Thursday 1st July 2021
Another great nights sleep. I finally worked out what to wear to bed. My polypropylene thermals plus my pjs. It was a very cold night. Only 2°C when we went to bed at 10pm, so I am sure it got colder.

We headed off at 9am heading east towards Birdsville on our 3rd day on the French Line in the Simpson Desert. We have already travelled 216km from Dalhousie Springs. The fuel range ins now at 11.4 litres per 100km and we have 914km range left in  the tank.

Today was once again varied size dunes, lots of different vegetation and scenic lakes throughout the day. They were  all salt pans but the mirage of water in the lakes as you approached would be so disconcerting and devastating if you were dying of thirst. We saw camel tracks on the lacks. David said there were so many camel tracks on the lake it was like a service station for camels, where they fill up with fuel. I thought it was more like a camel hot, where they meet their buddies for a drink. The first lake we came to I named Little Lake Tamblyn as it was near Lake Tamblyn and was little. It was very pretty and we didn’t have to walk very far to see the salt here.

We then headed to Approdinna Attora Knolls which were two landforms – the gypsum now exposed began as flour gypsum swept up by winds from the bed of a local lake to form dunes which later developed a hard and crusty upper surface. These remnants were once the highest dune crests.Whilst there we saw 2 young guys and 2 girls riding trail bikes across the desert. They had a support crew of 4 cars with them. They were loving it.

We learnt today that the colour of the dunes gives an indication of their age. The ‘new’ sand is paler in colour and will gradually become red with age as the entrapped clay particles weather. Also the gidgee trees in the desert are long lived and slow growing. The trees take hundreds of years to reach their mature size of 5 to 8 metres.

There were a couple of learner drivers on the track today. The amazing desert track weaves 400km in and out, around and over the sand dunes from Dalhousie Springs to Birdsville going bumpity-bump-bump-bump all the way.

We also passed Lake Thomas and a couple of other lakes which made the drive quite scenic. After lunch the sand became much softer. We finally arrived at Poeppel corner which is where QLD, NT and SA meets. We left SA and crossed the QLD border at 3.15pm, then drove in to the NT at 3.32 and then back in to QLD at 3.51. We drove along the edge of the salt pander about 20mins which was smooth, straight and flat which was a pleasant change. Then back we went in to the dunes again. We found camp at about 5pm, setup and then did yoga in the setting sun. It was a beautiful and restful ambience. We had a lovely night again beside the camp fire which is where I am sitting currently writing this note. Hope you are all well at home.

Distance travelled on the Simpson Desert Track today – 94km