Exploring the McLarty Hills

4 Aug

We only achieved 8.8 km today, partly due to a blowout of Dave’s rear left tyre and partly since it wasn’t far to the today’s destination, the McLarty Hills, but it still took most of the day.

Dave’s Missing Tyre

Dave noticed his Oka was leaning a bit ascending a sand dune (which is not unusual on this terrain) and when he investigated, the rear left tyre was missing completely. He’d been driving on the wheel rim after the tyre had rolled off rim and was left 30m behind his Oka.

One tyre track, one rim track:

Where’s the ****ing tyre??

Secret mens business as Dave does things under the Oka. Actually the tarp is to keep the wind blown sand out of his face while he manipulates jacks under the axle:

After a hot and laborious exercise the wheel was replaced, but the expensive but totally destroyed tyre had to be abandoned in the Great Sandy Desert, sadly there was no hope of repair to the ruptured sidewall.

We left the tyre leaning against a Desert Walnut tree (Owenia reticulata), which are iconic desert trees found all over the Great Sandy Desert area:

The McLarty Hills

After forging a track through the scrub we reached and explored the Mclarty Hills, scene of some historical events:

• Tom Gray, a policeman who was hunting down a murderer in the 1930’s, and
• Mick Driscoll, (who Dave knew), who was searching for Lassiter’s Golden Reef in the 1960’s.

Both of these men travelled in this area and left their names etched somewhere in a rock face in the McLarty Hills. It would be a daunting task to find them in such a remote place with only scant location information to go on. Previous expeditions had tried to find them and failed, but we gave it a try.

Below is an 11 minute video of us “forging the track” towards the McLarty Hills on the 4th Aug. after turning off a known cut line.

It was a fairly easy task but at 8:20 into the video I hit a small termite mound (or some such solid object) hidden in the spinifex (you can hear a loud bang). Luckily no damage was done but it’s one of the risks in “forging tracks”.

This is good example of a hidden obstacle, a small but very hard termite mound hidden behind a spinifex clump:

At this point we were pretty remote from help, more than 250km in a direct line (and 6 days travel) from any nearby community (Sandfire, Broome or Fitzroy Crossing), so a major breakdown here would at a minimum be very inconvenient but could be a major setback, resulting in the towing of a defunct Oka several hundred difficult kms to the nearest highway.

However, we did log in on our HF radio every night giving the base operator our exact coordinates so they would know where to start looking if we ever broke down or disappeared. It has happened, 2 members of the original Calvert Expedition disappeared in this area in the 1890’s and their remains were only located 6 months later.

The Rock Engravings

Somewhere up in these hills we hoped we could locate some historical names engraved in the rocks. Our only information was that they were thought to be in this range somewhere:

We clambered up and around the rocks for a couple of hours with cameras and binoculars but failed to find what we were looking for, which didn’t really surprise us given the area to be covered. However we did find a few interesting Aboriginal artworks in the caves.

An emu foot print and a coolamon or possibly a shield:

This a fish drawing in an area devoid of large bodies of water:

Possibly a map showing the links between water holes?

We made camp at the foot of the McLarty Hills in one of the most remote areas of the country we have been to. There are no tracks in this part of the world, we had to make our own:

There are a few other small hills scattered around the McLarty Range which is spread over around 100 sq km of desert:

Here’s a 360º view from the top of the McLarty Hills:

5 Aug

This morning we checked our free wheeling hub screws in advance of setting off again. Dean’s were loose and Dave’s slightly loose, mine were OK because I’d had this problem before and fitted a retention device after a complete hub fell off on a previous trek, leaving us without 4WD.

Very cool breezy morning so we had bacon and eggs inside for breakfast (we found some bacon hidden in the back of the freezer) with toast and marmalade, even china cups for our tea. Despite our very remote location, we certainly don’t rough it on our travels, we do eat rather well wherever we might be.

Later, before we moved on, we went for a final halfhearted attempt to look for the engraved rocks but inwardly resigned to failure, when suddenly, eagle-eyed Kaye spotted them when everyone else didn’t.

The engravings were lower down and a lot smaller than we had been expecting, only a few cm tall, but still surprisingly distinct considering how long ago they had been made (78 and 48 years ago respectively). Dave was rapt that “we” had found them when others hadn’t:

T Gray 15 January 1936:

M Driscoll 1966 (July). Dave knew Mick Driscoll before he sadly passed away.

Dave looking justifiably proud that we’d located the rock signatures, something he had been planning and hoping to do for many years:

Having successfully achieved one of our major objectives (but with a little bit of good fortune, because the engravings were very small inscriptions in a very large desert), and with hopes raised high once again, we left the McLarty Hills and headed west between sand dunes towards the Dragon Tree Soak in a convoy of Okas. See “Mclarty Hills to Dragon Tree Soak”.

