#2: [18-Nov-06]

13-Dec-2003 -- After moving to Weipa for work, we decided to try for this confluence before the wet season hit. The trip to the confluence is 130km from Weipa along the developmental road, with the last 4km off road bush bashing from the Aurukun road with Aurukun a further 75km further down the road. We tried taking a shorter way along a back road but found that Sudley Station had fenced off the road going through their property, and had not put in an access gate. It was here that we found the lonely memorial of Graham Forster who died at the location in an accident 1997 aged 31 after riding his trail bike into the barbwire fence while unfortunately riding alone.

We decided to try to follow the fence back to the developmental road, but several hours were wasted trying to find a crossing to a creek that blocked our way, and we were forced to back track to get back onto the developmental road.

We finally made it to the closest point to the confluence to the road by 3pm, and the task of off-roading to the confluence began. With creek crossings posing a problem again it took over 40 minutes to get within 700m of the confluence. The walk to the confluence was very easy with recent bushfires leaving no ground cover and light cloud keeping us cool, and flat open terrain.

The location is moderately timbered with sparse ground cover with small to large termite mounds interspersed, and the only wildlife to be seen were the lizards, a lone wallaby and ants, though signs of wild pigs, horses and cattle were frequent.

After some careful positioning and patience we finally managed to see all zeros on the GPS with an estimated position error of 5m, so we got some pictures including our geo-hostage travel bugs, "Moomin", "Dragon yellow" and "Bug me" who have been traveling with us for the last couple of months waiting for us to reach civilisation again so I can drop them off.

Afterwards, we made our way back to the ute to have a late lunch and enjoy the remote feeling out there, then once again made our way back out to the road, which again took around 40 minutes then the long dusty trip back to Weipa.