Food and Water Cache

Thursday to Sunday, Graeme, Bestie and Drew have been out loving their time in the Simpson Desert.  Purpose was to drive to around the ‘halfway’ mark for Graeme’s walk and bury an emergency cache of food and water.  He hasn’t shared the coordinates of where it is with us so I hope he tells someone else in case he forgets!

Before they got there, they had to pass through Poeppels Corner which is where Queensland meets Northern Territory meets South Australia. This is what you go to see…..

Graeme, Bestie (Andrew Best), Drew (Andrew Turnell)

He rang briefly yesterday and said the parts of the Madigan Line they drove on were in good condition and that desert was super, super green. There’s water/mud out there but he said they had to find it rather than battle through it which is a good thing for the walk itself. It’s still fairly quiet in town and in the desert with only 6 parties crossing via the Madigan Line in the last few weeks. I assume parties means vehicles not groups.

He was also very excited to have called ‘camel day’ successfully. Every time we’ve been out in the desert areas, one of us will make the claim today is the day to see camels. To call it successfully in the morning makes you the winner.  You have to make the fun anyway you can! If you look at the sand dune peak you can see a couple there. Also a great shot of how green it is out there.

Camels on ridgeline

  

Next step in the plan is to watch the State of Origin from a pub west of Mt Isa. According to some local workers they chatted to in Birdsville, this is the place to be. They are leaving Birdsville today to head up that way just touring, wandering around really.  I think they’ll stop near Boulia tonight. 

Here’s some other more general type scenery shots that he’s sent through.

looks like a wedge tail eagle nest to me

Think they must have been proud of this damper

            

Sydney to Birdsville

From here on the blogs will mostly be written by me, Katrina, so I’ll do my best to expand out on the snippets of information we get via phone or SMS. I guess I can always make things up too – Graeme won’t know for a while yet! A word of warning – I can chat & ramble a bit so you might want to get a cuppa tea…..

Graeme and two close mates (Bestie and Drew) left 5am Tuesday morning. They hadn’t even made it to collect Drew before they were flagged down by a passing car. “You’ve left your back wheel carrier undone, mate”. I don’t have a photo of the car but as with many big 4WD’s there are 2 spare tires on the back which need to be opened before you can even get to the back door. One of the habits you need to get into when travelling is checking these are done up BEFORE you start driving off. We’ve been caught with this more than once…..

Next stop was on the freeway before Newcastle with a fuel filter light warning. False alarm – something else not done up properly. I am only laughing about all this because I wasn’t in the car with them.

Coffee break at Merriwa which is a lovely country town which has the Festival of the Fleeces every year – where else can you see sheep walk down the main street wearing red woollen socks. Also a great place to break down if you ever feel so inclined…..that’s a long story from a previous dramatic holiday. The other good thing about this town is that it’s about the time where you first get the ‘wave’ from passing drivers. That’s the sure sign you’ve left the country and are on holidays.

Who knows what happened between here and Bourke where they stopped for the night but I believe the muesli worked a treat for sensory entertainment. Luckily for them it’s warm out there so the windows are down….

Decided on Wednesday that Birdsville was going to be too far in 2 days after all. Instead they stopped after Windorah at a lookout called Deon’s Lookout. An amazing view from the top of a jump up way out across the plains, it really is big sky country.  Also the home of the most mozzies all of them have ever seen. Graeme counted 32 waiting for him on the swag flyscreen when he woke this morning. My job this evening was to source a mozzie net for him. One more thing for Brendon to take up with the cart at the start of June.

In Birdsville by 11am Thursday and apparently they had the best $5 shower ever. It’s only been 2 days without a shower and he’s already saying things like this. How will he be after 3-4 weeks? I hope they still have lots of water in Birdsville at that time….he’ll be needing it.

Speaking of water, a lot of the roads into Birdsville have been closed these last few weeks because of the rain they’ve had. Graeme said that there are massive stretches of water on the sides of the road and everything is very, very green. After lunch at the pub, and I’m sure a beer or two, they’ve headed out into the desert. I heard that he rang from the top of Big Red and all he could see on the other side was water. Perhaps the inland sea is real after all. 

Big Red is the ‘first’ of the Simpson Desert sand dunes. 30 metres high and it’s the dune that everyone wants to conquer. There’s Little Red on the main desert road itself and then you travel up the pan to reach Big Red. It’s not for the faint hearted. I’ve been a passenger once and that’s enough. Every time since I’ve got out and walked to the top. Someone needs to take the photos after all, hey.

For the next 3-4 nights they’ll be out in the desert - Poeppels Corner (SA/NT/Qld border) and burying an emergency supply of water and food at around the ‘halfway’ mark for later. 

I imagine there’ll be many fires like this and a few more stories that can get shared with the wife……

Spot Messenger update

As you may know I'm planning on using a Spot messenger as a tracking device for the walk.
If you would like to check on my progress during the walk please visit the below link
Graeme's spot messenger
A word of warning the spot messenger needs to be turned on each morning and relies on batteries , this is not my only link with the world so if I don't move for a few days , please do not be too concerned.

