Episode 3 ended short of the De Lacourt camp, and Devo was still waiting on a diff. In the meantime, 30 kilometres away at the old Oombulgurri barge landing, Nick and Devo made it to the barge and collected their new rear diff. At the same time, the Unimog and the family in the 200 Series, after several days of waiting, were finally getting their emergency extraction on that same barge. From what I heard, the barge fees are $8,000 per car.
We didn't know it yet, but today was about to become the hardest day of the trip so far, with the most sand driving, which caught out people running too high tyre pressure, and some serious river crossings, where the winches would come out on multiple occasions.
Big shout out to my sponsor, Kilos. Without them this trip wouldn't be happening. Oombi is a very expensive one. I bought the first Kilos chair myself before any sponsorship. Now they support me with chairs and the Rover Camp Light X. Sponsored or not, at present it's my preferred lightweight chair and camp light, and I use them every day on this trip. That's an affiliate link.
Water, coffee and a hundred trees
I've been using the water filters, the Grayl water filters, quite a bit. We have enough water, but there's two of us and I was told we'd have water every second day, so we supplement with the filters, which works pretty well. I've got the fire going here now and I'm going to get myself a coffee. I obviously could also just boil the water, but I may as well filter it first.
I mean it's pretty much a 400-kilometre trek through rough bush. There are trees and scrub everywhere. There are no big trucks coming through, and if you're not willing to bushbash and clear every tree which could connect with your rear camper, you're constantly out of the car and cutting trees. I would estimate — I don't know, I'm just making up a number — but probably there were 100 trees cut.
The sandy creek bed
I had to give this exit a second go. What a difference the wheelbase and a slightly different approach angle can make. My wheelbase in the Land Cruiser is 2.98 metres and the Mercedes G-Class is 3.428 metres, and that, now with a slightly different approach angle, made all the difference.
After clearing these obstacles I just went on, unaware there would be more soft sand and sharp turns coming. I made it through in one go, but unfortunately I didn't have the camera running. After just making it through with my slightly too high tyre pressure for the super-soft sand, I knew it would catch out other people, so I quickly made my way back to film it.
I don't have much experience with the big trucks, but I would go as low as you can go there.
Both G-Classes aired down a bit further before the next section of the sandy and super-soft creek bed, but Alison got stuck on that sharp turn and dug herself in a bit, so out came the winch again for a quicker recovery.
Matt did a bit of road building, but then still seemed to try to get all four wheels off the ground when driving it. Mind you, that V8 certainly sounds great.
A lost phone, and more waiting
Elodie's mobile phone was lost. If you take the Starlink back you should get Wi-Fi onto that and it'll give you a hundred-metre range of finding it. If not, we'll get Nick to have a look when he comes through tomorrow.
10:30, sitting and waiting. If we drive half an hour, we probably have to wait, I don't know, half an hour to an hour for them to catch up.
We were finally on the move again and the trek continued with some more sandy creek crossings, but nothing as challenging as before, and the usual rocky dry gullies which tested my departure angle. However, the noise you hear is actually from my recovery hitch and the D-shackle hanging down.
Very unassuming. You're on that plateau and then you have these beautiful waterfalls here. Unfortunately no swimming down here. All freshwater crocs.
The awning in the wind
We've got the awning up in a bit of wind, and I have to say, I noticed this before — it is fairly noisy. It has a squeak. And the stabiliser here constantly falls down, so that lasts for a few minutes.
And this rear flap, it's very loud. I don't know where that actually ripped — I can't remember where it was attached. But it probably should be attached here. That would make it quite a bit quieter. But that already ripped, so now you have it constantly flapping around, and I mean the wind is not that crazy.
Nick and Devo catch up, with my thong
Record time getting a new diff in. Whipping the diff out and getting the new diff in, that's impressive.
I picked myself up some new reef thongs at Kununurra, and they were actually much better than I expected, so I really liked them. They were stacked at the back on the door where my drone is, and when I took my drone out, one of the thongs must have fallen out, because it wasn't there anymore. So Nick still being at the barge landing, I sent him a picture of my other thong, said, look, if you find it, have a look on the track. I mean, that's a day's worth of driving on that rough track — I think the chances are pretty damn slim. But Devo now said, you're missing a thong? I said yes. He said, have a look on the bonnet, let's see whether it is my thong. It is.
The standing versus driving time was still incredibly high, even though we spent around 45 minutes on that one sandy section to get all the cars through there.
Paradise Pool to the Berkeley
Yeah, another morning at Paradise Pool, day six or seven. Caught up again with Nick and Devo. We'll see how much we sit around today and wait. Going to get the kettle going on the fire, which was restocked.
Now we're heading to the Berkeley — supposedly a fast day, but apparently we're trying to drop into a little side spot where we usually don't go, supposedly the hardest track so far. We'll see how that goes.
Nick mentioned that we may not get in. He'll try to push a way through. The TO's car, Woz's car, has again some battery issues — just got jump-started. Now everyone is around it, so we'll see what the day brings. I hope that Nick is going to push the Fuso along.
The jump-up
Well, that's apparently a hard jump-up, whatever that means.
Oh, I take back what I said. Looks like we're getting the winches out.
And out came the brand new winch, which turned out not to work. So a gentle tow did the job.
Shock loading the rope — that's what you should avoid. That breaks them. Splits you in half if that snaps.
Search for the MAXTRAX. They dig themselves in so deep, they can be hard to find.
Nick's rock
Having cleared that obstacle, the next river crossing was only a short while away, and Nick really got himself hung up on that first of the multi-part crossings. Winching now, and it's hardly moving. Something is stuck there real good underneath.
That was a mighty rock Nick got stuck up on. It was exactly the right size to fit between the control arms and his rear extended fuel tank, which made getting off it very difficult. Winching himself forward and, at the same time, winching the rock out of the deeper murky water where it wasn't visible did us all a big favour.
Looks like Devo is stuck in front there. Certainly an excellent crew of mechanics here, so every problem really is dealt with.
The Berkeley
After a few more creek crossings, fortunately nothing as exciting as the first two crossings, we finally made it to the Berkeley, which would be the last crossing for the day and our camp for the night.
Before we could reach the water, there was one more decent boulder field to cross. This was a fairly long and not straightforward crossing, and Woz was first, trying to find a way through, as there were some pretty deep rock holes which could easily swallow your car.
Here at the Berkeley now. Crossed the Berkeley and a few rivers today. Pretty hectic day with some of the river crossings and the exits, and now going for a wash, dirty as.
It's a campsite, everyone is fishing. Woz is having a MAXTRAX sale, they're going cheap tonight. Devo has been the fire master for the whole trip.
Perfect gear for cooking, because it gives you really a view from the top of your food.
Today's statistics again show a very slow day, but most of the standing time was really getting various vehicles through the obstacles, which gave the Canter enough time to catch up with the group.
Next episode: Matt makes a servicing mistake which could have ended his trip, Warwick shares the Oomarri rock art site with us, and we find the first real mud. The series is on YouTube.
