Around Australia in a Land Rover

[Iain_U1250]

Heading to Laverton

We left the Kennedy Range National Park early in the morning, since our neighbours were not shy staying up late and talking really loud, we didn't worry about getting up at sunrise and packing the car.

We headed off back down to Gascoyne Junction. There we discovered our internet was not working - looks like our beloved children had used it all in the week in Denham, so we had to recharge, but for some reason, it would not work, saying "invalid DNS server link". We stopped at the Gascoyne Junction information board, whilst we registered the new pre-paid card that came with the Wifi hotspot, it has 5GB but only lasts for a month, which should be enough.

A German couple in a camper, a small Mercedes camper, like we have seen everywhere, pulled up next to us and asked about fuel and whether we had internet reception. We told them we did as the iPad was working, and also point out the new fuel station in town, the old one had closed.

Just as they were pulling off, I noticed some maps on the back of their camper and shot a few photos as they drove off - here are some enlargements of their maps





Looks like they have had quite a trips so far. They disappeared too quickly for us to talk much to them unfortunately.


We headed from Gascoyne Junction towards Meekathara. along the way we found a few interesting spots for photoshoots, like the old Cobble Road, built in the 1920's it when all the way to Exmouth. It was built to transport wool out, and was used until the new road was built in the 1950's and 60's. We also did a photo shoot at the this windmill.



There were some big bulls lazing in the trees behind the water tank, and when they got curious and decided to wander over, we decided to leave. The roads in this area were very good, especially since they show up as little more than a minor road. We were happily doing 100kph down them, when we got to have a bit of a tail wind for a change. Lastly the old Police Station and Lock-up at Mt Gould, a great place for a photo shoot.



Finally we got to Meekatharra, and discovered that it was quite a big town. After refuelling, moved on - down the Goldfields Highway. After an hour of so, we pulled off the highway, just as the sun was setting, into a small gravel pit, then headed right to the back, and out into the trees behind the pit.


We had a good night's sleep, finally peace an quiet. There was no traffic on the road, and when we pulled back onto the road, we had only heard three cars go past since 5:00pm the previous evening. We got out of bed and that's when things started to go wrong.

We discovered when making breakfast that the gas bottle was empty - we had taken it to be filled when were leaving Denham, they had charged us for filling it, but they must not have put any gas in. Now we had a problem, where to get gas. We decided to go to the closest town, originally we had a route planned direct to Laverton, via the minor roads. Closest town was Wiluma, the end of the Gunbarrel highway and Canning Stock Route, surely they must have gas.

We got to Wiluna around 8:30am, to find nearly everything closed. Luckily the fuel station was a 24hr automatic one, so we filled up, and as we finsihed, the shopkeeper girl arrived and opened up the shop. We asked where we can get gas from, "try the mechanic, he fills them. he's down the road, in the green shed. you can't miss it." We headed off down the road, looking for a green shed. There were loads of them, but we found another shop, which was also now open and asked them. The Chinese lady on the counter looked at me in amazement when I asked where can you fill a gas bottle, she pointed to the petrol pumps. Finally, three people later we found someone who understood what we meant, and they gave is more instructions. I noticed they had jerry cans for $60 each, about the same as in Supercheap in Brisbane. I was thinking about carrying enough fuel for the whole Anne Beadell highway as we had heard of road house closing for a week or running out of fuel, leaving people stranded/ This meant another three jerry cans on the roof, taking us to 75lt of extra fuel. I decide to get them, just to be safe.

We headed off to the mechanic, but he was closed. "It was a long weekend, and he sometimes takes a bit longer to recover on a long weekend, he might be in by lunchtime" we were told by the next door shed owner. We decide to head down the tar road to Lenister instead - another 170km away, and a round about route to Laverton, but all on tar, not our favourite surface. Getting gas was becoming a big problem, now we had another detour, quite a long one going to Laverton via Leonora, quite a detour, We pumped up the tyres for highway driving and set off, down the tarmac.

Arriving at Leinister, a typical mining town, we found gas at the local Coates Hire outlet and pushed on through Leonora, and on to Laverton.

The people at the servo in Laverton were the most unhelpful people we had met. We asked where we could fill up our water tank, and did they have a hose. She looked at me blankly and said we can't use their hose, it is broken and she doesn't know were we can get water. Then I asked about the Anne Beadell track, she said she had never heard of it, all this whilst stuffing herself with noodles. We had filled up all the jerry cans and the fuel tank, spending over $200 and she did not give a damn, we were interupting her food.

