Sunrise at our camp site

As a strategy to avoid the flies, or at least minimise their nuisance, we got up early this morning. The flies don’t become active until some time after sunrise so getting up before sunrise means you can get washed, make a brew and have breakfast without their constant attention.
Once we’d got everything sorted we then retired to the sanctuary of the tent until the sun was high enough that we could drive and be able to see – we’re more or less heading due east at the moment so the sun has to be a way above the horizon before we can comfortably drive anywhere.
We covered 129 km today at an average of 22 km per hour. The dunes started to spread out a bit as we got further east with the relatively flat stretches between them getting longer. Unfortunately the humps between the dunes make any sort of speed a risk as they are difficult to spot and judge in the sand. Every time I thought I could speed up a bit another sequence of humps would throw the Land Rover in the air with most of the contents of the rear landing again a second or so after the Land Rover. In the worst cases you’d hit the face of the next hump as you landed. Travelling at a modest 30 km per hour normally gave enough time to slow down enough to ride the humps comfortably.
The dunes themselves, of which there are 1100 along the route, are mostly pretty easy to climb and descend. Every now and again we hit a steeper one or one where the sand was a bit softer and I’d have to back up and take another go at it with the rear locker engaged. There are also alternative routes on most of the more challenging dunes which may or may not be easier than the direct approach.

A Dingo early in the morning

A lot of the time I was running without diff lock as it was unnecessary and that caught me out a few times as an innocuous looking dune would stop us in our tracks and I’d have to back up, engage diff lock and go again. I think, today, we probably had to have a second go at 3 or 4 of the dunes, mostly due to complacency on my part 🙂 At a very rough guess based on the distance travelled and the number of dunes along the route we probably crested the best part of 400 dunes today.
Along the route there are hundreds of small lizards that run across or along the track as we approach. They almost seem to glide over the sand with their tails high in the air. We saw what we think we’re camel tracks in places and a couple of broken emu eggs that had, presumably, been eaten by predators. The star wildlife of the day was either the Willy Wagtail (that’s it’s proper name, look it up) that was doing it’s best to catch the flies on our tent this morning or the Dingo that we saw crossing our track and heading off into the bush. The Dingo is only the second we’ve seen on this trip so far and this particular one looked much healthier and bigger than the first.

The distance between dunes is starting to increase

Once again we’ve pulled over at the side of the French Line, even further from civilisation than yesterday. No mosquitoes again, which is a real bonus so once the flies disperse after sunset it’s pleasant to sit outside and enjoy the peace and quiet. We’re camped about 22km from Poeppel Corner (26.02257°S, 137.77324°E) tonight and, since pulling over at 3pm, we’ve seen one vehicle go past, heading west. Today we’ve seen 5 groups or single vehicles heading west.
Tomorrow we’ll do the early start thing again as per this morning and head to Poeppel Corner where the French Line ends. From there we take a jink north into the Northern Territories for about 18km before turning east and heading into Queensland on the QAA Line. (Poeppel Corner marks the place where the three states meet (South Australia, Northern Territories and Queensland)