Wayne Kerr Does the Desert

[MeMock]

Flash that question has already been asked an answered in the thread somewhere.

[gos]

Thanks for great thread again I will be looking to get the same camera before I come to los my first green coming your way if I can do it properly

[Wayne Kerr]

Great photos, what type of camera do you use, i'm going to africa soon and want to buy a half decent digital camera, any suggestions?

Tried posting this before from my phone mate, but it dropped the connection. The camera is an Nikon 8800, but some are taken on the old mobile phone - Nokia 73. To be honest it is hard to tell the difference between the quality of the pics when compressed for use in here. I really don't know that much about cameras, but if you are looking to buy, check out this site Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ - was recommended to me by Snaff when buying the Nikon about 3 ago .

Thanks for great thread again I will be looking to get the same camera before I come to los my first green coming your way if I can do it properly

Just checked and it made it mate ... thanks alot! Beers on me should we ever meet!

[Mister E]

Thanks for this. What a treat for a Yank to get to see the Aus Outback. Did a lot of trips like this myself back home and it looks like you guys are pros! Can't wait for the return trip pics and to find out who got roughed up by the camel

[geoff]

On step 13 in the cooking sequence, I see a sort of shield around your ankle. Is this the top of your boot, or some kind of anti- snake thing????

[MeMock]

keeps the prickles out of ya socks

and the snakes

and the spiders

and the crocs

and the....

[Wayne Kerr]

The next leg of the trip was the start of the most challenging part of the tour – crossing the infamous Anne Beadell Track. This track is 1340 km of rough unsealed dirt road linking Laverton in Western Australia and Cooper Pedy in South Australia, and passes through very remote arid deserts, with day time temperatures of up to of 50°C. First stop was a place called Lake Yeo .

As soon as we hit the track, the desert seemed to come alive with all manner of plants and animals. It was friggin lovely, but since the track usually takes a minimum of 5 days to cross we had plenty of time to “cop the serenity”. Here’s a few pics of the trip from Meekathara – Laverton – Lake Yeo.


^ Big Kev putting his last thoughts on video in case we got lost and perished in the desert


^ Typical stretch of desert road at the start of the Anne Beadell Track near Laverton


^ Some more desert track


^ We got a little lost here


^ Strange looking termite mound along the Anne Beadell Track


^ Our campsite on Lake Yeo ... the area is a big salt pan


^ Lovely desert bottle brush like plant


^ Common bearded dragon … these critters are the delicious bbq’d gently over the fire

[MeMock]

That video camera is pretty impressive

[Wayne Kerr]

Is this the top of your boot, or some kind of anti- snake thing????

MeMock missed the bull ants ... these suckers are about an inch long out in the desert and pack a mean bite.

[Wayne Kerr]

That video camera is pretty impressive

You're not wrong there mate ... we're putting a vid of the trip together. Some footage will also be sold to some big TV mobs ... a bit has already gone to a musician for a music video .

[Udonite]

Excellent thread WK, you've made a good choice of camera it covers everything from wide angle to telephoto. You don't have to change the lens, avoiding dust on the sensor.

[Jet Gorgon]

Thanks especially for the cookout vignette, Wayne. Time measured in beers. Dam fine way to do it.

[Wayne Kerr]

hanks especially for the cookout vignette, Wayne. Time measured in beers. Dam fine way to do it.

No worries mate. A little bit busy of late, but in the meanwhile some of you may appreciate this clip on YouTube which I reckon sums up life in many of the outback Australian towns we visited - YouTube - Kevin Bloody Wilson The Local .

[bkkmadness]

INSPIRING!

That's the one word that sums up Wayne Kerr's threads to me, inspiring!

For my own part I've been planning a trip to Khao Yai national park camping with my mate. We don't even need to arrange transport coz he's got a car so we only gotta load the tent and jump in and off we would go.

Been talking about it for 2 years now I think.

[corvettelover]

True wayne you cant beat kevin bloody wilson
The man is a star a fucken MONSTAR
some great outback songs that most aussies relate to

Kevin Bloody Wilson - Australia’s Outback Outlaw

[Wayne Kerr]

Anyway, back to the road ...