We headed off to the Police Station to let them know where we were going, and saw and information centre just next to it. We stopped and met a wonderful young lady, who was really helpful, gave us maps, let us use their hose to fill up the water tanks and we a had really nice coffee. Such a change from the servo chick.

We headed back out to the Police Station, when we smelled something burning. I thought it was outside, like all the other times, but then Trish looked back and saw smoke - something was on on fire. I pulled over in the Police Station parking lot, pulled open the door to seem loads of smoke coming out the inverter. I quickly got to the circuit breaker under the passenger seat and tripped it. The smoke stopped before we needed to use a fire extinguisher but now we had a big problem - the fridge etc ran off the same main power lead that goes to the inverter. We would have to rewire the rear fuse panel, and that was under the fridge. We were really lucky, as we had been charging the lap tops whilst we were driving, and had been inside the info centre for half an hour with them still charging. We could have come out to find our car on fire! I'm not sure what happened, or why the circuit breaker or the fuse did not trip, there must have been a fault that drew just enough current to make loads of smoke, but not enough to trip the 120A circuit breaker or blow the 150A fuse link.

In the Police station parking lot, I unpacked the minimum needed to lift the fridge up, to access the distribution panel underneath. Only the inverter was dead, all the wiring was not even warm. In 45 minutes I had disconnect the inverter and restored power to the distribution panel. Now we had a bigger problem, with no Nespresso for Trish in the morning, I would have a very grumpy wife undergoing caffeine withdrawal on one of the worst road in Australia. I pulled into the shop, and got some Mochona Instant coffee, she was not very impressed, but would drink it under duress.

We left Laverton around 4:30pm, with a 120km drive to the first camp on the Anne Beadell highway. The road deteriorated pretty quickly, especially when we got closer to the new prospecting area 100km east of Laverton, by then it was night, and we relied on our great headlights to keep us on the road around numerous blind curve, washouts and corrugations. We pulled into the camp site at around 7:30pm, and were in bed by 8:15 - what a way to start our biggest adventure of the trip, and with all the frustrations, I didn't even get the camera out of the bag once - so no photos

 

[Iain_U1250]

LOL

On the Oz west coast it's only windy between early October and late September, the rest of the year it's ok.

 

[Iain_U1250]

The Big Adventure - 1350km Anne Beadell Highway
When we were planning our trip around Australia, we had a lot of detail of how to get across the top end, what we will do, and what to see, Once we got to Steep Point, it was a case of, where to now. Looking at the map, there were not that many choices, we could go south, and cross the Nullabor, but we had done that both ways when we were last in WA, and whilst part of it are great, the rest is pretty boring and tarmac most of the way.

When we checked the school holiday dates, we realised we needed to go somewhere where people won't be bringing their kids for a break, and that left meant the Great Central Highway, or The Anne Beadell Highway. Reading up about both, we decided to do the Anne Beadell, as it was pretty narrow and might not be suitable for the Unimog on places, whilst the Great Central is a proper maintained road, which is a major route to Alice Springs.

More research was done, and I found out about all the permits etc, and the we started applying for them all a few weeks before we left home. Just before we left, we got the final one across Woomera, from the military and we were right to go.

The Land Rover was set up for this part of the trip. I had fitted the huge Koni Raid 90 series shocks, upgraded the spring, bought a Sat phone and docking station, had a custom made 110lt water tank made, everything so we could do this part of the trip. The rest, so to speak was pretty easy.

The first day had not gone very well, so when we got up the next morning we could finally see where we were, in the middle of a huge camp ground.



We took our time re-packing the car to secure everything, and Trish washed her hair, but had to be very careful with the water. We filled the fuel tank from first of our jerry cans - the first 120km had only taken 13litres, as we were going pretty slow. Just as we were packing up, we heard people on the radio. A short while later, two vehicles passed the camp site at pretty high speed.

We drove for another hour and came to where we originally planned to spent the night - Yeo Homestead, the other people who passed us were just leaving. They were from overseas, Germany maybe, but did not stop to chat like most travellers do. We had the whole place to ourselves, and what a strange place it was. It was a great campsite, and there was a well, and a bush shower. Time for a photo shoot and for Trish to wash rinse her hair properly. First we needed water from the well - if was pretty cool, but it was refreshing. The water goes into the bucket with a few holes in it on a rope. Trish rinsed her hair properly, and I took some photos.



Then it was off down the road. We came to an area with a few mesas, just like something out of the wild west. There were a few side tracks, but we decided against going down them at this stage, as we were not sure of the fuel consumption yet.