Anna Plains Track to the Sandfire Roadhouse on the Coastal Highway

The Anna Plains Track.

The APT turned out to be more difficult than expected and was not going to give in easily, it took us another 3 days and 200km to reach the NW Coastal Highway near Sandfire Roadhouse.

10 Aug (Would have been my mum’s 103rd birthday today).

The first 2 days were very slow going and we only managed 37 km today.

We passed by a small gravel scrape filled with water. I didn’t have to go up the hill but I fetched a pail of water, but only to wash the windscreens with, it would not have been good enough to drink. Even after boiling, surface water is almost always contaminated by animal droppings.



Here are the footprints of a large camel as he (or she) shuffled his (or her) feet to make a neat arrangement of droppings.



The going was getting slightly easier but there were still very difficult sections requiring significant deviations from the track and knocking down small trees up to 3 cm thick where they became impenetrable.



This deviation was needed around a seemingly straight and easy track section where we were confronted by a major thicket of Grevillia bushes and had to back up a few hundred meters and retreat to the slopes of a nearby sand dune where the bushes had thinned out.

There was no evidence of a major obstruction on the most recent Google Earth image:



Burnt Holly Grevillea are the worst to push though, their black, stiff and scratchy branches tear at the outside of the Okas and their sharp hard roots are potentially very dangerous to tyres. Green living bushes, spinifex and trees were fairly easy to run over and polished the bottom of the Okas removing all oil drips, dirt, grime, wires, pipes and anything not securely bolted on or made of steel.

The most difficult terrain was irregular clumps of spinifex or tussock grass which covered the ground whenever we had to deviate around impenetrable thickets of small trees and often hid small termite mounds. They caused the Okas to bounce and roll alarmingly at even low speeds and put a tremendous strain on springs and suspension components, not to mention cupboards doors.



At the campsite that night, the full moon rose pink in the east just as the red sun was setting in the west. Spectacular, but we couldn’t work out how to get both in the one photo.





Except with a bit of trick photography:



We were approaching the end of our desert crossing now and achieved 57km today. So for our final campsite on the track, Kaye cooked a superb roast lamb for all of us which we had with mint sauce.

Us enjoying Kaye’s roast lamb and mint sauce. We might have been running low on fuel and water, but we certainly had plenty of good food and wine left:



And I made a contemporary minimalist arrangement for our dinner table centrepiece tonight, of spinifex flowers in an empty Flashlube bottle:



At the campsite that night bread was cooked on the campfire with mixed results. This one was fine…



11 Aug

Nice sunrise this morning for those up early enough (before 6am):



A brightly camouflaged moth had taken up residence in our kitchen.



Compare if you will with the same moth (a Spirana Revolvens) spreadeagled and pinned behind a glass case in the MAGNT (Museum and Art Gallery of the NT) in Darwin a few weeks later:



Eventually the going did get a bit easier as we headed west and we managed 133 km today to reached the NW Coastal Highway.



Finally the end of the desert track and into pastoral country, but we still had another 60km to go to the highway.







Fortunately, track conditions improved somewhat as we approached the highway and all Okas made it with a bit of fuel to spare, in our case we were down to our last 10-15 litres after setting off with 300 litres. To do this we drained one tank and transferred it to the other side rather than have 2 tanks with only a few litres each. We had used over 95% of our fuel which was cutting things a bit fine.

So with water and fuel tanks bordering on empty and only 1 useable spare tyre left between us, we arrived at Sandfire Roadhouse late in the afternoon, rather keen to locate their showers, washing machines and somewhere to eat. We had plenty of food left but after such a long arduous trek we just couldn’t be buggered to cook.



After the essentials were done we ate out at the roadhouse “restaurant” and had rather a good dinner with wine to wash it down.

However the work wasn’t quite done, Dave still had to arrange for 2 new tyres to be freighted up from Perth, which took a bit of organising seeing as we were around 2000km north of Perth.
Several phone calls later and he had tracked some down and they would be on the next available truck. That gave us a day or so to wait so we took a lay day at Sandfire and did a lot of maintenance and repair.

12 Aug

The lay day at Sandfire wasn’t as lazy as it could have been, there were tyres to fit and swap around, greasing to be done, various repairs to be completed as we all still had a very long way to go.

And we took time to reflect on where we had been and what we had achieved.

We had covered 700km of mostly trackless desert, but those 700km had taken 13 days, during which time we had met no one else, the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon Mission didn't take that long (only 9 days) and they didn't meet anyone else either.

