3 Corners & a Double Simpson Desert Crossing - Day 7

Day 7 - 29/3/2016 - Camp 2 to the edge of the Simpson Desert Reserve and Camp 3

Later that night the wind eased off, but it then started to rain.  It was a constant drizzle most of the night.  Selwyn had left a left cup out overnight and at breakfast he mentioned that there was about 1mm in it from the rain overnight.  The rain was part of a cool change that came through.  The change was very much welcomed.  It was a bit of a slower start to the morning as we were all trying to let the tents dry out a bit before packing them up.  The rain was just enough to wet everything and having the sand stick to everything while trying to pack up.

You can just see the dry tent footprint beside the vehicle

Today was also the day that things started taking a turn for the worse for me.  Somewhere/somehow I picked up a stomach bug.  I got gastro!  Not exactly something that what you want when you are in the middle of nowhere!  So needless to say I got very good at digging holes over the next few days.  Snowy dubbed it the “Me and my shovel” tour.

It was another long day of driving.  As the day progressed the weather gradually improved as well.  The temperature never went above 30degC the whole day.  A complete contrast from the previous few days.  The wind and rain had also help remove any trace of the couple of groups that were already ahead of us on the track.

At about 4:30pm we eventually reached the edge of the Simpson Desert Reserve. This was one of our main goals to reach.  We debated about weather to push on a little bit further to Purni Bore, but fuel reserves, time and my rather frequent need to stop and dig holes dictated that we would turn around here.

We decided to return via the WAA line.  The WAA line is south of the French Line and pre trip research revealed that it was meant to be slightly faster.  We found the first part of the track a lot easier going then the French Line in terms of it being more compacted dirt and smaller sand dunes to start off with.  There was even some track washouts that made it a bit more challenging to get through.  It also looked like we were the first group for the season to use the WAA line.

After a few more kilometres we found a decent campsite ringed by dunes.

Campsite

Due to the stomach bug and long day driving, I was absolutely exhausted so I pretty much setup camp and went straight to bed.  At least it was cooler so it made it a little bit more comfortable.