We came across a plaque for Anne Beadell, after whom the highway was named. She died in 2010 and her ashes were spread with Len Beadell's at Woomera. They had both spent most of their lives in the bush. Connie Sue Beadell runs a tag along tour of the deserts and her father's roads.




There were plenty of wildflowers, the landscape changed every few kilometer, and so did the flowers. We arrived at Neale Junction around 4:00pm, and decided to camp there, after a quick photo shoot of course Trish signed the visitors book, and then got "decent" for some photos for her blog.




We had a great campsite at Neale Junction, a nice table fire pit and plenty of water in the tank.




We had found some firewood, and someone had left a large pile as well, so we had a big fire, and heated up water for a shower as well. It was a great evening and we both slept really well.

We got up at sunrise the next day, and were soon on our way. We were calling out our presence on the radio every half and hour or so, but got no replies.

The landscape was continually changing. It looked like a fire had gone through are destroyed everything, but the desert as coming back to life. Then we came across this weird landscape, with dead trees sprouting covering of new life. We took loads of photos, the landscape changed so often that we were amazed most of the time, each "valley" between the sand hills was so different, some were dead, other full of flowers and bushes, others with loads of trees.


We decided to take the turn off to the plane wreck. Whilst it happen quite a few years ago, the plane is very well preserved, the four passengers survived, but were badly injured. Driving to the wreck was great fun, we left the green desert, and headed out into the red sandy desert, up and down dunes, it was only 8km of the main track, but it made us feel like explorers in the Sahara, which of course led to another photo shoot




We were just having a nice cold coffee ( Trish had made some instant and it worked well cold) when we had a visitor. It was pretty tame, not to worried about people, probably never met any before, It came right up to us, then wandered back out into the dunes.




The next stop was Ilkula Road House, this little place. Despite what we had heard about it running out of fuel often, they said they had never run our of fuel, and were always open, every day of the year, and had been for the past 10 years. We put in only 9 litres, as we had filled up from our Jerry cans at the plane wreck. We spent a pleasent hour at the road house, bought a piece of art from the local aboriginal artists, and then then headed on up the road.

There are loads of lizards around, and we see them scurrying away from the wheel track, most of the time they run off the road, but occasionally one runs along the road - then Darwin's rule gets applied and the dumb ones are no more. I feel sorry for them, just going about their business and wham, some guy in a Land Rover who just felt like a drive over your road flattens you.


Trish kept on wanting to stop to take photos of flowers, so we stppped a lot in the begining, and she took photos of flowers and I took photos of her. It was pretty warm out there, so we dressed appropriately





There are loads of markers along the road placed by Len Beadell, we tried to find them all, but often they were overgrown or the road had deviated from the original, this one was a pretty good example.





That night we stopped about 10km short of the South Australia border at another of the shelters. It was great, we had a nice fire, and there was plenty of water for showering again. We woke at sunrise, and got ready.




Then we crossed the border, and then the track got bad.

 

[Iain_U1250]

We got up early, and were on the road by around 8:00am, and straight away, the track going east from the camp ground got progressively worse. and once we were past the last shelter, the road deteriorated quickly, apparently it has not been maintained since the 1960’s. The track is really narrow, as only one or two vehicles per day have travelled the road, predominately light vehicles.




We were thinking of taking the Unimog down here, but with the very narrow track, a large number of hard wood spikes sticking out of the track on either side, I doubt that the tyres would survive. Our Unimog is a narrower wheelbase compare to the bigger Unimogs, with the measurement of the inside to inside of the tyres being only 50mm wider than the inside of the Land Rovers, however the tyres are 125mm wider, so our outside track is 250mm wider than most light vehicles. The Land Rover is 1.8m wide, the Unimog 2.2m wide, so we would be likely to have quite a few scratches on the side of the Unimog, there are also a few areas where the trees are pretty low, so will need “modification” so we could pass. You can see in the above photos what has happend to our dune flag; on the first day, I replaced all but one cable tie, and put four more on to the flag, the second day I put another four cable ties on, and by the time we got to the border, we had lost the flag. By the time we have gotten to emu, the top knob and the red pvc skin was also lost.



The road itself was pretty good, a few areas of corrugations, but mainly soft sand with loads of twists and turn. Our average speed dropped significantly, we did the first 720km from Laverton to the camp site the previous evening, in around two days and that included some long photo shoots, a stop at the roadhouse, and a few detours. The next 600km would take almost three days to complete.


