Onwards to Warburton (twice!)

  Onwards to Warburton (twice!)

The next morning, with the campers dripping and heavy rain apparent to the north of us (that’s the direction we were heading), we had little choice but to stay put for another day. We pussy-footed around in the mud and puddles all day even though the weather cleared our site from the southwest mid-morning. We took the opportunity to recharge our batteries with our solar panels and do a well needed clean-up of our gear. Maurs and Shirley made damper and bread on the campfire. Kev even found the glasses that he thought he’d lost in Rawlinna. We also took stock of our fuel supply and realised that all of us might not quite make it to Warburton. All this running in soft sand and ruts was taking its toll on fuel consumption. I had ¾ of a tank (about 45 litres) plus 20 litres spare so was probably okay but Kev’s Pajero was getting low while he had an extra 20 litres sitting on his roof. We figured that we had another 220 kilometres to go and we would assess it at our next campsite.

Bread - the hard way!

Bread - well worth it!

Golden Orb spiders after rain

It was the tenth day of our journey and we drove to within 120 kilometres of Warburton. It was not without incident. As we picked along the track we heard an ominous, ugly dragging sound coming from underneath the vehicle (What was that Andy’s number again? – I could feel my arm and leg preparing to jump ship once more). Fearing that the wheel bearings had seized or something similar, we stopped and jacked up the rear wheel. It turned! The noise was being caused by the remnants of our protection plate pressing on the drive shaft. So not a fatal problem. Kev had some fencing wire (he’s a bloody legend) and he wired up what we couldn’t remove of the plate to minimise the rubbing and ergo, sickening noise.

Less protector plate means...less protection!

The track was pretty abominable with deep ruts and tracts of soft sand. We were making roughly for a place on our map called Waterfall Gorge but we didn’t note any decent campsites when we got to the approximate area, nor any signs saying “Waterfall Gorge”, nor any gorge for that matter and definitely no waterfall, so we pressed on until we found a campsite (it was a hundred metres off the track but obviously one used before by other travellers). As it was around 4 pm by now we hurried to set up camp with the promise of a barbecue, sweet potato cooked in the coals and a warm bed.

Gettin' the hang of the guitarlele

Connie Sue sunset

Next morning we pooled our fuel reserves into Kev’s Pajero and he and I took off replete with empty jerry cans to refill and return to the camp site in the one day. It took five hours to get there without a camper on the back and that meant that we couldn’t linger too long or else face driving the track in darkness. Fortunately there’s not that much at Warburton to linger around anyway. As it was, we did drive the last 20 kilometres in darkness but easily found the campsite thanks to Maurs and Shirley shining flashlights wildly when they saw our headlights coming. The big danger in this country is wild dogs – not dingoes, although we saw numbers of them too – but wild feral dog packs that have adapted to the area. You can hear the difference at night between the howls of the dingoes (which are kind of comforting) and the cacophonic rabble of a dog pack. I mention it here because that was why Maurs and Shirl were a bit glad to see us – they had seen “eyes” in the bush nearby while they were walking out to the road to guide us in. Otherwise they had had a brilliant day without us, reading books, chatting, making billy tea and baking bread in the camp oven in complete seclusion.

Somebody's private road - we could venture no further

It was time to set off on our final push to Warburton but we knew it would take two days from where we were. After more pussy-footing along the track (17 kilometres in the first hour) we stopped for morning tea (well one must maintain standards). Three vehicles appeared from the south and rolled up to us with the brash confidence of the seasoned four-wheel driver. They were from South Australia and were just on some casual bush bashing holiday and were keen to power off to get to Warburton. We finished our break and resumed our careful slog. About 5 kilometres up the road we passed them again – they were off the road as one vehicle had broken his steering rod. In true Monty Python style the driver told us that he had “had worse” – we pressed on with steely resolve (I didn’t even know you could break a steering rod – another thing for me to worry about). We had identified potential camps at around 44 kilometres and 71 kilometres on our trip the day before, and we arrived at the latter campsite at around 1.15 pm. The consensus was to rest up and drive the last 50 kilometres tomorrow, and it was quite a good camp site. The bit of plate that we had wired up under the X-Trail had broken off so we unhitched it and hoped the remaining plate would behave itself tomorrow. I was wondering how much of the vehicle we had left behind on the trail and how much we would bring into Warburton.

Chest-high grass just ready for harvesting!

Connie Sue vista

It was cold - damn cold!

We distinctly wrote..."Help!!!"

It was another cold desert night. We woke up to ice deposited on the windscreens. Today was Connie Sue’s last chance to give us a good spanking and she didn’t let us down. We had to negotiate a few washaways; one of these we had to fill in with dirt before I attempted to cross it (shovel, shovel). We came unstuck again where the Bloodstone track spilled into the Connie Sue and vehicles entering there had left the soft sand all churned up. We put two recovery tracks under the left-hand wheels and did some gardening up further in order to maintain momentum to get through. A hairy section of river gravel tested us out after that but then we were veritably cruising on the Great Central Road – wide and graded and smooth (10 kilometres from Warburton)! We were very glad to see the Warburton Roadhouse even though in another Universe one might drive right by it without seeing it at all. From the road it’s basically a roadhouse and a caravan park enclosed in barbed wire fencing, so not your friendliest looking structure. I was so glad that the X-Trail had got us through – it is one tough little vehicle.

 

Just a small bogging this time...

 

We booked two nights at the caravan park and rang Scott (who turned out to be the local mechanic) to ask him if he could have a look over the vehicle. We really didn’t know how much damage that we might have sustained.  Scott was a nice young guy and a good mechanic. He has a steady stream of business particularly with government and contractor vehicles presenting with a variety of ills due to the country that they move around in and the speed that they insist on moving around in it (well they’re all leased vehicles aren’t they?). He fixed/modified my protector plate to shield the fuel tank from the exhaust pipe as best he could. I asked about the small oil leak we had noticed (Maurs saw it first - a small drop of fluid on the ground a few days earlier) – glumness! – there was a crack in the rear diff plate. Scott took my phone number and worked on possible solutions – two hours later we agreed to bring the car in the next day and he would weld a repair (tricky because it is alloy material) if he could get the plate off easily (otherwise an epoxy job and nurse the car home). We spent the rest of the day with overdue washing and a shower (after 14 days – now that was welcome). We even bought some frozen meals at the roadhouse and microwaved them while watching TV in the big camp kitchen. We felt positively sophisticated! Warburton is an alcohol-free community so we made do with cups of tea and headed back to our campers in the cold desert air at around 9 pm.

Camped at Warburton Caravan Park

 

As it was Scott decided it would be way more effective to use epoxy on the diff rather than weld it. While we waited we took in the delights of Warburton. A visit to the well-stocked General Store in the community itself was really interesting, and if you’re in the market for frozen kangaroo tails I reckon I now know where you can pick up a few. The Cultural Centre was also an interesting place, highlighting local artists in the gallery there with some very nice pieces.

 

Warburton Art Gallery at the Shire Offices

 

Twin snakes dominate the art and culture

Another depiction of the snakes