Johnny Longprong and I had been joking along the way that we hoped bloody Wally the cook would get done by a crocodile or something so we’d have a good excuse to extend the trip a little and put off going back to work. Anyway we may have jinxed ourselves somehow and woke up early at Lake Yeo to find our bloody best desert driver Big Kev screaming in pain out in the scrub. Seems he’d got up for a leak, bleary eyed, and stumbled into a sleeping camel … and the bloody thing had got startled and trod on his foot. End result was what looked like a broken ankle and a big blood clot like thing moving quite quickly up Big Kev’s leg.

Big Kev had serious problems before with blood clots and as we were out in the middle of nowhere decided we’d better try and get close to a bush airstrip in case we had to call in the Flyer Doctor should the clot get any worse. Anyway a quick check of the map and we spotted the airstrip in the photo below, about 180 kms east of Laverton or the start of the Anne Beadell Track. Due to the rough track it took all day to get there, and Big Kev was in serious pain, with each bump in the track seeming to make things worse for him. We finally got there and made contact with the flying doctor via Johnny Longprong’s desert radio (we still hadn’t found the charger for the bloody satellite phone). Desert airstrip location - .



^ Desert airstrip in outback Australia


^ Johnny Longprong’s desert radio … I had to drink a few quick beers so I could piss on the sand to get an earth for the radio (note the wet patches) … this is a very reliable mode of communication when outback and really worth having in emergency situations like this. The flying doctor service advised us to keep Big Kev’s leg elevated and report in on his status every two hours ... this gave us a good excuse to stay up all night drinking and I vaguely recall the doctors laughing and telling us at about 5am in the morning that desert hangovers can be pretty bad … bastards obviously knew their stuff .


^ Our campsite by the desert airstrip


^ Big Kev’s situation improved over night but was in too much pain to travel the following day … here’s one of old Rog enjoying a liquid breakfast


^ The break gave us a bit of time to collect some bush food for dinner … this camel wasn’t bad eating


^ We were contemplating eating this bustard bird, but thought he looked too happy wandering around the scrub


^ A lovely desert acacia


^ There were loads of small flowering plants, they really were quite striking in the middle of the desert but these photos don’t do them justice


^ There was also lots of thorny devils out there … they try to camouflage themselves but their shadows make them stick out like dog’s balls


^ Another thorny devil doing a not-so-good job of camouflaging himself

[peterpan]

One of the best travel threads ever, I did a similar trip in '99 but my photos are no where near as good so your thread brought back great memories. I'm on dial up so it takes me about 15 mins to load each page but well worth the wait. Thanks Wayne

[Wayne Kerr]

One of the best travel threads ever, I did a similar trip in '99 but my photos are no where near as good so your thread brought back great memories. I'm on dial up so it takes me about 15 mins to load each page but well worth the wait. Thanks Wayne

Thanks PP, and sorry I sometimes forget about dial-up. Have tried to compress the pics as much as possible, but I can imagine it must be a pain loading all the suckers.

Anyway, back to the road ...

After a few lay days due to Big Kev’s buggered ankle, we decided to push onto a place called Wanna Lakes - . If you check the place out on Google Earth from an altitude of about 20 km, you'll see that Wanna Lakes is dead bang in the middle of some seriously big sand dunes that run parallel across the desert. Getting into this place was a right pain in the arse, as we had to cross what seemed like 100s of large soft sand dunes.

We refuelled at the Illkulkra roadhouse on an aboriginal mission about halfway along the track. There was a sign on the door "back at 11.30". Well at about 2.00pm a very nice bloke by the name of Tom, a white fella volunteer from southwest Western Australia, sold us some diesel and we refilled our water tanks with some magificent bore water from the Great Artesian Basin. The pictures don’t capture the grandeur of the dry Wanna Lake, colourful sands and all that, but hopefully they give some idea of what the joint looks like.


^ The Illkulkra roadhouse where we filled up the fuel tanks with diesel at about a $2 a litre, and got some of the best tasting freshwater I’ve ever had … pumped direct from Australia’s Great Artesian Basin.


^ Our campsite on Wanna Lakes


^ Another view of Wanna Lakes


^ For years Paul the photographer has said he's "going to look for crashed helicopters" as an excuse to disappear for a while in order to indulge in a few of his special cigarettes … I thought he was just bloody stoned when he came back saying he’d found a crashed plane, but sure enough a short walk into the scrub and we found this sucker. No skeletons inside so we thought the occupants must have walked away from the crash.


