#1: [01-Aug-06]

07-Aug-2009 -- Continued from 27S-127E.

Since leaving our last confluence, we spent 2 more very enjoyable days still travelling down the Connie Sue Highway. The highlight for the Connie Sue would have to be without doubt the recently discovered Point Lillian Aboriginal Art Site, which can only be described as unreal. Reaching a point that I thought would be as close as possible to the confluence point, required a return walk of just over 7 kilometres. Because the day was warm and the distance required, all the others decided to stay back at the vehicles, while Fiona and I set off at our usual fast pace to reach the confluence.

Setting the waypoint as a “Go To”, we set off in a straight line towards the confluence, but slowly had us moving towards a large sand dune that had to be crossed. The country around here had been burnt out some time ago, so the travelling was very easy. The fire must have burnt with a lot of intensity, as a lot of the large Marble Gums were burnt to black stumps, while the other trees that did not die, were all showing great signs of regrowth and just how resilient the Australian Bush can recover from such intense fires.

Within 400 metres of the actual point, Fiona and I had to recross the same dune to get to the confluence. Little did we know at the time, but the dune was in a very large “S” shape and had we continued up the swale that we originally came up, there would have been no need to recross the dune. Once again, the actual point took very little locating because of the complete lack of any tall vegetation. Another important factor with this confluence is how often one can be separated by an invisible line on the ground? With the photo taken of Fiona and me, Fiona is still standing in Ngaanyatjarra Aboriginal Land, while I have crossed the boundary and am standing in the Neale Junction Nature Reserve. Who said that you can not be in two places at the same time?

On our return walk back to the vehicles, we just kept the large sand dune to our left and made our way back without the need of any GPS. Once again, it was a very enjoyable walk and makes a very good comparison to that when Leon Wende made the first visit in 2006. Reaching our vehicle, it was time to head further south down the Connie Sue and make camp at Neale Junction and another 4 days before another confluence visit.

Continued at 29S-123E.

In the Neale Junction Nature Reserve.