Great Central Road Great Central Road was well graded and a joy to drive on. Lots of scrub trees and wild flowers, Emu Bush, Sturt Desert Pea, Mulla Mulla etc. as well as several types of wattle blooming. Lunch was early at Warburton but we decided to travel on as it was too early to stop for the night. Visited the Warburton shire offices and art gallery. Great architecture of ochre rendered low buildings round a court yard with deep shady arcades. Gallery included a permanent collection of local Aboriginal art bought by the shire and some of which is currently on exhibition in China and creating a sensation. Also great glass artists with dishes and platters at round $500. Very handsome work. Art work also well worth a closer look. An excellent curator has been there for a number of years employed by the shire to manage the collection and encourage the artists. This appears to be a good model to help develop the artists and prevent them being ripped off by shonky dealers from the city. We recommend all visitors to drop in to see the magnificent collection of local Art the council has purchased as a permanent display of the work of local artists. Support these great artists by buying a painting or one of the other artifacts that are for sale. While the Great Central Hwy was good, we turned off onto the Heather Highway some distance from Warburton. This is a rutted, corrugated track with washaways. We averaged 30km/hr on it and Terry lost all the firewood tied to our roof rack which was jolted off by the ruts. We mostly drove on the many side tracks that were slightly better some of the time. Saw a starving old dingo. Late that afternoon we entered the old Gunbarrel Highway again and followed a tiny overgrown track back to the Mangi Waterholes perched on a rocky promontory. It was difficult to find track and stick to it so we appreciated out leader's GPS.

Mangi Rock Holes It was, as the name suggests, rocky & very difficult to hammer our tentpegs in. We must invest in some extra heavy duty ones. Lovely starry night. Heard dingos howling. Mangi Waterholes are three Aboriginal-style deep rock holes on the top of a rocky plateau. They are less than a meter across, although it appears someone has later dug out portions of a side of one. This did not result in the waterhole filling up more. It appears that water has collected just under the rocky crust of the plateau over a long period of time. Two had water in them and were much used by birds, especially large numbers of budgies and finches. Lots of big dragonflies around too. Otherwise,  there did not appear to be any animals around, kangas, wombats even camels, although some scat was around the plateau possibly of camels and steers(?). Did they all die out in the 10 year drought? Up at 6am for an early start. Retraced our steps out of the camp and onto the old Gunbarrel Hwy again. At another Len Beadell tree met a party of four cars coming the other way with NSW registrations. We stopped and chatted and they told us the road ahead was very rough, although after the Heather Highway we can’t imagine how much rougher it can get! They had finished the Canning (North to South) and loved it. They were right! Only 12 km from the waterholes the road was very rutted -slow driving at 15-30kph

Sun 22nd July : 335Km