cruising the Great Victoria Desert

[sharkcaver]

Heading off for a week tomorrow into the desert.

Here's the plan:

Perth to leonora, then Breaden Bluff, Yeo homestead, Lake Rason, Lake Ballard, Jaurdi Station then home. All up about 3000Km's, 1000 of them in the GVD. Hanging out to give this lockup-mate from M&M 4x4 a fair go.

 

[mac_man_luke]

sounds like a good trip, will have to watch out for the trip report

 

[sharkcaver]

I'm back, and the thread title needs to be changed to:

Mowing the Spackman.

What a trip, not all of it good.

The following is what you can expect from the vids/blog post when I get to it

Day 1

Malcom dam sunset:

Malcolm Dam sunrise:

 

[sharkcaver]

Day 2

Giles Breakaway, Great Central Rd

Breaden Bluff sunset:

 

[sharkcaver]

Day 3

Breaden Bluff:

Empress Spring entry:

On the Anne Beadell Highway:

 

[sharkcaver]

day 4

Bishop Riley's pulpit

ABH/Spackman track junction:

Repairing yet another failed aux tank mount with a ratchet strap at the end of the Spackman:

 

[sharkcaver]

day 5

Unscheduled day of maintenance after mowing 70KM's of spinifex down the Spackman:

Left hand side after cleaning tranny radiator, RHS of a\c condendor and removing condensor
fan:

some intercooler work needed:

I wont mention changing the staked new tyre :curse5[1]:

 

[sharkcaver]

day 6

starting off with a starter battery sitting at 10.9V....Grrrrr

Lake Rason sunrise:

7 millers hut. Named in honour of the 7mm Remmington cartridge:

And what the 7 miller is good for:

And a nasty crash 10K's West of Kal:

 

[sharkcaver]

And finally, day 7

a cold morning deserves a coffee before a 6 hour drive home:

7 days, 3000K's and christ knows how much diesel later, we are back in the big smoke. Whilst I hate the prospect of the ongoing maintenance, I'm sick of the city already. Give me desert sands between the toes of my black fella feet any day.

 

[dno67]

Nice one mate, couple of questions.
I know your keeping an eye on weight, but would it be worth trying/carrying
a battery operated leaf blower to blow sh!t out of the coolers ?
There's a few guys starting to carry them here to blow air filters and cabs of
machinery out daily.
Was the vehicle in the accident towing something ?
Thanks for sharing.

 

[sharkcaver]

G'day Dno. Nope a blower wouldn't have helped. That damn spinny gets well embedded in the radiators fins. I have a 4L air tank on board, just enough to allow an air gun with some pressure for short spurts to help get the crap out. Unfortunately its a one power ball job. Pulling each individual spine out of the fin by hand for most of it. There is still heaps buried in the fins with no spine on them to pull out. What cant be blown out has to stay there for good. The only way to really do it, is to remove the radiators - Tranny, A/C, Engine and intercooler. A big job that isn't going to happen. Best just to drive into a tree and have them replaced! I spent 6 hours on the job and got it as best I could.

Nope he wasn't towing. I don't know what happened, we were only minutes from it happening. You cant see it in the pic, but the sickening sight was a car baby seat face down on the road about 10m from the cruiser. Luckily, he was sitting on the road on the other side of the vehicle, a rag on the top of his head and a small amount of blood on his face, talking on the phone. So he would have been ok bar a few minor injuries.

 

[shanegtr]

Your not having much luck with aux fuel tanks!!!!!

 

[Aaron Schubert]

Good old spinafex. What a nightmare. Shame about the tank too!

Aaron

 

[sharkcaver]

All these failures - It's character building I tell ya! Was going to look at it today until the bloody car wouldn't start again. Out with the toy oem battery, in with a D34 optima, and half a day of ginning around trying to stretch cables to make it fit the d34's terminals...Grrrr.

 

[Aaron Schubert]

Where's the dislike button?!

Aaron

 

[sharkcaver]

Vid part I now up

days 1-3:

 

[sharkcaver]

The journey concludes:

 

[mauriceb]

Thanks Shane ,enjoyed both video's. Did you have to apply for any specific permits for the Spackman track . Guess next time you will fit the radiator covers earlier. Millers Shack looks interesting a nice location and can be veiwed on Hema Explorer Android on the Satellite map

 

[sharkcaver]

7 millers is pretty cool. As my vids were getting way too long, I had to chop most my shots of that out. I will elaborate more on the shack when I do my blog write up. As for permits, the Spackman is free from those handcuffs, same as Breaden Bluff. However, permits are required for the Great Central Rd and Pt. Sunday Rd as they cross through Cosmo Aboriginal lands. No cost and easy to obtain, just a pain in the ar5e having to gin around beforehand sorting them out. I really hate rooting around arranging permits, especially no cost ones. They serve no purpose, tie up resources of both traveller and land council and provide no benefit to the communities concerned. If they want stats of the amount of people travelling, they could just put those rubber tube road counters in place. I think the only reason they do it is 1. because they like to tell us they are the custodians of the land and 2. they like to tell you where you are not allowed to go. Fair enough I guess, but there are other means of providing that information without having to root around with zero cost permits:

 

[mauriceb]

I understand what your saying . Had to apply for five free permits for WA in June and yet to pay $110 to travel a very short section of the CSR. It Won't be long before all permits will need to be payed for ''admin costs'' ??