I'll wrap up the last section of this trip report which covers from Hanging Rock out to Parngurr then back home.
We had a good look around Hanging Rock and a nice cold beer while enjoying the view. We had intended on staying the night originally but as it was still pretty early, so we thought we would push on.
Our intended route was to head West and eventually make our way out to the Talawana track without needing to back track the way we came in. I really don't like following my own tracks back out of anywhere, admittedly its not bad on a defined track, but if going cross country I prefer to make a new track.
The reason for this is due to the amount of sticks and shrubbery that we have pushed over, and if going back the same way it is all now at perfect radiator or tyre piercing angles.
Anyway on with the story: The next stop was intended to be Tchukardine Pool, but unfortunately we lost the track at another dry river crossing. I only have a few gopro screen grabs from this section.
We followed the track into this riverbed, but we couldn't locate the exit: The wheel tracks you see in the pics are our own as we hunted around for awhile looking for the track.
We found a spot to exit on the other side and pushed back and forth through some scrub, but we eventually had to admit defeat as we just didn't have enough fuel to keep looking. Reluctantly we turned around and headed back towards Hanging Rock.
Continuing on our way we ended up driving up the dry river bed we had crossed that morning, this saved quite a bit of time and was a beautiful drive compared to pushing through scrub and spinifex. Unfortunately no video of driving the river bed as the flash card was full and I didn't realise the camera had switched off. We struggled a bit in the sand with the pressures we were running, but it was only about 5km or so.
We had missed this old sign the previous day, but made sure we found it on the way out: We certainly felt lost out here!
We took a different route on the way back and bypassed all the pools in favour of a more direct line back to the main track. Fuel was the main concern here, as we were gobbling it up pretty quickly in the slow stuff and using around 21lph.
Finally we saw some camels and in the usual fashion they jogged along the track in front of us for awhile.
We came across a huge clearing about 4 or 5 km's from the main track, and as it was about 3:30 we decided to camp for the night and go through the spinifex clearing routine once again. We didn't take any pics here unfortunately.
The next morning it was a pretty straight forward run back to the main track, where we removed the spinifex blind and headed off towards Parngurr community for fuel. We stopped at the Southern Hand pump, but do not rely on water from here as the pump is missing and out of action.
We arrived at the intersection of the Talawana track and the road out to Parngurr community: straight ahead would take us to Georgia Bore on the CSR, but alas we had to get home and back to work.
If you come into Parngurr from the Talawana track for fuel, just head straight down the main road, the fuel and shop is on the right. It took us quite awhile here to get fuel, but that's just the way it is in some of these remote places. $3.20 a litre for diesel, so we took on 90 litres which was more than enough to get us back to the Capricorn Roadhouse near Newman.
The fuel is hidden away behind the white doors, note this pic is after I did a U-turn and we are heading back the way we came..
All fueled up and we hit the road and were making a beeline for the Capricorn Roadhouse. We came across a rolled Prado which we only stopped at briefly as we had another vehicle in the distance behind us and I didn't want to be eating his dust.
I love the desert oak country! This was the first stand of them we has seen for awhile.
The Talawana track was a good 80-100kph run for the most part, with the odd washout here and there.
Well that's about it for the trip report, we camped just south of the Cappy in a big open area well off the road. Had our last camp fire of the trip and did an 1100km day to get home on Friday Evening. It's always good to get home at least a couple of days before heading back to work.
The Patrol has been well and truly christened and performed well where it counted. She averaged about 16.3lph for trip (4500km's), which wasn't as bad as I thought,considering the roof was loaded and she's running 33's. The Paj averaged 15.99lph on her epic cross country trip.
The Patrol has since had an ECU remap and I haven't done the figures yet, but it looks like it is using substantially less fuel than it was.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the read.
Cheers,
Steve
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