With no urgency required, the crew gathered slowly on a fairly mild morning to bid farewell to Birdsville. At about 9.30am we parked the three vehicles outside the Birdsville Pub for the iconic, if not, well overdone photo. Just as we thought how fantastic Puma and her mates looked, we were rightly outdone by a group of 1920’s Whippets that had travelled to Birdsville over the same roads we had.
With no way to match the achievements of the motoring relics, we headed for a scrumptious breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and quite decent coffee in the hotel dining room. We commented that the west has COVID sorted to a degree the coast could only hope too. Sign in before you enter, sanitise as you enter, sit apart from other groups; these businesses are taking it very seriously. Consequently, no COVID in Birdsville!
10.30am or so came and went as we finally left electricity, flushing toilets and phone coverage behind and headed west. About half an hour later we halted at the base of Little Red, dropped our tyre pressures a bit for the deep sand we would encounter, then headed up and over the first of nearly 1100 sand dunes to come. We elected to leave Big Red to those who needed to prove size matters.
A bit of past experience told us that the second sand dune in the desert, sometimes called ‘Nemesis’ is by far the most difficult to get over. Being long, soft and typically rutted deeply, it did not disappoint today. Each of us had to have more than one crack at it with the 130 dual cab needing a bit of a tug to make the monster. As the group negotiated the beast Peter had an extremely proud husband moment with G jumping in the drivers’ seat and making mincemeat of some difficult dunes.
We were blessed this year with the entire desert being covered with flowers. We had seen it bare bones, as a desert is usually imagined. We had seen water in Eyre Creek, but never had we seen floral coverage of this magnitude. Bright yellows, whites and purples adorned the entire landscape. Privileged, is the word that came to mind.
As we punted up and over a few more dunes we heard the fateful crackle of Sue’s voice on the CB. The words “we may have a problem’ sent shivers down out spines. We headed back to find that the 130 had lost all drive with a blown clutch. We rested to let it cool down in the lost hope that it would spring back into life and Trevor and the girls could continue with us. Half an hour passed before an official diagnosis revealed the clutch was best described as a cousin of Wallaby Ted – ‘Roo Ted’.
With nothing left to do but call Birdsville Garage for assistance, we settled in for the afternoon. If you have to break down, drinking wine, eating cheese and having a yarn is not a bad way to spend some hours. We elected to stay together as a group until rescue the next morning.
At about 8.30am the burble of the Birdsville Garage petrol Landcruiser ute was heard coming over the dunes. After a bit of a chat, followed by Stefan, the Birdsville Police Officer coming for a look, the 130 was hooked up and launched up and over the dunes, towed by the Landcruiser, off to the home of clutch rehabilitation.
With two vehicles now left in the party, Bernie, Annette, G and Peter headed west towards Poeppel Corner. Legend has it that the Simpson Desert is an unimaginably difficult 4wd drive adventure. Truth is it can be a bit boring. The repetition of toddle along the track, see sand dune, change to low range third, accelerate, crest and roll down the other side can become monotonous. Seasoned as we are, calls of ‘there’s dingo footprints’, or ‘that was camel poo, we must be close to seeing a camel’, can make the monotony disappear.
Soon enough we crested a dune to see the amazing vision of Lake Poeppel. Not a big lake by any measure of inland salt lakes in Australia, the crossing of this one is critical to any desert adventure. Not only does it take you to the bucket list visit to the pole indicating the meeting of Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory, it dictates there is one track across. Wander left or right off the track and you are guaranteed to sink the car to the axles and be there for a very long time. The lake never really dries out, it just looks like it is.
With the visit to the meeting of the states done, including acknowledging the original point was incorrect due to a worn-out measuring chain, we headed into the desert again to seek out a camping spot.
In short term a cracker of a camp was found. Flat and protected, the Simpson had given us a gift for the toils of a long day driving. A fire, wine, stars and chocolate ended a great day.
