06-Dec-2003 -- This confluence point is located at a sparsely populated area on the western edge of the Little Sandy Desert. The nearest towns are Newman and Meekatharra – both a little over 200km away.
The confluence is 65km north east of Plutonic gold mine where Shane and I work. We left the mine office at around 4:15pm and travelled along some of the mine roads in north-easterly direction, travelling past the abandoned Marymia gold mine and some of our outlying pits along the way. After we left the last of the mine roads about 22km south-west of the confluence point, we started travelling on a little used (and rough) track. At about 5:00pm I noticed the temperature was still reading 42°C (107.6°F). We were then travelling between a mixture of open country with no vegetation and scrubby Spinifex country.
Eventually we came to a road intersection near “Davids Well”. There was supposed to be a track leading north-west from here which would take us to within about 1km of the confluence point. After searching for about 20 minutes we found the track – which looked as though it had not been driven on for a year or two. After some time we lost sight of what was left of the track. The scrub became a bit thicker, which increased the risk of getting a tyre punctured from one of the weathered tree stumps or fallen branches. At this point we were only about 1km south of the confluence point. The temperature had dropped to a more pleasant 38°C and we headed out on foot.
We walked for about 15 minutes to get to the confluence point. We reached there at around 6:15pm. This gave us enough time to take some photos and have a quick look around before the sun set at 6:39pm. The confluence point itself was undistinguished from the surrounding countryside. The ground surface was flat with only low scrub visible from the confluence point, although we had noticed a ridge to the west when we started on foot. There was evidence of cattle and kangaroos, but the only wildlife we saw at the confluence point was hundreds of flies that were very friendly – trying to drink any perspiration or any other moisture on our eyes or face. After we found our way back to the car (which was not visible until we were about 100m away from it) we then drove through the bush back to the main track. From here the trip back was relatively uneventful. We got back to the car shortly after sunset and back to the mine at around 8:30pm.
Two weeks before I had tried to reach this confluence point, but had to turn back because a storm was rapidly approaching. This storm delivered 25.8mm of rain in about 2 hours (this represents 11% of the average rainfall of 234mm). This was enough to flood most of the creek crossings on the way – so I am glad that I turned back.
It was interesting that on that day it was a fair bit cooler (about 32°C) and there were a lot of kangaroos and some emus about on the trip out in day light. On the successful trip, we only saw three kangaroos – and all of these after dark when it was a bit cooler.