20-May-2013 -- I'm from Esperance, Western Australia and was in the eastern states for an army reunion, so when it was over I went to Adelaide to meet up with an Esperance friend John Crawford and we decided that as the weather was fine in the Simpson Desert and the Channel Country, we would drive up the Strzelecki Track to Birdsville and then down the Birdsville Track to Maree and beyond.

I'd been on the Confluence site and had noticed a gap in the red dots east of Lake Eyre and after a bit more research we decided that this one was do-able if we could use the cattle station tracks out to Lake Gregory. The station concerned is called Dulkaninna and the homestead is situated on the Birdsville track between the Tirari and Strzelecki Deserts.

The owners of Dulkaninna are the Bell family and they were friendly and more than happy to give us advice and access to their 2000 km² property, so off we went to Lake Gregory which was a 50 km drive and we weren't at the end of the station. We camped overnight near the lake and drove to the edge the next morning. Although the lake is dry, it can be treacherous to drive on, so we walked the last 2 km to the CP.

We were back on the Birdsville Track that afternoon and as rain was forecast for the top of South Australia and the bottom of the Northern Territory, we started to make our way to the nearest bitumen (sealed road) which was nearly 300 km away at Roxby Downs. This move proved to be a good one as we got to Roxby Downs and camped that evening. Next morning we awoke to rain and it was still raining when we arrived (700 km) at Ceduna the following night. With this CP done, we were going to spend a few days in Ceduna and then try to do 29S 130E and 29S 131E on the same 29S line.

On the ground of Lake Gregory.