Now for the desert section. Annemarie and I have done a lot of desert treks such as the Anne Beadell highway and the Canning Stock Route but this was a first for the kids. The plan was to head east from Newman and follow the Talawana track across the Little Sandy desert, another of the roads built by Len Beadell in the 60's. It is a couple of hundred kilometres north of the Gunbarrel Hwy built by Len but it doesn't get the traffic that the original one gets these days.
This is on a track leading to the Talawana track. Not sure if it was natural or intentional burning. Had to watch which way the wind was blowing as we approached.
The first night, just near Cotton Creek aboriginal community. We had missed a turnoff and ended up at the community but it turned out a good option for topping up the fuel (at $3/litre)
The fires at night were very pleasant as it cooled down quickly. Stars were amazing of course. One huge meteorite traveled relatively slow all the way across the sky, slow enough for some of the kids to scramble out of the tent to see the end of it. Nights were usually well below zero going by the ice in the billy
Before crossing the Canning the track gets a fair bit of use from the 4WDers accessing Newman, but after the Canning a lot of the sand corrugations disappear. This is just a small salt pan
This is in the middle of the Talawana track after our second night. At this point I was expecting to be a lot further than this but the track was slower than I allowed. I think I was comparing it to the Anne Beadell in a Troopy, but the Delica just doesn't have the same clearance and needed to be nursed along a little more.
Annie and I doing the regular spinifex cleanout under the car. You see a few old burnt out vehicles beside the track where people failed to do this often enough
Windy Corner, at the end of the Talawana track where it meets the Gary Highway. Len named a lot of his roads after his family.
The Gary Highway seemed to see a little more traffic going by some of the corrugations, but with sections like this it is obvious the traffic may not have been along there for some time.
With the reduced clearance of the Delica it was often worthwhile to build up a few of the washaways rather than bending things underneath any more than we already had. Termite mounds like to hide in the spinifex and we managed to scalp quite a few.
The Gary Junction Rd is a maintained road so things smoothed out after Gary Junction (until the corrugations started)
We visited the Kiwirrkurra community in the Gibson desert. You can't take photos there but we spoke with this lady who said it was OK. This community is quite famous for its art and was one of the first to become internationally sought.
At a Len Beadell marker for the NT/WA border
While we were away our two pet budgies died which was a bit hard on us all, but particularly on Jenna. But we saw so many wild budgies which always cheered us up
We saw very few animals in the deserts, but we did see lots of camels
