Star dropper on side of track.
Sleeping
Camp - in his expedition notes Madigan records at
Camp 14 the sleeping habits of his fellow expeditionaries. Jack Bejah needed clean ground, so the highest, hardest and barest ground he could find. Madigan often joked that a slab of concrete would have been his ideal. Nurie followed suit. Andy often camped a little away from the others, always with his own little fire and a bed made from bushes. Marshall always slept too close to the fire. Simpson used to dig up a mound of sand, create a hollow on the top and sleep in it. Crocker Fletcher and Madigan slept on the “outskirts” the edge of
camp preferring areas of clean sand and laying down brushwood if it was going to be wet.
Madigan’s
Camp sites are references to explorer and geologist Cecil Thomas Madigan who, leading a party of nine men made an epic crossing of the North
Simpson Desert, by camels, in 1939. Madigan took 35 days to make his west/east crossing.
Madigan's
Camp sites were all marked with small plaques on yellow painted star pickets in 1994 by Owen Correa Outback Expeditions. These day's 4WD
explorers have begun to retrace Madigan's route of this 1939 expedition - thereby following Madigan's Line. It's is done from west to east due to the steep eastern sides of the dunes until you get to about
Camp 15, which is on the
Hay River Track.
Note that the Madigan Camps are not necessarily indicative of good
camp sites for travellers, but are historical points from C.T. Madigan 1939 Expedition.