Sandy Blight Junction Track to Gary Junction Road

September 10^th

There were no more vehicles on the track today. Lots of corrugations and rocky sections again. We drove through the Tropic of Capricorn for the third time this trip and passed another lot of blaze trees and Len Beadell plaques. All have coordinates on them stating exactly where they lie – Len didn’t have a GPS at the time so he did this all through the sun and the stars.

Along the way today we stopped at an operational bore with a hand pump which is where we had lunch. We both had some fun pumping water from the depths of the earth while fending off the flies.

Further along the road we came across the Ngutjul Rocky Outcrop which is a group of huge granite boulders reminiscent of the Devils Marbles and just scream “We’ve been here for such a long time and will be here still long after you have all gone!” So many times this trip we have seen things in nature and the earth and the sky that make us feel so insignificant. These rocks were really very impressive and if they weren’t out in the middle of nowhere, they would most certainly be a tourist attraction with signs and ropes and car parks.

Finally after 395km from the Warakurna Roadhouse we popped out onto the Gary Junction Road (another of Len’s roads), turned right and started to travel east again. We had heard that the Gary Junction Road (dirt) through to Papunya (250km) was pretty bad and we were a bit anxious as to what we might find but for the most part it was wide and graded with only some sections of corrugations and sand. Still you don’t travel fast on these roads and about 30km short of Papunya we decided to call it stumps for the day and found another great bush camp hidden in the trees about 50m back from the road. Probably our last night under canvas for a while as tomorrow will find us back in Alice Springs. Seems like forever since we were there.