Birdsville Track- Day 2

We woke to ice on the windscreen at Mungaranie this morning. We do pity the people in tent campers as we cranked up our heating. Left site at 8.20am for the final 313km to Birdsville. We were told that this part of the road was not the best and weren't disappointed to start. It was so rough that were were down to 35-40km/hr for quite a few kilometres. Everything was shaken about and dust was bad. Checked the caravan and the tv mounting had undone itself and bathroom door was banging. TV was moved to the bed and pillows applied to the door to protect it.
Most of the road was rough as we travelled and was quite unpredictable. The surface was so hard in places and really hard on the occupants. The main task was to protect the tyres for their journey.
There was more traffic today as we had left a lot earlier than yesterday with a couple of groups passing then stopping for a break then repeating. The UHF radio came in handy for comms as they approached and passed us. We stopped for a break at the 130km mark then decided to push onto Birdsville just to complete the road. At about 80km from our destination all of a sudden the really rough roads disappeared and were replaced by sand and smooth wide tracks. This improved our average speed and my grip on the steering wheel reduced so we cruised along at 85km/hr. This was the best after suffering over 200kms of bone-shaking rocks and potential damage. Well the potential damage was realised later as a rock had damaged a fresh water pipe joint under the caravan- yet more repairs attempted laying on my back under the van. Time will tell how good I was at fixing this one.
All up was about 6.5hrs driving and was a hard day but the views were amazing and the isolation impressive. And the dust and sand we accumulated along the way will take a lot of cleaning- maybe another day when we finish with these dirt roads in a week or so.

After going through the Qld police covid checkpoint we arrived on the outskirts of Birdsville to literally hundreds of caravans and campers all free-camping along the road. This place is humming with so many like-minded people all heading to the "Bash". We set up camp and walked 1km into town to see the sights and register for the Bash. A pleasant walk after a hard drive with warm sun but a chilly wind. We got back to camp (repairs started- solar panel also not working) and got chatting to a couple camping next to us. A few drinks and nightcaps later and bedtime for us.
Even with the small damage today we are very pleased with the day as we succeeded in completing the Birdsville Track relatively unscathed and still smiling.Read more