13-Sep-2008 -- We had planned to visit this confluence last year in conjunction with 27S 124E. Unfortunately for us neither was successful as the closest we could get to 27s 124e at the time was 40km and due to work our commitments ran out of time to make the planned go at this one. Over a year has since past since then so we decided it was long overdue to give it another shot. This confluence is situated approximately 110 km north of the aboriginal community Cosmo Newbery in Farquharson Tableland region of the Great Victoria Desert.
Our party of 3 vehicles again left Kalgoorlie and travelled north to Laverton, from here we decided to take an alternative route from our previous attempt and travelled north via Duketon and then east along the Lake Wells Road until we intersected the Warren Bore Road. From here we travelled north along it until we arrived at (26 56 46S - 122 44 21E), at this point we left the track and headed east towards our final destination.
We had planned our intended route in using the available Google Earth aerial photo of the area. A digitised route of least resistance was followed avoiding dense scrub and the need to traverse over the 10m high sand ridges. One thing we didn’t account for was the 40 metre high breakaway ridgeline that stopped us in our tracks some 3km east of where we turned off. After an hour of walking along the base of this ridge we found a route over, although a little rough it was suitable.
We left 2 of the vehicles at the base of the ridge and all headed off in one for the final 25km. After successfully traversing the breakaway it took another hour an half of negotiating the desert scrub until we arrived at our destination, with only one punctured tyre on route so it wasn’t too bad. After quickly taking the necessary photos it was back in the ute in order to return our camp before nightfall fell.
All in all a problem free trip with some pretty impressive scenery especially around the breakaways.
GPS :
Trimble Pathfinder Differential GPS (precision sub-metre)
Garmin Map76CS
Garmin 12XL
Map Name : SG5110 Kingston 1:250,000
Australia’s Great Desert Tracks (SW Sheet) 1: 1,250,000