Olsen's Tours and Training Blog

As usual I woke to the first bird call and had two billies on the boil by the time the sky developed some colour. Everyone was up and about at sunrise enjoying the light display on the pillar.

Some elected to do a short walk amongst the dunes to take one last look at the fantastic rock formations.

We were underway again at 830 backtracking over the Charlotte Range and Hugh River to the Maryvale Store. We all took on a little fuel at quite a reasonable price before purchasing icecreams.

We had arranged for the Tijikaka art gallery to be open, where we enjoyed looking at some if the art objects created by these very creative people. We enjoyed chatting with an Arrente woman, who allowed me to practice some of my Pitinjitjara language skills while she taught me some Arrente words.

We then backtracked some more to Rodinga siding on the old Ghan railway line before setting off traveling along the bed if the old railway line for the better part of five hours.

Lunch was enjoyed at Bundoomba siding in the shade of the old cast iron water tank used to fill the steam locomotives that used to travel the track.

Pretty soon we found ourselves at the Finke river where everyone got their first taste of sand driving.

I think Paula was disappointed when I directed her to take an easier route up the southern bank, but we needed to stay on schedule, and the important lesson had been learned – deflate, deflate, then deflate some more. Paula would soon have plenty of sand driving practice.

We made our way through Finke then on to the Lambert Centre where we bush camped among the Mulga.

Once again I was disappointed to see campers had left cans in fire places. Hey people – aluminum and steel cans rarely if ever completely melt in camp fires. If you carry them in to a site, please carry them out!!!