Saturday, 8 August 2026
It was a much milder night last night compared with Thursday night, so we were very warm and cozy in our swag and slept well. The most difficult part of this whole camping lark is the crawling into the swag each night and then trying to crawl back out again in the morning after sleeping on the ground. Well, not quite the ground, of course, as we do have a pretty good mattress in the swag. I have tried dressing in the swag before falling out the opening. Very hard dressing while laying down! I have tried rolling out of the swag in my pyjamas and dressing in the toilet tent. A slightly easier option, although I did draw a comment of ‘nice jarmies’ when I appeared outside in my pink and white-checked flannelette PJs! This morning I half and halved it. Sat up in the swag and dressed my top half and then crawled outside to complete my ablutions and bottom half dressing in the toilet tent. Maybe the best option??
Which brings me to the PortaPotti ‘rules’. Yes, we have the PortaPotti strapped onto the roof rack and, unlike on our half lap, WE have actually used it. Now I thought that I would be able to use the loo for all my needs while in camp. Ahem, that would be nice BUT I have been asked to keep use to a minimum, especially when it comes to fluids!! That means bush peeing all day and into the evening while we are in camp. Boo! I guess it works in my favour in the long run? If we fill the PortaPotti with liquids and solids before Birdsville, I won’t be able to use it for ANY needs and that would be more of a problem than bush peeing.
I think someone mentioned to me before leaving on this trip that most long-haul flights fly to Melbourne (and maybe Sydney too?) over the Simpson Desert. After several nights out here I can confirm that we are definitely on the flight path! And it’s busy too. A few members of the group have been using flight tracking apps to check on what flight is flying over us. We’re in the middle of the desert and we can find out what airplane is flying over nearly 40,000 feet above us.
As we have travelled east the thryptomene of yesterday has all but disappeared. The flora today has been dominated by the sandhill grevillea, gidgee trees (Acacia georginae) which is a tough, drought resistant acacia species and spinifex grasses. So much spinifex all but obliterating the red dunes.
We passed the turn off to the ‘Football Field’ which is a clay pan that Cecil Madigan deviated to find, knowing that the clay pans existed from his 1929 aerial reconnaissance of the desert. His party was desperately in need of water again and the camels in need of feed, so it was a relief to find the clay pans holding water and surrounded by vegetation. The interpretative board at Camp 11 this morning indicated that the expedition would likely have failed but for finding the clay pans.
Around 10.15am, Lutz announced that we had just climbed Dune 230. He assured us that they have a sophisticated method for determining what they count as a dune. This led to some radio chatter along the lines of – ‘just because you think you are a dune, does not mean you are a dune’, ‘to be a dune or not to be a dune’, ‘identify as a dune’ and so on. Such a funny bunch.
Soon after, our first traffic caught up to us when we were about 5 Ks from Madigan Camp 12. The guy who had caught up to us was happy to sit behind us until then, rather than attempt to leapfrog around our group of `13 vehicles. Having us all pull off the track at Camp 12 would provide plenty of space for an overtaking manoeuver.
Pulling in to Madigan Camp 12 provided us all with leg stretching, photography and bush toilet opportunities. When we went to photograph the plaque, we found that some small-minded individual had scratched out, no, gouged out the inscription on the plaque on the star picket. What makes a person do something like that? Standing by the star picket I spotted a small lizard (cane grass dragon?) who seemed to be standing guard today. He obligingly posed while everyone took a photo and then scampered off into the spinifex.
Continuing on our way, we found that the dunes were not as steep today. The going was more a case of gentle undulations. Ahem, gentle undulations equals rock-a-bye baby time for me!! Yep, we were lurching through the sand dunes and I could not keep my eyes open. I will point out that I was on the sunny side of the car so, I was lovely and warm and I was being gently rocked, OK maybe not that gently BUT that didn’t stop me from dozing off for a bit, ha, ha.
After I woke up I managed to take a photo of the other grevillea that is flowering out here. The desert grevillea (Grevillea juncifolia) is nowhere near as prolific as the sandhill grevillea and has a completely different sort of flower. Where the sandhill grevillea has creamy-yellow flower spikes, the desert grevillea has bright orange-red flowers. These desert greveilleas are so incredibly hardy thriving in the swales between the dunes.
About one o’clock we stopped for lunch at Madigan Camp 13 and then the afternoon continued in much the same fashion as the morning, rocking and rolling along the track as it undulated over the dunes. We really had no difficult dunes today, with all the vehicles in our convoy driving the Madigan Line like seasoned pros.
We arrived at Madigan Camp 15 just before 4.00pm and called it a day. We set up our campsite and then walked back over the last dune that we crossed coming into camp, to take some photos and fly the drone for some aerial shots of the dunes, the track and the camp. It has been very warm today reaching 30° Celsius, with cloud building up during the afternoon. The cloud kept the temperature quite warm into the evening as we prepared dinner.
We decided tonight that we would try one of our dehydrated, or is that freeze-dried, meals. We purchased some of these meals as emergency supplies for our half lap, but haven’t tried them, so finally broke one out for tonight’s dinner. Beef Bourguignon. Sounds fancy! Two sachets, one containing the French casserole and the other an accompaniment of mashed potatoes. Just add water and wait 10-15 minutes for a delicious meal. Yeah, right. Not really a fan. Dammit we have two more of these camping meals. Might they be better … or worse? Are we even game to try?
We consoled ourselves with the fact that we had Splices in the freezer for desert. Ugh, we needed something to cleanse the taste of overly salty, boot leather beef from our palates. Faaaarrrrck! Somehow the freezer had been turned to refrigerator mode during today. So, no Splices for us. And we have to decide what defrosted and semi-defrosted food is salvageable? Not a decision for tonight though as I was too pissed off about it. Bernie left a couple of things in the freezer and turned it back to freezer mode and moved a couple of things to the fridge that will be dinner tomorrow night. Other items will have to be chucked out, but we’ll do that in Birdsville. Not a happy camper this evening.
I made a cup of tea and Bernie dragged me over to the campfire. After sitting, staring into the flames for an hour or so, chatting with one of the other Traceys, who also feels a bit over the whole camping thing, I was feeling somewhat better. We only have one more night of camping before arriving in Birdsville and Bernie has booked us a cabin. So looking forward to a shower!
Camp 11 to Camp 15 – 49 kilometres