We had covered 700km of desert since leaving the highway near Fitzroy Crossing and reaching the coastal highway near Sandfire. Our average distance per day was only 48km at less than 10kph which was a lot slower than expected and made worse by the rocketing fuel consumption which averaged more than twice the normal rate, and was often higher.

We also only found 2 sources of water in this distance so some frugality was necessary. Next time we will learn from this experience.

But we had successfully achieved our 2 main objectives and were subsequently cheered(?) by the news that another similar expedition using smaller, nimbler 4WD vehicles had suffered even worse tyre problems than we did.

We had suffered no major mechanical failures and after a tough desert crossing, all three Okas arrived at their home paddocks many thousands of km further on, and spread across the country, with no subsequent problems. Our Okas had proved once again their strength and endurance, plus our travels had been in the relative comfort and security of larger vehicles.

That evening we ate out again for the last supper in our best attire (comparatively).





13 Aug

In mid morning we sadly said our good-byes to Dave, Pauline, Deano and Kaye at Sandfire to await the arrival of the new tyres, fuelled up with just enough expensive fuel to get to Broome and headed up the highway into a fierce headwind.

We camped at the Goldwire Rest Area near Barn Hill and had a quiet evening, the first for more than 2 weeks.

Thus we had successfully completed a crossing of the Great Sandy Desert, definitely our most difficult trek yet and one that not many people have done [we were aware of only 4 or 5 similar small expeditions in recent years], but our 2014 journey did not start or end here, and other sections of our 2014 outback adventures can be seen here:

Adelaide to Halls Creek
Broome to Darwin
Darwin to Adelaide

Dragon Tree Soak to the Anna Plains Track

South to the Anna Plains Track.

The route south was nominally following a old cut line but that petered out quickly or became overgrown and it was easier for us to make our own way over the sand dunes following the rough direction of the cut line. It was tough and slow going as we had to recce most sand dunes on foot first first to ensure a) that we could get over them and b) that the steeper southern side wasn’t too steep or blocked by vegetation. The southern side was often steeper than the approach side and covered in different foliage. With no previous wheel tracks to follow, we also had to beware of potential soft patches which could have caused a roll over.

With only the benefit of ground based topographical assessments, on the 7th we did 21.4km but on the 8th we managed 24.8km. It was very slow going over spinifex clumps and pushing through thickets of small but sharp shrubs.

Heading towards another dune:

But over the top, the swale between sand dunes had almost park-like qualities with tall, white barked trees in a grassland environment. Hard to believe were in a very remote desert location.

Compared with a swale on the next day which was more desert-like spinifex and small shrubs. It’s as if each swale has it’s own micro climate and plant community.

Sometimes we could make out a former exploration cut line which helped with navigation and sometimes made progress a bit easier but mostly they were overgrown after 30 years of non-use.

Occasionally we came across survey markers from a bygone age.

Deano powering over a sand dune:

An alternate approach?

About that time, an idea was forming in my mind. Seeing the terrain from ground level or even the top of a sand dune can be difficult and deceptive. What we needed was a local form of Google Earth, but in real time and closer to the ground. Like a quadcopter drone with a live TV camera fitted underneath and Wi-Fi connection to a display on the ground.

Such devices are becoming common place in search and rescue situations and for surveillance requirements. Serious devices are becoming affordable (less than $1000) and for our next outback trip I’ll look into the practicalities of such a system, like this one. It would have saved us a lot of time and energy by being able to see the lie of the land from within our Okas: assessing potential routes over sand dunes or around thickets of vegetation, and locating potential campsites.

A near disaster:

On the morning of the 7th, one member of the group set off on foot, alone and unnoticed, to locate a route over the next sand dune, but he became disoriented which is very easy to do in thick scrub. His distant calls could be heard and he could hear us but couldn’t easily determine the direction of our calls, so the remainder of the team set off towards his calls, keeping in contact but not knowing if he was OK or injured.

After 10 minutes of worrisome scrambling though the scrub we located him safe and well, but feeling a bit abashed that he hadn’t taken a hand-held CB with him. It was a salutary lesson for all of us, not to roam too far from the camp alone or without a reliable means of communication.

Cork Bark trees in flower:

Oka 148 on the top of a sand dune:

Sharp, hard branches and roots like these were often hidden in the small bushes and spinifex to attract the unwary. The flag on the top of our sand flag subsequently got torn off in heavy going.

A couple of Okas about to pounce on an unsuspecting sand dune:

But first Dave had to remove a small but prominently positioned tree from our path. Most we simply pushed over but some, like this, one had thick sharp roots on our chosen route with the potential to damage our already reducing tyre stocks:

Dave crossing a heavily vegetated sand dune:

Us descending a sand dune:

Most of our tyre troubles stemmed from small sharp pencils of dry timber which penetrated the tread of the tyre and went unnoticed until it was flat and running on the rim, destroying the sidewall.

