Giles-Mulga Park Road - West through the Musgraves to the Wingellina Hills.

Thursday 26th June, 2008
Wingellina Hills
25 58 45.35 128 49 31.58

Another action packed day that saw us leave late, have an enjoyable days drive and then disaster strike in the late stages of the day. Action aplenty sports fans! It was a cool morning again but the fire soon took care of the chill. It was "jaffles 101" over breakfast and I reckon I’ll soon have these Canadians packing a jaffle like a pro. It’s their attention span that worries me. Apparently if you place the jaffle iron on top of red hot coals and then leave it, it turns itself over automatically, checks itself and get’s itself out of the fire and onto the plate of it’s own accord - Bull bleep ! They’ll get there.

We were packed and on the road by 9:30 a.m. driving into a beautiful sunny day. The road conditions varied from sublime to outright murder with huge corrugations, rocky outcrops and deep sand. Great stuff. The scenery as we wend our way through the Musgrave Ranges was spectacular. Grassy plains with groves of Desert Oak, rocky ranges of scalloped hills, jagged outcrops and the red sand hills of spinifex country. Truly amazing yet enjoyed by so few, the ubiquitous car bodies being the only things to detract from the vistas. Many a photo and video stop was taken. We also spotted our first groups of roaming camels all of whom seemed non-plussed about human presence. Some spectacular specimens there were too. We also managed to secure photographs of two more Len Beadell Plaques and a Trig marker for the collection.

Lunch was taken off the road in the shade of a grove of desert oak. A lovely place to rest with the sigh of the wind through the trees. Trailers both performing well at this stage. After lunch it was onwards along the Mulga Park Road battling the conditions and enjoying the scenery. Once passed Kata, at about 4.30 pm, I looked in the rear view mirror to see the trailer had taken on a decidedly “gull winged” appearance. Both sides had collapsed outwards onto the tyres. The left hand (passengers) side had come away almost completely and both guards had chewed lumps out of the tyre. Thank god I caught it when I did or I might have been two tyres down as well. No point being upset as Scott, Gaby and I both couldn’t help but laugh. First day in the rough and this happens. Didn’t take long to analyse the cause being the thin nature of the tubing used to support the sides. Seems I may have been right all along when trying desperately to convey my wishes to my engineers! It was definitely not strong enough to support the weight of the fuel ( and…..NOT MY FAULT!).



Some hacksaw work and tie down straps saw us on the way again, the passengers side wheel now totally exposed and the jerry cans securely squirreled into the rear of Scott’s truck. Once past Wingellina we stopped to push start an old Toyota 60 series with three lads on board. Have pulled a kilometre or so off the track west of Wingellina and camped in the scrub. Soup for dinner with a scotch and then a Bailey’s and chocolate for desert. A beautiful sunset again in crystal clear skies. The Dingoes are howling and there's one prowling around our camp for scraps as I type. A great day despite the trailer worries.