Heading North on the Connie Sue Highway
The Connie Sue Highway runs north-south 650kms over red sand dunes and weaves around and through stands of mulga and marble gums, crossing plateaus and breakaways, and through low lake lands.
22 June 2016
Later start this morning as the 2 smaller 4WDs needed to take on fuel, the trucks and doing extremely well on economy over the sandy dunes which is very pleasing. Our first stop for the day was the crashed light aircraft of Goldfields Air Services which is a detour track over the dunes. This track would be a lot harder to negotiate when the sand is drier. The Canter trucks make easy work of them.
From the wreck we headed further west to Neales Junction where the Connie Sue Highway begins. We only stopped for a short time as it was raining.
The Connie Sue Highway takes us north to Warbuton and started off as a well maintained track. As it worked its way around the dunes, the tracks deteriorates. Late in the afternoon we unfortunately clipped at slow speed a branch breaking our passengers mirror.
23 June 2016
Heavy cloud and mists morning. When it cleared we continued north to Cooper Hill Bore on the edge of Cooper Creek. This creek was quite a soft crossing, but the trucks handled it with style.
Last stop for the day was Ryans Bluff about midday. Here was a good spot to do some walking and catchup on some truck maintenance.
Camped on base of Ryans Bluff.
24 June 2016
Left early to continued onwards to catch up with the rest of the group. We saw the sun rise over Hanns tabletop and a couple of beautiful gorges, namely Harkness Gorge and Mackenzie Gorge.
Saw a large group of camels on the last stretch of Connie sue highway before reaching the great central road.
Wow a multi lane highway, nicely graded.
Caught up with washing at Warburton and phoned loved ones to tell them we had completed the most difficult section of the trip safely.
Camped just north on the highway.