here. The earth is
extremely dry – as if it has not seen rain for many years.
Some good logs were
found so we had a good campfire and decided to have a lay day before continuing
on and going our separate ways at the end of the track. At about 8:00pm the
moving air hit again and we stood with our backs to the fire to warm up the
back of our necks. Somewhat of a ritual by now.
Next morning four
of us set off in search of the soak. After walking close to an hour we decided
to head back. The temperature rises very quickly in the morning and it was
getting very hot by the time we got back to camp 6.2 km later.
The men had quite a
lay day until, after photographing the bottom of one Oka and then their own,
someoone found a hair line crack via the photograph on the welding done earlier
on the track. So several batteries were again hooked up and a weld was done to
fix the problem.
Some of us again
had the golden opportunity to have a shower but it ended up being quite a
comedy. The water on the ground created a quadmire of mud. So the challenge
became how to avoid getting it on yourself. So the second person had to bring
an additional mat so as to avoid standing on the mud. But the gas ran out and
we heard some shrieks as the second person copt a cold shower and quickly
retired back to thrit van. By the time my turn came the mud was quite a problem.
The gas bottle had been replaced and I enjoyed a very quick but pleasant
shower.
I spent the day
making bread, pavlova and organising our photos as we were all exchanging what
we had taken. I had taken tons so I needed to cull drastically.
Our campfire
tonight was absolutely to die for. Just fantastic. The accordion was out and
pavlova was shared by all.
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