We reached the WA/SA border, and Trish filled in the Visitor's Book, the German people before us had not bothered it seemed, as the last people through was two days ago. Here we are, I'm in SA and Trish is in WA, or maybe the other way around Sometime you just have to do the touristy thing




Just after the border, we crossed the Serpentine Lakes. We decided not to drive on it, as it looked pretty soft, and I remembered that Len Beadell had commented that he had gotten stuck there for two days, the crust may be hard, but there is nothing but soft ooze underneath. We did another photo shoot on the lake; and then moved on. Trish decided to put some clothes on after the photo shoot for some blog photos. It turned out to be a good thing





We had one mechanical failure – I heard a metallic clang noise coming from the rear wheel, and knew it would be the rear disk stone shield as that was the same noise we heard on the Mitchell Plateau road when the left hand stone shield broke. I pulled over, and removed the wheel, and the broken stone shield. Looks like Land Rover have not done a good job on these, as this is the second set we have had, the first one were cracked after we came back from the last trip and needed to be replaced.


We were pretty nervous about travelling at high speed on these single lane roads, particularity around the numerous blind corners, but if you drive slowly, you really feel the corrugations, so we would drive around 50-70kph. We kept on calling ahead on the radio, but not once did we get a reply. Just after we got going after replacing the stone shields, I saw another car ahead. They were driving pretty slowly, in a fairly standard looking Holden Rodeo dual cab, highway terrain tyres which were pumped up really hard. The older couple looked pretty unhappy, and complained about the corrugations. I don’t think they had done their research properly, beyond getting the permits, extra fuel and another tyre on the roof, they looked like they were on a Sunday drive. His roof rack had pulled out the roof and they said they managed to get to 60kph once a few days ago, but most of the time kept to 20-25kph. They told us that there was a military checkpoint in the Woomera restricted zone, checking for permits. The guys were pretty bored, as they had only seen two other cars that week, and everyone had permits. They would just love to arrest someone and take them down to Maralinga. They were supposed to be the last people travelling east for a while, and there was two other parties travelling west. We figured we were one of the westward parties, as we had our permits for that area.


We continued on, The road was bad, but not too badly corrugated. We were now into sand dune country, whereas before we ran parallel to sand dune, now we started to travel over them. The road was no longer straight, but twisted and turned through the dunes. At first it was fun, but it got a bit tiring in the end. We longed for a straight piece of road, but they were few and far between now. We found some great locations for photos shoot, a section of bright purple flowers, and interesting rings of Spinifex grass.




Shortly after our shoot, we came around a corner upon two camels - on seeing us they start to run; down the road. Thinking the would soon veer off into the bush we followed them, but they just kept on running down the road. We stopped to let the get ahead, and when they had run out of sight, we started up again, and about 1km down the road, there were the two camels, who looked at us again and headed off – right down the road again.



This carried on for about 5km, if we got closer, they would break into a full gallop, and the moment we hung back, slow to a trot, it we stopped, then so would they. We could not get past the two camels . Eventually we stopped, and made some coffee, had a snack bar and waited, hoping that these two stupid camels would walk off the road for a bit to let us pass. We drove slowly up over the ridge and we really glad to see the camels had headed off the road. We sped up as we got close and were past them at last.



We had been trying to get a particular shot for a long time, and we had tried it in a few locations, but driving down the track, we found a great location, with a load of purple flowers lining the track. We stopped and did another photo shoot, and this time we got the shots we wanted; It felt great to get a photo that you have tried to do so often. Photos are on the art site



There was a 50km “No Camping zone” just past the border. We pushed on past and got to the border between the Conservation Park and the Maralinga reserve, and right next to the road was a clearing, and that was where we spent the night.



The next day started great, a really good sunrise, and it was cooler than the previous mornings, which kept the flies away.





We made sure everything was secure in the back of the car this time, as we knew it was going to be a very bumpy ride today. We set of, and just down the road we saw some fresh dingo tracks. We had heard some howls the night before, and the tracks were less than 50m from our camp. We travelled on a bit, and saw a dingo, as soon as it saw us, it headed off the road and up into the dunes. It looked in great shape, and ran pretty fast, not like the one we saw near Gascoyne junction, that was pretty mangy and limped off when it saw us. As we stopped and watched the dingo disappear, we saw something moving across the road – a brown snake.
We watched it slither across the road and into the bush. We had just gotten going, when we saw another camel, this one was huge. It looked at us, and did not run, just stood there. We hooted and moved towards him, and he just turned an calmly wander off into the bush. We continued down the track.




We came to a section where there were loads of white flowers lining the road. The light looked great, really highlighting the flowers and I thought it would be a good location to try the same shot we had gotten yesterday again, but with a few modifications. We stopped and since the road was pretty sandy, I had to help Trish get the high heels on at the point where we wanted to shoot, as she could not walk in sand in high heels. Whilst Trish was waiting for me to set-up the camera, as she relaxed and I took this shot.