Handing over the Reins

From here on in Katrina will be writing the blog, (you can tell its her as there will be no spelling mistakes) I plan to ring home every day , whether she has time to blog each day or there is really any thing to say , (its going to get a bit boring yep he went up 55 sand dunes and down 55 sand dunes and he is now sleeping again). Im sure Katrina will do a great job and chuck in a story here or there. Im sorry but there will be no photos until I return. (might be a couple before I actually start walking).
Thankyou again to everybody who has helped me along the way.
BTW dont believe any thing she writes about the day I could not find my shoes!
Cheers
Graeme

Presents and Masscot

I asked my 2 fantastic kids Lizzie and Nathan for some thing special to take with me on my walk.
Lizzie who has become quite the knitter has knitted me a scarf and Nathan has loaned me a favorite toy named "Quoll".
I wore the scarf home from my parents house tonight, not being much a of a scarf wearer I was quite surprised as to how warm it actually is. Now it has to just cool down a bit and I'm sure it wont come back the same colour it left.
Nathan has had "Quoll" for a number of years and  he is in for the ride of his life across the Desert.

How to Donate.

I have just realized that if you a re viewing this blog from a phone the donate link does not appear as it does in view web version . So you could either got to view web version at the bottom of the home page or follow this link
Donate to my walk

Thanks again for all of you kind donations.

Graeme Gates

Things are getting very close.

I leave on Tuesday the 24th of May...... which is in 6 days time. Time has flown by in the last month and I cant believe I am about to go. It is very weird packing every thing you need for 3-4 weeks in the desert. Trina keeps saying is that all, and I keep thinking the same thing.
I have had to list every thing I'm taking on an excel spread sheet (and take a print of it with me) so i can remember which bag I packed stuff in, that is a sign I'm getting old.
I did have a little hiccup about a week ago, I started getting heaps of pain in my right arch of my foot, turns out to be over training( who knew such a thing existed). A little bit of panic when the physio suggests a MRI for a stress fracture, no stress fracture just going a bit too hard. the week off has done me well and I have had time to do things that I would not have been able to get done around packing and training. It has also given my body an excellent rest leading into the walk.
Did a test pack of the cart today  and managed to fit every thing on just, then I thought I would test pack my car with just the gear I'm taking and its going to be a tight squeeze when Drewboy and Bestie chuck there gear on top of mine for the trip out to Birdsville and then on to dump the extra water and food in the Desert.(somebody may well end up on the roof yet!)
The cart is being brought out by Brendon (who is expected in Birdsville around 9/6) so over the coming weekend I will drop off at his house and dismantle it.

Food glorious Food

My food finally arrived today. 65 double meals of Back Country dehydrated meals. better late than never!!!!! Once again Camp Hike Climb in Hornsby looked after me .

I trailed about 18 different varieties of Back Countries selection and ended up choosing 9 hot meal varieties and 4 different dessert . Along with this I am also taking 2kg of porridge /muesli, trail snacks like nuts and dried fruit( and some lollies but dont tell my kids), 10 sweet potatoes and a couple of bags of green apples( both these 2 last well) I also plan to use Tailwind's suppliments in 6 bottles of water /day which will add 2500Kj to my daily intake which I estimate will be 12000Kj .

By the way total weight of 130 meals dehydrated is only 11.3 kg( that s crazy)

Quick update from Movie under the stars.

The final tally for the night (not including the money I raised pulling kids around on the cart) was

$1574

Thanks you to all those people who came along to support such a worthy cause.

And a massive thankyou to the Apex boys for making it posiible.

So what do you take for 25 days in the Desert?

This is not just a week in the desert, I will be totally isolated for the whole of the trip. No visit to the servo for milk, no I'll just drop into coles on the way home, forget and it wont be there.
The medical stuff
So I completed my remote area first aid course with St Johns in March, and made a list of every thing I would need, then went to the Dr and asked what he thought I should take. It looks a bit like this

this one on the cart and would be better suited for a bus crash

this one is going in my back pack and can be seen as my daily use stuff

and my basic first aid stuff. Yes Katrina that is a snake bandage.

Navigation stuff comes next 1:2500000 series maps of the whole of the Simpson Desert, so this is 6 of them on my dining room table in total there is 9. Plus a Hema 1:12500000 of the Simpson and a what is the worst guide map I have seen it changes orientation from page to page (this may well get left behind) Had a little laugh when I looked more closely at this pic yep that is a Christmas tree, that's when I first got the set of maps and planning began. 

Now the repair kit, At least 1 spare nut and bolt for each nut and bolt on the cart, enough puncture repair kits hopefully to get me through

2 spare tubes and a spare tyre, sewing kit just incase I get bored, Sat phone , Spot messenger and stobe light. The observant ones of you would be saying where is his EPIRB or PLB(personel laocation beacon) I checked the dates on the batteries only last week and it was a yeaar out of date  so for $199 the people at Garmin will service and replace the batteries. 

A few boring things cooking kit , blue tooth speaker, and then the fun stuff sling shot, monocular and my trusty leatherman. Those of you who know me and knw i can make fire just about out of anything would be wondering what the box of jiffies are doing in the pic , I'm just going to take a few just incase its really wet.

camp mat and sleeping bag and the other funny looking bag no it's not my shoes but is a 

Helinox chair, nice at just 900gm and easy to set up. 

this is my battery box. 9.6amp/hr battery controller and connects straight to solar panel.