An extremely busy day! First a 5k run in the morning. Performed better than my previous runs, so that’s a good sign that I’m recovering.
Then we meet our first person in quite time. A traveler heading the same direction as us but only doing part of the CSR. We parted ways after breakfast. After heading north for a bit we came past to other vehicles heading South and exchanged hellos.
A walk up Thring rock. I wasn’t going to climb this one, but it ended up looking pretty easy, and it was. About a 10 minute climb.
View from Thring rock. It's not very tall but everything else is flat
Lots of hard driving (my shoulder and arms are killing me). Lots of rock and corrugations.
At Well 31 it was discovered that we misplaced the phone used for drone photography but luckily some workers heading north bound happened to have found it and stopped at Well 32 to return it. Amazing luck!
A quick wheel swap to get back on the road
At Nyarruri (Well 32) we discovered a flat tyre on our vehicle, and had to replace it. Side wall damage, so probably shouldn’t repair ourselves.
Eventually roll into Well 33 (just past Kunawarritji) under beautiful moon light. Another group of two are also here and heading South bound. We exchanged hellos and talked about what the road conditions are like in both directions.
I gave my SIM to Droppy as I’m still not ready for the internet, even though we have coverage from the road house.
This spaghetti tin demonstrates how rough these roads are
We are running pretty ahead of schedule, even without rushing. The roads were good today. Many more dunes but also some large clay pans which were pretty cool to see.
One of the many barrels that litter the road side. It's disappointing that people just dump these when they are empty rather than carry them out
There was some evidence of rain, with some simple water crossings and muddy sections.
I love how soft these flowers look
We climbed Slate Ridge and Helen Hill. Both provided gorgeous views of the country. The climbs involved scaling a little bit of loose stone but otherwise a fairly easy climb.
There's a few little hills like this that scatter the landscape in this section.
While on Helen Hill we put out some calls on CB 40 and found a party roughly a day behind us (Well 26) and one party a day in front of us (Thring Rock)
We eventually settled on Mamunara (Well 28) as our stop today. We are fairly ahead of schedule and even discussed the possibility of a Simpson Desert crossing if we end up with time.
Sunrise over Lake Disappointment was certainly worth waking up for. I thought the lake would make for a good running track compared to the sand and rocks I’ve been running on last week but unfortunately it’s very variable and easy to break through the crust, my 5k run turned into a 3k run which turned into a 3k run/walk.
Savoury Creek crossing
Savoury Creek was a lovely change. Seeing running water for the first time in a long while. The crossing was simple for us as there had been no rain lately. Though it was a little unpleasant smelling.
Well 22 with Blåhaj
Past Well 21 the scenery changes were amazing! I’m no botanist but the best I can describe is fantasy computer game. Long tall spinifex, with purple flowers with tall skinny trees. Really loved these areas.