We did another session and got another series of great photos, now we had gotten the shots we wanted in both sessions, it felt really good.


Just after lunch we had a minor disaster – a branch from a tree must have hit one of our boxes on the roof with enough force to take the lid off. This loosened the strap that held down all the jerry cans as well. We hid a particular hard bump, and I notice some water running down on the windscreen. I stopped and looked, all the jerry cans were missing, and so were the lids from both grey boxes. Worst thing was the fly catchers – the had turned upside down, and despite being in two heavy zip lock bags, the smelly water had leaked out, into the box and then out of the onto the roof, and under the roof rack. The smell was terrible. We back-tracked about a kilometre and found our Jerry cans, and one of the grey box lids, and then a further 10km down the road, found the other lid.



We pulled everything off the roof, and filled up the bucket with water from out tank, and washed off as much as we can. We added some washing soap, spayed it all over the roof, but we could not get rid of the smell. The fly catchers really work well, but the new ones we got were not as good as the ones we had last year. What would be ideal is fly catcher where you could screw down the lid for travelling, then unscrew it when you set up camp. One thing about having the stuff on the roof, the flies did not bother us so much




We continue on to Emu, and were amazed at the size of the clay pan. We drove down it right to the end and turned around. I can only imagine how happy Len would have been to find this natural runway right in the middle of the bush after so many weeks of searching for a place to set off an atomic bomb. As we stopped on the runway and I got out, I hear a little chip, and looked up, wedged between the roll cage and the car roof was a tiny bird. It was wedged in there tight, and i gently tried to remove it, and the bird chirped pitifully as i manage to slide it out. As expected, it had a broken wing, it just sat their chirping, so I had to end it's pain, it was really sad. We try our best to avoid killing any animals on our travels, I will brake hard, but won't swerve or do something that will potentially harm us, most of the time I see them far enough away for brake but I did not even see this little bird hit the roof.

We had coffee and some cake, then did another photo shoot, it was a great place.




We continued onto the two atomic bomb sites, it felt weird standing on a place where you know the was an atom bomb blast. There were no trees in a circle around the totem. There were also signs saying not to camp there, as there was still radioactivity around. We took a few photos, and looked at the twisted metal supports then we pressed on – to what was surely the most corrugated road in Australia.

 

[Iain_U1250]

From Emu to where we camped, the road was pretty bad, there was a type of soil, a rusty brown colour which seemed to solidify into corrugations about 2” deep with an almost vertical slope and spaced around 500mm apart. It was like driving over bricks. There were loads of section where people had made alternative roads past the corrugations, they wound around the tree and bushes, so were just as slow as driving slowly over the corrugations, but it just a relief to get off the corrugations for a while.





We camped pretty early, at an old well site. We were took everything off the roof again and washed the whole car down again with soap and then car wash. It help a bit with the smell, but we could not reach the centre of the roof, where the must still have been some of the smell liquid. It was pretty hard work taking everything off the roof, washing out the canvas cover for the storage boxes, and basically trying to scrub the whole car. I forgot to take photos of the camp site, but it was a great site and we had a good nights rest, despite the bad smell


We set off the next morning, with only about 100km to the “dog fence” where we knew the road was good. To get there we had to drive on some of the worst corrugation we had ever seen. Like the day before, once we saw the rusty brown soil, we knew were in for a slow bumpy ride. In this part of the track, the corrugation ranged from very bad to not too bad if you drive fast. We expected to see another car coming towards us, and since we would be travelling around 60-70kph on the straight bit to get up on top of the corrugation, Trish would report our progress every 5-10km or so. We still go no response.

When we got to the dog fence, it was a bit weird, we could see the track on the other side continuing, but a new section of fence had been built, and there was a sign saying - Gate 3km south. We drove the 3km to the gate, there was nothing there except the gate, and a sign saying Coober Pedy track 3km north. So we drove an extra 6km just because they put the gate in the wrong place it seems. We made it to the end of the track just past at the dog fence and stopped and celebrated with a glass of coffee and the last of our fruit cake. We had finished.



We stopped for while taking photos at the sign, as you do.



Then saw a couple of motorcyclist heading toward us. Two sped past waving, but one stopped and chatted for a while. They were heading to Emu then Maralinga on a charity ride called “Trek the Track”. There were five or six motorcycles and two support vehicles. We continued down the road a bit longer, and met up with the rest of the team at the information board at the very start of the track.