Between us we had 5 tyres which were staked and separated from the rims, one of which we found before the sidewall was damaged and could be plugged, but 4 where the sidewalls were destroyed, including one which came off the rim completely. Many smaller stakes were noticed in the treads and removed before they could cause any damage.

Punctures it would seem, only happen in the most difficult locations, in soft sand, or on spinifex and on the sunny side of the vehicle. It required hot heavy team work to safely lift an Oka in soft sandy conditions to change wheels. First we had to clear a large area of spinifex and bushes around the wheel before we could start work. Then the jacks would sink into the sand without large base plates, and holes dug under wheels would quickly fill in with dry sand or undermine the jacks. However the benefit of having 3 similar vehicles certainly paid off in terms of experience and equipment, for various jobs we collectively used 2 hydraulic jacks, 2 high lift jacks, 2 hub lifters, axle stands, various jacking blocks and a screw jack.

We had one flat tyre which had broken the seal but fortunately it hadn’t come off the wheel and we were able to plug the leak with 2 plugs and reseat the tyre on the rim. But I still had to replace the wheel subsequently in Broome as the plugs worked loose.

This was our flat tyre, fortunately it hadn't run off the rim:

Janet holding the parasol while we plugged the tyre:

Later I also found this stake in the rear right tyre, fortunately it was in diagonally and hadn’t penetrated the cords:

Progress had been slower than anticipated and was starting to cause concerns over fuel consumption which dropped to less than 2km per litre at times as we pushed though soft sandy terrain and over around 40 sand dunes in low ratio second gear for most of the day. If things became critical we made tentative plans for one vehicle to proceed with sufficient fuel to make it to Sandfire, and then return with enough fuel for the remaining Okas.

Some sand dunes became very soft after the first vehicle had crossed them and broken though the surface sand and needed a second attempt:

Our route today was nominally on an existing dead straight cut line but you can see from this track plot, our actual track was far from straight as we had to circumnavigate overgrown sections and difficult sand dunes.

A typical desert campsite:

Shade provided by an Oka for the late afternoon and a campfire for when it cooled down. We collected firewood when we could and cleared the spinifex and scrub to make things a bit more comfortable.

9 Aug

During the night, clouds rolled in making a spectacular sunrise, but as I pointed out at the time, “they’re only bloody photons”. But they were very attractive photons.

Reaching the Anna Plains Track

Today, only 4km from our campsite but over around a dozen sand dunes, we completed the southward trek from the Dragon Tree Soak to the Anna Plains Track (APT) after making our own way over 50 or more sand dunes in 3 days.

In fact we ran straight across the APT without noticing it due to a mix up in the number of sand dunes we had actually crossed, you can clearly see our wheel tracks in this photo crossing the APT:

.

How did we miss something so obvious and anticipated? Well, from our GPS mapping system we knew we were very close to the APT (within 10 metres or so), but we were focused on finding the least difficult route forward rather than looking sideways, and in my defence, some dunes were double or triple headers so a bit of confusion over numbers was not unexpected.

Anyway it was me who actually found the track, and this is it, Janet standing on the real Anna Plains Track. In this area the track looked in quite good condition, if only it had remained this good we would have been laughing…

Dean and Kaye were following last today and as the rest of us were getting mixed up over the location of the APT, they sat on top of the last sand dune watching the confusion.

Then the CB crackled and Dean said he could see an old Land Rover through his binoculars to the right of us, up the track a bit. Well “a bit” turned out to be about 400m but sure enough, near the APT junction were the remains of a old Land Rover and trailer. They belonged to a couple of prospectors and were burnt out in a spinifex fire in 2007. Fortunately the occupants recovered their sat phone as they escaped so they were able to call for help and were rescued by helicopter.

Vehicles broken down or stranded in remote areas normally have no realistic chance of recovery and abandoned vehicles are very quickly stripped of anything useful. But in this very remote location with no more than a handful of visitors a decade, the vehicle remains are still left pretty much as they were 8 years ago.

We drove around the world in a Land Rover a bit like this:

A small lizard, probably a Ridged Tail Monitor, had taken up residence in the radiator:

Internet photos of a Ridge-Tail Monitor for reference:

Sadly, our early optimism from the condition of the Anna Plains Track in this area didn’t last and it was not going to give in easily, it took us another 200km and 3 days of difficult driving to reach the NW Coastal Highway near Sandfire Roadhouse. See “Anna Plains Track to Sandfire Roadhouse”.