Day 8. Saturday 8th October. QAA, K1, French lines.

Saturday October 8^th – Georgina Gidgee  to 30 minutes past Poeppel’s Corner. (QAA line, K1 line, French Line)

The day started awfully early for some, at 3.00am with an altercation between some local wildlife and a human face.  Poor old Dad had chosen the open swag for the night, only to be woken to one of our Long Haired Rat friends (Snausage??) biting him on the nose. He shooshed it away and figured that would be that...unfortunately, the little bugger had a taste for blood and returned again. So it was out with the tent and a clean up and bit of treatment to the face, before returning for another couple of hours sleep. The poor bugger had to keep it quiet too, so as not to put the wind up Meg (who has quite a dislike of them) and Milani who now thinks they are pretty cute critters.

Morning came around, Reve had fire under control for everyone upon waking, in readiness for pancakes all around. With a variety of flavours to choose from including plain, blueberry and mixed berry and a range of toppings – sugar lemon, maple syrup, strawberry jam and apricot jam breaky went down very nicely.

Sun peeking over the dunes

fire heating water for cuppas

Pancakes for breaky.

The inevitable communal dishes.

Leaving our campsite - the Georgina gidgee interdunes area.

A reasonably quick pack up and getaway, we were on the track at 9.15 heading for a few landmarks during the day.

Getting a birdseye view.

a Hakea of some form.. or is a grevillea?



The seed pod of the above, which suggests Grevillea to me...

I think this was a hopbush ...Dodonaea viscosa?

 A hopbush of a different color

Eremophila of some description.

the colour in the unopened buds was such a deep purple.

A really common flower, Stef named it but I can't remember.

Looking over Steve's car down the track.

A hitchiker we picked up along the way.

A change up of drivers, with Rohan taking the wheel of my car and Milani tackling her first sanddunes with Stefan. We headed out across nice undulating dunes with various interdunal habitats in between.

the track

Outta the way Steve, it's a bugger of a place to stop.

cresting the top a dune

a tree full of zebra finches.

Some of the dunes are reasonably steep really.

Dunno, but I like it.

 The first landmark was another official entry to the Simpson Desert National park, with the obligatory group shot required. Then we hit the border and crossed back into South Oz, with another %%@&# time change to deal with (it really has done my head in) which I think we stick with this time zone for the remainder of the trip.

Temperatures in the summer, would be intolerable...

Gathering at the NP sign.

The group shot.  L-R - Steve, Meg, Stef, Dad, Nicola, Rohan, Reve,
Kerri, Milani, Cathy, Mike.

 Then we found a great big claypan – lake thing to prop for lunch, thank goodness for the shade of the ‘Foxwing’ as the sun was fairly pelting down.

approaching a claypan.

Getting up to 40 was hard enough, can't imagine who brought
a sign out here into the middle of nowhere.

a right turn onto the French line, heading for Poeppel Corner.

Then off to Poeppel’s corner, the point where the three states – QLD, NT AND SA intersect, again photos required, visitors book completed and then off to find a camp for the night.

Milani atop Poeppel's post - marking the intersection
of the states of NT, SA and QLD

 Evidently when intially marked, Surveyor Poeppel had used a chain to measure distance, due to wear and tear from the heat, his chain was an inch longer than thought, so his final placement of his 'peg' was a few metres out. Hence the cement marker and the wooden mile posts are in different spots.

a wooden mile post - NT

SA

QLD

Stef atop the post and the gang egging him on.

 

I made it up with some help...3 states at one time...wow!
2 corners down..how many more to go?

Ro leapt up for the shot.

Looking over the new post to the old peg.

We actually saw a few more people today – one couple, two cars and a family at Poeppel’s corner and then another group camped in great spot, which we almost shared , but we journeyed on over another dune to find a lovely flat spot. Our first set up without strong winds etc.

approaching another claypan.

the crew crossing in front of us.

view from Ska's window.

 Given the sun was still a couple of hours from setting, we wised up tonight and chose to pick our ‘spot’ then assist with Foxwing, chairs, table, nibbles accompanied by ‘coldies’ all round to enjoy the beauty of the bush for a while, rather than tackling the job of setting up in the heat of the day...smart move I say.

Ahhh. time for a coldie and some nibbles.  All good.

Yep, all good.

Yep, it's hot out there...definately earned a drink.

After a couple of days of ‘not quite right’ toilet tent/hole/chair configuration, Meg and I determined that we would have a go. So after much, discussion, adjustement and digging, we reckon we have made some pretty major improvements to the toilet tent layout. We will have to wait for the morning before a verdict from the fella’s.

Whilst we did the toilet tent, Dad erected his new ‘shower tent’ so we could have a bit of a wash down. This was a new experience for some, with water a bit hard to come by and needing to be conserved, the wash of hair, body and clothing is done in about 3 litres of water, no mean feat let me tell you...but boy it feels good!!

A range of gourmet cuisine for tea included – Dinner Winner, beef strog (with or without mushies and sour cream) and other delights, pudding for some, yoghurt, fruit, custard for others.


time to prepare for tea...can't remember what this one was. Dinner Winner maybe?

It was a tad cooler tonight, which meant we actually sat around the fire for a bit, to be entertained by the burning of the rubbish – the major challenge, to get one of the ‘sealed’ containers to ‘pop’ in the heat.

Off to bed about 10ish, with a day of more dunes ahead, no major landmarks, maybe some “knolls” and that’s about it.

I’ll sign off now and try to get back to this tomorrow night.