Gismo Queen and her King

Merty Merty Station to Tibooburra

It rained last night - which was probably the last thing we needed. The rain was quite loud on the caravan roof during the night and there was even thunder. Given how badly the Birdsville Track turned to mush after a little bit of rain, there was some concern this road would also be bad. Especially as it isn't as good or popular a road as the Birdsville Track. It was also quite warm overnight so after breakfast and a nice hot shower (yay for gas), we were ready for an early departure. Until I noticed that Jude was increasing in height as she walked from her van to the car - the mud was building up on her feet! So I quickly changed shoes and made a dash for the car as it started to rain again. This didn't bode well for the drive. The mud was noisy, slippery and for probably the only time in my life, I appreciated corrugations as they provided a bit of grip! The road was also very up and down over sand dunes. As we started out there was a bit of fear that the road was going to be like this for the whole 116km! Soon, the muddiness and slipperiness gave way to more whoopy-doo sand dunes - and lots of corrugations! The whoopy-do sand dunes were very much like a roller coaster. At the top, you couldn't see what was on the other side. I had the advantage of being behind Neill so I knew he would tell me if there was anything of concern. Hence, I got a bit cocky with riding the roller coaster and got a bit close to the back of the Bushtracker at times. After about 50km, it was well and truly time for morning tea, so we stopped at the Cattleyard Cafe! Yep, the Merty Merty Station cattleyard which obviously had a nice firm driveway which was reassuring after the rain. As we drank our cappucinos, we saw a dingo watching us from the end of the yards. It was the second one I had seen for the morning - one was running along the road parallel to the mighty merlot only 10 minutes before. Then it was 60km to Cameron Corner. The road again offered a bit of everything - with lots more sand dunes. For 4wd enthusiasts, there are 1040 sand dunes across the Simpson Desert. We reckon we covered about 140 sand dunes between Merty Merty and Cameron Corner. It was driving up and ober some of these that I noticed some red sticking out the left side of the back of the van. On the corrugations, we lost the screw on cap for the tube t the back of our van that holds my (red) ladder and the three legged stools. It was the ladder I could see, so at least I rescued it and the stools, but the cap was not to be seen. We arrived in Cameron Corner at lunchtime. We had planned to top up with fuel but upon pulling up to the bowser, the lady told us they were running short of fuel and so we were rationing it to 20 litres per person! At the price of $2.20 per litre, that was probably a good thing (we got a discount because of the rationing - down to $2 p/l). The shop there markets itself as the Cameron Corner Store but it was really just a pub - there was nothing to buy! However, we settled in for steak sandwiches for lunch before standing in all three states that is Cameron Corner's claim to fame - the point where NSW/Queensland/SA meet. The dingo fence runs along the SA/Queensland border as well - complete with a very solid gate! Then we crossed into New South Wales for the 140km to Tibooburra. The road was pretty good, and as this is part of the Sturt National Park, there were lots of animals. We first saw eagles eating a road kill kangaroo, then lots of big red kangaroos, then some emus ran at Neill's car, and we even got overtaken by some camels. We arrived in Tbooburra at about 4pm but the fuel tanker was filling up at the servo and Greg always says you should nver fill up after the tanker has been so we drove out to an Aboriginal Campground just outside town. The campfire was soon roaring, we had curried sausages for dinner followed by pancakes, and it was all washed down with red wine - so the usual! The only difference being that we have mobile phone signal so we are all being a bit anti-social around the campfire, uploading blog entries and checking facebook!

posted by Tracey @ 8:45 pm