At last we travelled on some easier roads and arrived in Warburton soon after 11.00am. We booked into the Camping Park attached to the Roadhouse. It was great to use the washing machine and let all blow dry on the line.We were able to re-stock our food supplies from the store. We will be away from 'shops' for a week as we travel down to Cocklebiddy.We visited the local Cultural Centre and Art Gallery. The Aboriginal Art on display was most impressive..even some felted works and some lovely glass platters. The weather is still very warm..hopefully no rain!!
It would be great to receive some comments from those who are following our Safari.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Gunbarrel to Heather Highway
Thursday July 28th
 |
| Geoff & John pumping water |
A day of rough and very rough roads as we progressed along the Gunbarrel Highway and then onto the Heather Highway. The flowers and hilly terrain were pretty and worth photographing. We stopped to inspect stwo memorials to Len Beadell who initially surveyed these roads. We came by several bores, one of which we were able to pump water from. The days traveling time was 6 to 7 hours when we covered only the short distance of 120 km. The temperature rose to 31 deg the highest we have experienced.
Gunbarrel Highway
Wednesday July 27th
The roads/tracks have been very slow and rough for quite a few days now. Today we only travelled about 110 km and were pleased to camp this evening after very severe corrugations on the Gunbarrel Highway. The bush has been extremely pretty and varied. We went through a paradise for daisies and then a garden of Grevillias both the Honey and the Desert variety...both in full bloom.
 |
| Desert Myrtle |
The most entertaining thing for the morning was finding 2 large camels on the track. They immediately turned and trotted, in their swaying fashion, along the track ahead of us. We followed them for over 30 minutes as they were too silly to step off the track. In the 30 minutes they averaged 25km per hour. Eventually they careered off into the bushy desert.
Mulgan Rockhole
Tuesday July 26th
A day trip to see the Mulgan Rockhole which did not appear to have any water in it and to McPherson's Pillar. This was a rugged rocky outcrop high above the surrounding lands. The shale ranged from white, cream, tan, brown purple and mauve and appeared quite glass like.
 |
| Eucalyptus Pachyphylla |
We lunched at this site and were entertained by hundreds of fire tail finches flying about the area and very close to us. We then realized that a nearby eucalypt had amazing red flower buds on it. John has identified it as eucalyptus pachyphylla. It has beautiful red buds, a cream flower and a large nut to follow.
It was all very exciting to enjoy this pleasure in such a remote place.
On returning to the lake we noticed a few swans in the distance and quite a number of ducks diving for their dinner. It has been a great place to spend an extra day. Both sunrise and sunset over the waters has been very pretty.
Lake Cohen
Monday July 25th
Luckily the few clouds have blown away and the weather continues to be delightfully warm.
The narrow highway/track continues to be quite rough in patches. We drove up to see
Mc Dougall Knoll which provided us with a 360deg vista of the surrounding Gibson Desert.
The wild flowers today have been on much smaller plants and ground covers. However it is no less exciting to see such a brightly coloured pretty garden in the wild.
We lunched by Lake Cohen which is a magnificent fresh water inland lake. Disappointingly we found no water birds. However the huge flocks of budgerigars have made up for this. John and Geoff filled some water containers from the lake using John's special little pump. The edges of the lake are very soft so it is easy to have boots unexpectedly covered in mud.
This is such a special place that we moved further around the water and set up camp with the plan to stay for 2 nights. A great opportunity to wash a few clothes.
 |
| Road runs into Lake Cohen |
Gary Highway - Windy Corner
Sunday July 24th
Great camp under the ghost gums near Whau Whau Well. It was 9deg this morning whereas last time we camped here in 2003 it was -2deg in the morning! We have enjoyed a wonderful week of warm sunny weather.
There were many more birds today but so hard to identify...zenra finch, budgerigars, crimson chats pigeons and quails. The track was narrow and rough and sometimes rather overgrown. We drove through 2 large areas where the spinifex was dead..most unusual..we can only presume the areas had been very wet and the plants had drowned.
By 2.00pm today, at Windy Corner, we had not seen another vehicle for 48 hours. During the afternoon we saw 12 vehicles.
Tonight we can hear owls, dingoes and a camel in the night. The stars in the desert sky, have been spectacular every evening.
 |
| Spinifex Garden |
Gary Junction turn south to Gary Highway
Saturday July 23rd
We have not seen another vehicle all day. Early morning we travelled the last 20km of the Gary Junction Road and turned onto the Gary Highway.
At the crossroads we inspected and signed the travellers' registration book and noted that Anne Beadell (mother of Gary) had signed the book on her way through to the CanningStock Route. We also noted that Beth & John Harrison had signed the book on July 6th 2010.
John and I have driven along the Gary Highway in 2003. What a privilege to experience this scenery again. The Gibson Desert is in full bloom....a profusion of flowers of many colours....yellow, red, cream, blue, mauve, pink and many more shades. Added to this were Crimson Chats, Zebra Finches, Masked Woodswallows and Budgerigars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)