Thursday 13th April, 2017
Today we took in the sights of Birdsville, The ruins of the Royal Hotel, the Birdsville Hotel, still in perfect working order.....
We had a look at the Diamantina River, which forms a billabong, at the caravan park. The caravan park has a large area for campers, the Birdsville races draws an additional 7,000 people to the town each year.
We thought we'd sneak out and take a peek at what is to come, I don't know, but the Birdsville Track doesn't look so tough to me.......
..........Then we saw this.....if true this could make the Track trek a bit tricky. The fines for travelling on a closed road are ENORMOUS! So we did a quick check with the tourist information centre......all good...the road is actually open (phew!)
About forty kilometres west of Birdsville, at the edge of the Simpson Desert there is sand dune well known to 4x4ers. BIG RED....At 30 metres high it is a formidable challenge. Well we cannot be this close and not at least have a look....
So we drove the 40 k's out to big red, and I somehow convinced Bev that we should have a go at it...... O.K. We did have to have a couple of goes at getting up, then one bloke suggested we try it without the caravan.... that was much easier!
So we drove the 40 k's out to big red, and I somehow convinced Bev that we should have a go at it...... O.K. We did have to have a couple of goes at getting up, then one bloke suggested we try it without the caravan.... that was much easier!
Tomorrow morning we will head down the track, which we have been assured is in good shape, we expect to camp 3 nights on the track, and arrive at Marree on Monday. There is no phone/internet along the track, so you will just have to wait and see how we go. Will update the blog when we can.
Good luck on the track.
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