Overnight a really strong wind came through around 4am. I was sure someone was walking around the camp, but no it was just the wind.
Up and packed up, but we’re not on the road till 9!
We backtrack 10km then take the Dalhousie Springs Turn off. Another 60k’s of pretty rough roads and we pull into the springs. There only seems to be one other car here and a couple in the campground. Swimmers on, we head on over. I grab one of the dozens of Pool Noodles that are here and enter the water. I knew it was thermal, about 34°, but its really warm as I walk down the steps then jump in, a bit of a shock. At least it’s currently about 24°, and not the 34° we saw yesterday afternoon.
The guys are all surprised how warm it is when they enter. We talk to the couple already here and another guy that turns up. It’s a bit larger that I thought it would be, seems most pictures only get half of it. There are these tiny fish in the water, how they handle the heat, I’m not sure, but if you stay still they nibble at your feet and hands.
We’re there for about an hour, but after a while it gets too hot, so we get changed and hit the road again. Our next stop is Purni Bore, another 70 odd Ks up the road. Again a pretty Rough road. Maybe 10 or 15k’s before Purni we finally start to cross a few small dune.
We cross a clay pan and there is a sign so we pull up, and elect to fit the sand flags, I think officially we don’t need them for another 20ks or so.
A few more dunes and we pull into Purni Bore and we have lunch. They have flushing toilets here!
After lunch we walk the couple of hundred metres to where the bore is fountaining out. The warning sign indicate the water is hot, but George needed to prove it…. Yep official verdict, the water is hot.
We work out we’ll travel the next 30ks to the Rig Road turnoff, then work out how much further we want to travel. I didn’t think we’d hit these sort of dunes this early. We make the Rig road turnoff, and I recognise the sign as the one I pinched for the opening post of this blog series, so have to get an original photo.
We’re not turning here, we’ll drop down to the WAA line at the next intersection. There is a “camp” spot listed about 15ks up, given we’re not only doing 20-30km an hour, we think that might be a good place to stop.
A few more dunes and I’m leading as we crest a large one. I can see the wheel ruts are really deep on the descent. I think I must have panics and hit the anchors and stopped. I go to move, but we’re not budging. I try reverse, but at the angle were on I didn’t hold much hope. We’re stuck….
I jump out and can see the rear wheel dangling in the air, I’m beached. Bugger. We think about options and agree we’ll try the tracks first. We both realise our track are buried under stuff, but I get mine out without too much trouble. After a few stumbles we free….whoa what a wake up call that was. We cross a few similar dunes, but now I know what to look for. Having said that, I’ve got no idea how I’d climb that if we were going the other direction. I’m using gravity a hell of a lot to get down the.
With both our confidence a bit damaged, we pull over to camp at the next clearing a few dunes later. It helps it’s the biggest clearing we’ve seen so far.
Camp setup and the flies are almost unbearable. About 15min or so later a group of three cars come over the dunes, they slow down and seem like they may come in, but in the end continue on.
We just catch the sunset and wait for the flies to die down before cooking dinner. A nice big fire for our first night on the desert and we seem to avoid taking about the beaching.