We stopped and chatted to them, telling them about the corrugations and how narrow the track was. I looked at the one trailer, if looked like a normal box trailer and it was very heavily loaded. The other one was a bike trailer, which as much wider than a normal car, it's wheels were about an extra wheel width wider than the Prado pulling it. We had already seen a couple of trailers left behind on the track - I didn't like his chances of it surviving just the first part of the track. I asked if they had a few spare tyres for the trailer, as the track was narrow and there were a lot of sharp sticks and branches on the side. They said they were not worried as they would take it easy. We said good bye and wished them luck; they were going to need it. We later heard that one of the trailers had broken a spring, and had to return to Coober Pedy. They ended up leaving the trailer on the track for four days whilst they did their loop around Maralinga, by then the parts had arrived and they were able to fix up the trailer and head back to Coober Pedy.

We took some more photos at the end of the track, and headed off to Coober Pedy, we had finished the 1300km of the Anne Beadell Highway.



We then set off on the last 50km leg to Coober Pedy, but not before I poured some lavender oil onto the roof of the car - the smell was a lot better than the day before, but we could not go to a fancy hotel with a stinky Land Rover

 

[graynomad]

Good yarn.

I have a mate who did the track a few years ago in a huge Bedford 4x4 motorhome, broke everything on the outside, mirrors, windows etc because of course it's much wider than the track really allows. He also broke a spring and had to use a log and a chain, good old bush mechanics.

And I'm not at all surprised by the trailer story, the Gunbarrel is also littered with box trailers that thought they could.

Re the gas, do you only have one bottle?

 

[Iain_U1250]

HI Rob, I think it would be possible, but I don't think it is worth the risk in taking my Unimog. I have heard the Canning Stock route is also getting a bit closed in - so we will have to do it as soon as we are sure the Unimog is as reliable as the Land Rover has been.

We only have one 3kg gas bottle, it lasts us about 6 weeks of use, and we seldom have camp fires. We filled up the bottle when we got it, used if for a two week trip out to Diamantina Lake, and another few weekends away. When we filled it for the first time at Bowen, it only took 1.2kg. In our Unimog, we have space for a 9kg gas bottle, but maybe better to get two or three smaller ones instead.

When I was in thew SA army, we snapped the rear wheel right off an old Bedford. Hub completely cracked right through. . We had to use a tree and chains/straps to get back to base, slow but it worked. I have sewn tyres together with 4" side wall splits, patched up the inside and continued on, had jerry cans as fuel tanks, gravity feeding the carburettor, there are so many things you can do to keep moving if you really have to. The new cars have so much electrickery on then, luck they are now fairly reliable, more so than in the old days.

Camper trailers are getting more reliable, but you can see the damage to the tracks that towing one of these two or three ton anchors do. At Steep point, most of the steep dunes have a series of deep holes on the slopes, we saw the cause as we watches a leaf sprung double cab ute towing a big trailer up the track, he had a couple of tries, final made it going as fast as he could, spinning his wheels and bouncing up the slope digging each hole deeper as he went. We just put our Land Rover in low range first and walked it up without spinning at all.

There are a few trailers left on the Anne Beadell as well - like this one - the owners should be charged the full cost of recovering the wreck out of the desert.

 

[graynomad]

Sounds like you know all the tricks to get something going in the bush.

We had to use a tree and chains/straps to get back to base

Did you make a skid for that corner of the truck?

I would definitely go for 2 or 3 bottles rather than a single one. There is the problem you just had of course but also because very few people charge by weight you wind up paying for a lot of gas you don't get because you never really know how much is in the bottle before you fill up. And even if you do know you may be forced to fill prematurely because you know you will be out of range for 4 weeks.

The only down side to more small bottles is the space required, because they aren't square and the filler overhead is almost the same regardless of bottle size 2x 4.5 bottles takes up more space than 1x 9kg.

We have four 9kgs in our truck, I never have to fill up at the outback prices. A Mog is much smaller than my ACCO but surely you can fit 2x 9kgs.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Hi Rob, only the outside kitchen uses gas, we have a diesel stove and heater. My Mog is pretty small - not that much bigger than a Land Rover 130, that has a 3.3m wheel base and I have the 3.25m wheelbase with the narrow track as well.

One of the rear storage bods behind the back wheels can fit a 9kg bottle, or two 4.5kg ones or three 3kg ones That should give us about 3 months worth of gas.

 

[graynomad]

Sounds like you will have plenty then. We're about to start a new build as well and I'm going to ditch gas all together and get a diesel cooker.

The Mog sounds great, all that capability and not too large to go places. Can't to see what you plan, will you start a build thread or blog?

