74 km
As the kitchen was packed up the night before and we were headed to the roadhouse for breakfast, packing up didn’t take long this morning. We headed to the Bramwell Roadhouse to refuel one final time before the Old Telegraph Track and have some breakfast- which ranged between pies and toasted sandwiches between us. The roadhouse actually had a coffee machine that used ground coffee and thus actually made a pretty good cup. Most other places to date had really bad instant coffee for $4.5 a cup. This makes Lara so happy she has two cups … we tease her that she has a hangover from the night before. I originally didn’t want coffee…but I did get one with the second round.
The OTT starts right here at the roadhouse and many people refuel- diesel was $2.05 per liter. We saw many cars head out while we had breakfast.
Firstly however, we had to remove the towbar from Christo’s car as it was super stuck. There was a lot of hammering and spraying of WD40 but nothing budged. Option B was to strap a tree, attach to towbar and Christo drives forward to separate towbar and vehicle. This worked ! Success! He could then fit his recovery point to the back.
We were off to start the track at 08h45 after taking a group selfie by the sign.
The road is well travelled- clearly- and winds amongst various types of vegetation- but the huge anthill are ever present. Soon enough we noticed the old steel telegraph poles, but nearly all were bent , possible to recover porcelain as souvenirs by early tourists…but we don’t really know.
The first obstacle to cross is Palm Cove. There are 3 entry points- of varying steepness and depths- vertical 3m drop , 2m drop or ever so slightly more of a decline. Christo took the second option while we took the third. All the entry points lead into the river bed. The last option has the deepest water but the steadies decline for the trailer. Once in the creek all vehicles were needing to make their way down stream to the exit. There were a lot of people in the queue parked up as the next obstacle is the exit and needs reversing and realigning to get out. We have a young group of united nations ahead of us and they all park up their vehicles after exiting to record Johan on his way out with the trailer- he is now the entertainment :). It takes a few takes to back the trailer up for realignment but Johan is ready. I stayed in the car to see how this feels on the inside so to speak. I held on for dear life and am sure had my eyes closed for part of the trip… but the trailer didn’t tip and we made it out after a lot of bumping around…much to the delight of the United Nations youngsters and all else watching.
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We carried on to our next challenge –
Ducie Creek, South and North Alice Creek Creeks and Dulhunty River were all fairly non eventful.
Bertie Creek is shallow, fairly fast flowing with a firm rock base which is badly potholed. Lara drove us through it while Johan took some drone footage. We had lunch along this creek- where I got sprayed by mandarin splatter; when Lara completely missed the bushes ahead; and her rotten mandarin bounced on the back windscreen and splattered all over me!!! Great aim Lara – NOT!!!
Next was the most infamous of all Creek crossings – GUNSHOT CREEK!! For those not familiar with this Creek crossing, it is over 4m high , vertical cliff that you drive over, drop into the mud bath at the bottom and most often, need to be winched out of. This is the perfect way to ruin your car if I do say so myself !!!
There are multiple depths of gunshot Creeks. We took the chicken run though…not that it was easy by any means. The water is deep and there is a sharp turn and reverse to make the exit ramp which is rutted and steep- but Johan gets out.
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We met up with Jack and Henry who got there early and pitched their chairs to watch…but there were no takers of the actual Gunshot Creek while they were there.
We are here pretty late in the afternoon but decide to forge on to Cockatoo Creek and camp there. It still takes us a while to get to our camp. Luckily we found a nice spot and had it to ourselves for the night. Once we set up camp we headed off to the Creek to sort out a path for driving the next day and to wash off the dust. The water was a bit chilly , but good to get a little cleaner.
We watched a Sahara do the crossing and thought we would take a similar line the next morning.
We met up with Jack and Henry again as they were looking for their mates- the rest of the United Nations . We tried to get hold of them on the radio but no luck.
We spent the evening by the fire after eating prawn and chicken curry.