^ Another shot of the crashed plane … interestingly there is a guest book inside that we signed (we obviously weren’t the first to find the thing), a few newspapers from around the time of the crash, and it appeared the local indigenous folk had knocked off the motors

Here’s a few shots of the vegetation in the area. Bloody Paul the photographer reckoned the spinifex circles in the last pic were caused by bits of asteroids crashing into the earth … I told him I should try some of his whacky tobaccy that evening to help stimulate my imagination

[Wayne Kerr]

The next section of the Anne Beadell track was really tough going. Our number 1 driver, Big Kev, has done more than 2 million miles racing and testing 4 wheel drive vehicles in outback Australia and reckoned this was one of the toughest bits of track he’s crossed.

The corrugations in the track were about 6 inches deep and the wheels of the trucks fitted in perfectly. Under these conditions you have 2 options: (1) go flat out and risk breaking the vehicle; or (2) roll over them at 10 km/hr. With Kev’s buggered foot and driving some bloody expensive equipment, we opted for the second option.

We eventually stopped at a nice bit of desert in the middle of nowhere in South Australia with a few black oak trees … seemed a good as spot as any to have a few beers and cook up some of the left over kangaroo meat we had in the fridge - .


^ The corrugations in the track were bloody aweful


^ Most of the track was narrow and crappy like this … I wondered at times how long we’d be stuck out there if we had a serious mechanical failure or something. The front end of the Landcruiser we were driving had been strengthened specifically for roads like this, including the best ARB shock absorbers that had been rigged up to big gas canisters that helped absorb all the bumps … most ordinary 4 wheel drive vehicles would shake to death on this stuff. Getting the tyre pressure right is critical too … for roads like this we had tyre pressure down around 24 lb (normal roads 40 in the back and 38 in the front). Fortunately we did not have one flat during the whole 12,000 kms of the trip.


^ Camp site near some black oak trees that stuck out in the middle of the desert like dog’s balls


^ There was also this lone Kurrajong tree … would only come across one every couple of hundred of kms

It was obvious that a fire had been through in the area in recent times, but it was amazing how alive the place was with reptiles and small flowering plants. Here are few pictures of the flora and fauna in these parts.

[Wayne Kerr]

I’ve received a few questions about my tent. It really is a beauty, designed for hot climates, and the best feature is it only takes about 1 minute to set up. It is made by a company called Freedom Camping.

Northern Tourer

The Northern Tourer is designed to give the best ventilation possible for touring in hot climates. It has an extra 3 way window opposite the door giving four way ventilation. The clear PVC outer on the back window provides for natural light to enter even in constant rain. The storm flaps on the side windows have been modified to zip around in case of a dust storm. These features mean that the Northern Tourer is excellent value for money and is our best ventilated single pole.

Setup Time: 1 minutes
Dimensions: W320cm x L 260cm x H 210cm
Pack Size: 90cm x 90cm x 9cm (Flat and Square)
Pole Size: 120 x 5cm
Weight: 19kg + 2kg poles

Webpage for the Northern Tourer Tent

I paid about $1,200 for this. There are of course shitloads of tents much cheaper than this, but would probably be rooted after a month outback. This one looks as good as the day I brought it after 30 days in a tough environment ... I highly recommend it if you're on the lookout for one.


^ Here's the beauty in action

Might add that the sucker stood up to a force 5 gale on the sand flats one night and never looked like falling over.

[MeMock]

$1,200 for a tent???

Your kiddin me right?

My swag cost $120 12 years ago and is still going strong.

[Wayne Kerr]

^ Nup, family man now and all that, so we all fit in it ok, and I can stand up in it easily at 6'4''. Planning some serious travel over the next few years and think it will serve us well. At $1,200 it will have to last us a lot longer than 12 years .

[MeMock]

Fair enough, I thought this was a solo trip for you though.

[Wayne Kerr]

Yep solo this year, but we'll try to the trip again next year with Wayne Jnr, he will be 5 by then, also would like to do the Overland Track in Tasmania with him and Mrs. Kerr next year too, as well as some upland locations in Laos and Vietnam ... now if only I didn't have to work for a living .

[MeMock]

I loved the sand dunes that are visible from google earth.