 

[Flys Lo]

Like the pictures and the report, hope to one day follow a similar path in my F-truck

...you never really know how much is in the bottle before you fill up.

If you have trouble working it out by the weight of the bottle, spray a small amount of near-boiling water on the side of the cylinder - the steam from the hot water will condense up to the level of the gas in the cylinder.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Hi Rob, we have been building it for four years now. It will be another few months of work to finish it, but we decided to go on this trip, we needed the break from home for a while.

We have a build thread here, http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/37349-Unimog-Camper-under-constructionor our blog http://unimog-adventure.blogspot.com.au/

Hopefully it will be ready soon, but I've said "by December" for the past three years now, so I don't want to even make any promises. It will be ready when its ready

Sounds like you will have plenty then. We're about to start a new build as well and I'm going to ditch gas all together and get a diesel cooker.

The Mog sounds great, all that capability and not too large to go places. Can't to see what you plan, will you start a build thread or blog?

 

[graynomad]

"will you start a build thread or blog?" I'd already posted to your thread and forgot.

I have a question re the X100 cooker if you have time, I'll post it on the build thread.

 

[iRagedoYou]

What an amazing trip and photography!! Thanks for sharing 👍👏


2013 JKUR Commando Green 6 Spd
2012 R1200 GSA

 

[Iain_U1250]

Cobber Pedy, and nice weird place

When we finished the Anne Beadell Highway, we headed up to Coober Pedy, thinking we would stay one night, maybe two and then move on. We ended up staying there three nights and loved every bit of it, We stayed at the Desert Cave Hotel, and it was great. We spent the first two nights in a normal room, and the last one in an underground room.

Coober Pedy is a weird place, and after experiencing a few days of the extreme temperatures, we can understand why people live underground. There are some great things there, and we did all the touristy things like visit the underground churches, mine tours, museums, and various other underground things.

We did not do much driving but here are some photos. The first day we checked into the hotel, and had a shower, despite regular camp shower, it is pretty difficult to stay clean in the desert, you get dusty from the moment you get out from under the water. After plugging in all the battery charges for computers, camera, tooth brushes, razors etc, and unpacking the Nespresso machine so
Trish can have a decent coffee at last; we set out in search of a new inverter. We stopped of a show that sold "Opals, Digeridoos, Guitar Strings and electrical equipment. Whilst they did not have any inverters, the did know who would have one - the Op shop. We would never have guessed that. So off to "Clothes Barn" we went, and there we met "Si" who was just getting out of his car. We asked about and inverter, and he said we were in luck, and pulled one out of his backpack. It was only a little 300W one, but after a quick test holding it on the terminals of the battery, it worked charging the lap tops. I figured I could fit an Anderson plug to it and run if off the plug I have for the compressor. I paid him $100 and there was one problem solved. Next was did he have a bigger one, for the Nespresso machine. He looked at us strangely, and said, "Maybe" can you call back in an hour.


We looked at each other and agreed to come back in an hour. Then we went off to see the underground church, The Serbian Orthodox was unreal, there is this big church, with stained glass windows cut into the side of the hill.




It was pretty dark, despite the stained glass windows but after a few adjustments of the camera, and a long exposure we got some photos.

We then decided get some lunch, and headed back to the hotel, for lunch in the underground cafe. There was a whole display of thing relating to opals, opal mining and the history of Coober Pedy, from boom to bust, to boom and bust again, there always seems to be either a boom or a bust going on, An then there were the opal. I could see this was going to be an expensive stop over.

We phoned Si back after an hour, and he said he had one, a 2000W / 4000W peak one, for $400. A client of his did not want that particular brand, so he would get it back the next day for us. I told him he had a deal, provided it fitted in the space where the old one was. He agreed and told us to meet us at the shop tomorrow morning at 9:00am, and he would also let us wash our car if we wanted to get rid of the smell

So now we have a way of solving all of our electrical needs, a new inverter for Nespresso and a backup for the laptops and camera batteries as well.

We head back to the hotel, and do a few posts, work on some photos for submission to the art site and just relaxed.

The next morning we pick up the inverter, it looks like it fits, we pay him, and then spend the next half hour washing the car. We eventually get it clean enough so that it no longer attracts flies, or smells like a lavender bush.

It is getting pretty warm, so we head back underground, to the Old Timer Mine. I'm keen to do a photo shoot underground, and then we see the security cameras - bugger. Oh well, we just to the touristy thing instead. The guys who worked this mine were short, so they did not bother cutting any more than their head height, which meant I had to duck all the time. It was really interesting. There are still actual opal seams in the mine, but behind perspex so the photos are not worth showing.




