You never know when you are well off!

Yesterday was loose sand and corrugations.

Today was loose sand and several muddy creek crossings. After several of these I worked out a system.

See flooded creek, strip panniers from bike, carry panniers and bike across boghole, scrape mud off shoes/feet and from under mudguards, reload bike and ride on. Time consuming and requiring quite a lot of energy.

The bogholes got longer and softer until the Mount Dare pub where there was several hundred metres of portage required. All while being eaten by mosquitoes. I had a beer and pie at the pub which is friendly but basic.

After Mt Dare the road paralleled the creek and was often flooded. Usually there was a track around the bog but lots of walking was needed.

The last 8 km by the ‘Top Road’ to the boundary of the western Simpson Desert national park was on a shire road. The shire must have forgotten about it. It took nearly two hours to ride the 8 km over a track that was mostly gibbers from coin sized pebbles to head sized boulders. Utmost concentration and great physically effort was required. (note: at Willian Creek I met some guys who showed me a destroyed wheel off a 4WD, the driver was on this section of track but the road was so rough he hadn’t realised that he had blown a tyre let alone destroyed the rim).

I crossed into the National Park just on dusk and found a less rocky part of the gibber plain to camp on. The initial plan to sleep on the groundsheet was abandoned after an hour or so due to the mosquitoes. The roar of mosquitoes was like the distant sound of Perth airport. Clothes, fly veil, Aerogard didn’t work so unpack the tent and put it up. The ground was too stoney to drive pegs into so I used the panniers to weigh down the corners of the tent.