Kennedy to Augustus via Egypt

Rather a travelling day today. The roads had been quite dampened by the rain which had cleared out overnight. We woke to a fine dawn and so raced out for a look, followed by a good breakfast, a walk up temple gorge while some of our gear dried a little, and then hitting the road. On the way at the moment we are digesting a history of Cleopatra and the excesses of the Roman and Egyptian societies of the times. Apart from the rocks, we really couldn’t be more removed.

Lucy was in fine form this morning after her sleep and kept us entertained. They did the escarpment walk while we did temple gorge. We may see them again on the road. You never know. They will hit home on the Darling Downs about the same time we do.

On the road out was an easy access into one of the clay pans, now made glossy by the rain. The tessellated pattern remained. I suspect  it needs a lot more then the few mm we had to turn it all back into mud. It was still quite hard underfoot, but despite the pleadings of the juveniles in the back, we resisted the urge to make tracks in it. Would rather spoil it for the next person anyway.

The journey from the Kennedy Range to Mt Augustus is nearly 300km through variations on clay and rock farms. Some even try to raise cattle, but on what I am not sure. This area had more rain in the last two days than we had, and we arrived to find that the road we had just travelled was officially closed to avoid road damage. It had been quite slippery in places, but only once did I get out of the car to check a puddle before crossing. It is quite strange country in that even though the road is wet in places, often times you can still raise dust where it has dried the surface.

Mt Augustus is an imposing “monocline” as we have just discovered. To discover the difference between that and a monolith, of which Uluru is an example, is left as an exercise for the reader. However, I can tell you that Mt Augustus is twice the size of Uluru, and tomorrow we will climb it.

Tonight Lynne has chosen to share the camp kitchen with a couple researching a local artist for a book, while I shared the campfire with a bunch of grey nomads talking caravans, until I got bored and went to take some photos by moonlight.