This is how they used to enter the mine - a vertical shaft with foot holds cut to their size.




They also figured out that it was a lot cooler underground, so when they had finished mining, they turned some of the tunnels into bedrooms and kitchens etc.




It was a great tour, and we wandered around the mine for an hour or so, then went up to the top of the hill for a look out over Coober Pedy. Not that many houses or building visible, as most of them are under ground, in houses called "Dugouts".


They also have their own space ship, left over from a movie. There have been quite a few movies shot here, because of the surrounding scenery, it is like few places on earth.






The "Darwin to Adelaide" solar car race came to town, so we headed out to the staging area. It was so windy, the cars had trouble staying on the road. They had to stop for 30 minutes at the check point, so we took some photos of the action. Pretty cool technology, but not really practical at this stage. This is the Dutch team, who were trying real hard to catch the leaders. The guys were forming a wind break, to stop the thing from blowing over when there was no driver in it.





By lunchtime it was a pretty warm 43 degrees and very very windy, we headed off to "the Breakaways" a section of the desert about 20km outside of town.


What a great place that was, it was so windy, and hot, so Trish stayed in the car, but we decided to come back in the late afternoon as the sun was going down to do a photo shoot or two.






We headed back into town , past an area they call "moonscapes" - it was incredibly hot and windy, so only one or two quick photos and then back into the car. There is nothing except rock and stones, and it looks like the surface of Mars. The air intake temp read 53 degrees on this stretch, Pretty warm





We went back to town, and I knew that if I was going to do any photo shoots out there in the desert, bribery would be needed. One the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a few opal shops and Trish got her opal she wanted. It was a really nice barrel shape, and looked really good on her, We spent about an hour chatting to the owner and his wife. We learnt a lot about opal mining and what makes a good opal. We also looked at a few other shops, and a few other opals. Shopped out, we spent the afternoon by the swimming pool which surprisingly was a cool 24 degrees.

The wind eased a bit in the late afternoon, and it got a bit cooler, so we headed out to the painted desert to do some photo shoots as the sun was setting. One thing we had not bargained on was the flies. As the sun was going down, and the wind dropped, the flies swarmed us, it was so bad, we could only shoot for a few minutes at each location, as it was just too uncomfortable, especially for Trish, flies going everywhere!

I manage to stay out a bit longer as the sun set, thanks to half a can of "Raid" and being able to keep one eye shut, and the other one stuck on the viewfinder. We have fly nets, but they don't look good in photos




After heading back into town, it cooled down a lot by the time we got to the hotel, so I decided to fit the new inverter. After much unpacking the car, moving the fridge, the old inverter and getting the new one securely fixed in place, it was pretty disappointing when we plugged in the little 220V stick mixer and the inverter started to show error codes - the thing did not work. More time was spent taking it all out again, it was pretty late when I finished - sorry to all the other guests. We were leaving the next day, so we hoped that Si was around in the morning.

One thing we did learn whilst the I was doing the work, some people in the hotel who were parked next to us had also just finished the Anne Beadell Highway, they say they must have been about three or four hours behind us all the way. One guy towed his camper trailer - destroyed a spring and a shock on the trailer, but was close to the end so he managed to limp into town on it, broke his slide out stove catches off, and also something in the trailer wiring loom as the tail lights stopped working as well. The Anne Beadell is not a place for a trailer it seems.

The next morning, we packed up, did a very quick series of photos around the hotel, we were getting good at "ninja shoots" and then went to see Si with our inverter. We tested it on his rig, and it just tripped the circuit breakers, it was dead. As luck had it, he had just been to the post office and had picked up the replacement inverter, the different brand for his other client. We could have that instead he offered. This time we tested it, and it worked fine on a 1500w load, so I decided to take it; we would fit it at the next stop when we could unpack everything again.

Trish wanted to buy another opal, and something for a friend as well, so we went back to opal shopping. We bought a necklace from Opalina - the previous day the the Greek lady had spent a lot of time showing us pretty inexpensive opals, telling Trish exactly what suited her and what didn't. We also chatted to her for a while, she had been in Coober Pedy for 40 years.

We then stopped at the shop where we bought the barrel necklace from, and spent about an hour chatting to the owner and his partners. They showed us part of their latest find - $42,000 worth of raw opal. It was really interesting to talk to them. I also don't think they often have customers wearing a pair of tiny torn shorts, and a pretty see through white singlet with only white micro bikini underneath


We got some more groceries and milk and then headed out of town, out to the "Painted Desert" and Arckaringa Station.