17-Nov-2004 -- After a drive of 230km from Kalgoorlie to Leonora I headed NE on a unsealed road for a further 156km, the road while looking good on my map was rather dodgy in places and a 4x4 is a must. Having driven as far as I could I was faced with a 4km round trip walk - this is if I was able to walk in a straight line, but having to navigate spinnifex grass and trees with spider webs spanning the gaps the walk was a lot longer, taking a total of 2 hours. I often got boxed in by the webs, which meant having to retrace my steps and do a detour. On a few occasions, I managed to walk right through the web and ended up with a rather large spider on my chest glaring up at me for having ruined his livelyhood, an experience niether of us enjoyed. I was suprised at how strong the webs were and the shear size of some of them; I saw webs that spanned in excess of 5 metres in places a number of webs overlapping and going up as high as 8 - 10 metres. One thing they all had in common was the great big chap sitting in the middle.
The terrain was undulating as most of the outback is in this area and with no landmarks could be easy to get lost in. Apart from over a dozen kangaroos and two monitor lizards I encountered, I only had about 1 hundred flies for company. There was no evidence of any human having been in the vicinity at all. The ground cover varied in the 2km from hard red sand and sparse grass to spinifex and gum trees. An interesting drive but time consuming due to the condition of the tracks.