Alice to Finke- The Old Ghan Line

BUSHNUT

Well-Known Member
The road to Finke from Alice Springs is in the first part 2 wheel drive until you turn off to Maryvale so as to go out to Chambers Pillar. Returning to the Alice - Finke road from Maryvale check at the store for directions as it is not sighn posted, you cut across to the old Ghan line , the sand gets pretty heavy , so engage 4WD and put your pressures down to about 22 PSI , with a loaded vehicle , that seem about right.

Most of the time you are travelling on the old line as the railway had a good base for such a track and progress was quite good.

We camped about 60 KMs north of finke , had a ripper fire, the timber is bone dry .

We had spoken to a few that had come from Finke towing trailers, they would have guzzled the fuel doing that. One had put his vehicle on it's side, I didn't think the track was as bad as he made out, I would say speed may have had something to do with his incident.

1/. Wild camels, Royboy was out looking for a real cute one .

2/. One of many sidings . One for Ghallenglee, Bobby's little Challenger did it well !

3/. BSHNUT at the siding .

4/. On the Ghan line the bed that the railway engineers built was a very good base .

5/. Travel light and travel right, BSHNUT set ready for the night , 60 KM's north of Finke :D:D:D


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Patriot

Administrator
Hey Ian,

Great pics. It looks so much warmer than here :) How long did the trip take you?

Cheers,

James
 

grit

Member
I like your work.

The articles are factual and the pictures help tell the story

Keep em coming!
 

BUSHNUT

Well-Known Member
Hey Ian,

Great pics. It looks so much warmer than here :) How long did the trip take you?

Cheers,

James

We did 6000 Kilometres in 2 weeks, some days like the Alice to Finke we only did 160 other days like Port Augusta to Marla Bore we did an 8 hour day, generally stopped driving about 4 to 4.30 each day, rolled out the swag and awning to keep the cold night air coming down on you, cooked dinner and sat around just taking in the whole ambience of it all, its a bloody big hunk of dirt. People who come from overseas cannot get over it, the vastness. Germans that we met said you cannot travell in Germany without some bloody village of some sort every 4o kilometres.

We paid $1.89 for diesel at Port Augusta, $2.22 at Marla Bore saw it for $2.53 at Curtain Springs,didn't buy there, I like my 175 litre set up, $2.12 at Alice Springs, $2.30 at Mt. Dare station, $2.12 at Oodnadatta, $1.71 at Burra. People coming down from the territory had seen it as high as $3.05 a litre.

You either don't do it and die wondering, or do it and be glad of the experience

.........
 
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