22-Apr-2004 -- Our third confluence on our recent road trip from Sydney to Birdsville, was located in the Strezlecki (or, on some maps, the Sturt) Desert, just within Queensland, about 100m east of the border fence with South Australia – although it will be still listed here as a South Australian confluence.
More red bloody sand, so much so that we got bogged in it about 1km from the confluence. Guess who forgot to lock the hubcaps on the Land Cruiser? Oh well my beautiful partner of 22 years sometimes has his off days! With a bit of digging with a hand shovel, some well placed mulga branches (dead, of course) and finally, locking the hub-caps (as he says, “real men don’t need instructions” before I gently read to him the instruction manual for such a predicament) we get out of our sandy man-trap, with a bit of a shove from yours truly.
Driving along the border track, we locate the spot 100m away, get out of the air-conditioned vehicle and brave the 36° heat and squillions of flies. We walk to the location, dodging camel, ‘roo and moo-moo poo and come to the spot on a unremarkable side of a minor hill, (or is it a sand-dune?), and do the usual confluence “dance” before taking the obligatory shots.
This is what drives my beloved up the wall, having to conduct the confluence dance in the heat and dust and the persistent flies, to catch that elusive string of zeros on the GPS. “Hang in there old boy and don’t move” I tell him, whilst I carefully tilt the GPS for a clearer shot, before it reverts to 140°59.999 and he reverts to a swearing heap that would make a truck driver blush (he hates those flies). Got it! Now back to civilisation, well Innamincka, at least, a decent coffee and his favourite 85% Cocoa Lindt® brand chocolate and a nice lie down.