We knew this morning would be a slow morning to get going but we didn’t account for CV boot damage. When doing prestart checks I noticed a stick punctured the CV boot. I cleaned up the wound and Droppy patched it up with self fusing tape. The wheel had to be removed to gain access, but looks like it’s all good now.
Droppy raising the car to work on the CV
That’s kind of it. Well 50 and 51 visited. They didn’t disappoint with Well 50 providing yet another landscape change of a red clay pan with gums scattered throughout.
From here we get better roads. We decided to camp at Handover camp ground. A trip down to Lake Gregory to view the sun set. And what an amazing sunset it was.
Arrived at Well 49 in the dark. We were hoping to stay at Well 48 but it didn’t look good for camping. Driving in the night is always stressful and the overgrown track was not helping but I got through it safely.
Yet another car that didn't make it
A few surprises at this Well.
A rangers hut (currently not attended).
A motorcyclist (this is the first person we’ve seen since Kunawarritji (Well 33), though we did talk to a person heading south bound on CB but since we were on a side track missed seeing them in person).
And what appears to be drinkable water.
This morning started with more golden spinifex but eventually we reached Breaden Hills. Wow, this area is beautiful. Droppy went to Goodfrey tank while Rusty and I tried to make it to Breaden springs. We got as far as seeing the sign before declaring it too overgrown and unsafe to traverse. In hindsight we should have been reporting via APRS however we both thought the walks would be short (sub 400m) and not warrant the setup time.
We ended up spending a lot of time struggling to locate each other and communicate, which APRS would have solved perfectly. Oh well.
I wish I had more time and spoons to get more drone footage of the areas as it’s truly stunning. I’m not really sure you can really capture it with video though. You just can’t represent the scale of it.
Today’s theme was apparently golden. The spinifex had this lovely golden colour through most of the areas we traveled.
Golden.
Like all the dunes we cross, the environment changes over each hump. One such area treated us with fields of yellow flowers, with no spinifex at all. It was a sight to see.
Unfortunately throughout the day I had a headache, but disappeared in the afternoon.
I think I was too entrenched in it’s beauty and wanting to see how long it lasted that I forgot to get some pictures.
We had great fun driving the geological survey track that featured a straight road. Due to the straightness of the track it meant traveling directly over many dunes without zigzagging like the rest of the track. I had been waiting for this section for days and it was an amazing experience.
Camp finally ended up in Gravity Lakes, which is a yet another stunning dry lake bed.
