Wells 33 to 38

Cave & More Wells 8.00 Departed well 32 8.45 Passed the turnoff to well 34 (Nibil Well) but decided not to detour as the well is a ruin. 9.25 Arrived Well 35. Did a 4km detour off CSR through scrub to the well. Keep to the track straight ahead - ignore tracks off to the right. When you get to a fork in the track marked by a 44 gallon drum with "Well 35" written on it, take the left fork. Scrub today similar to the last two days. Both low and high scrub in spots with some scrub close to the track and scratchy. 9.55 Morning tea. Stopped in casurina forest. Wind was sighing through the trees - quite eerie. The tall "desert oaks" or casurina covered the site with spinfex on the ground. Meg decided to write a bush ballad about our trip using the quirks of the trip and all of us to record the trip. She would read it out at our last campfire at Stretch Lagoon. Well 35 and following was an area where poison bush was common. Drovers went ahead of the mob burning this before they took the cattle through. 10.45 Bungabinnie native well. This is not one of the CSR wells, but an older one known to local Aborigines. Its located in deep scrub in a small gully where the Mercedes car trial group camped. They appeared to be there when we passed. We stopped but made no contact with the group in the sandhills. It was only 6C and cold in a sheltered hollow. 11.00 Came across a patch of fabulous purple flowers with 3-4 spikes on bushes 40cm high bright purple with yellow centre. Great feature plant for native gardens. Later discovered these are tinsel bushes and we would see many of them flowering over the following few days. 11.20 Well 36 (Wanda). This well was ruined with several old 44 gall drums around and a wire screen over the well. Drove through Melaleuca scrub to get there. Several days previously a dead camel was dragged out of the well on 1 August. A note on the well provided this information and the welded metal frame used to drag the carcass out was near the well. We understood that the son of the managers of the Kunawaritji Community store came down and did the work. He is a man in his 40s and an expert welder. Apparently when the Mercedes Trial came through they got him to do welding repairs on some of the cars that had broken spare wheel mounts. He welded a cheeky "Toyota" on the wheel mounts after finishing. Up here Toyota are the cars that rule. They are the ones that survive the tough conditions best. 11.40 We have been striking a few more sandhills this morning after an earlier good run on a flat plain. More casurina, tall shrubs and plumed spinifex. 11.45 A long drive in deep sand along the ridge tops of several lond dunes. This is the first time we are ridge driving on top of the dunes. Great views 12.03 Still driving along sand ridges. Great views. A very enjoyable drive. 12.35 Well 37 Known as the "Haunted" Well. Looked it too. White clay and white dead trees all round the well on the gully. Had an unpleasant feel about the place. Russ discovered one of their car batteries was dead. Fridge not being cooled. The "bush" mechanics did a quick fix. We walked up a track into the dunes and visited the "Chinaman's" grave, an Aboriginal stockman. Further down the track James Thompson and Fred Terone were buried. They had been droving a mob of cattle through and killed possibly by local Aborigines in 1911. Another drover taking a mob down found their scattered cattle and the drovers' plant scattered round their camp site. Someone had recently placed a bunch of wildflowers on Chinaman's grave. Drove 4-5 km further on and had lunch in a grove of casurinas. In 1922 another man in an oil exploration party of three was killed at this well possibly by local Aborigines. The other two survived and buried his body at the well site. These are just some of the recorded clashes as stockmen invaded Aboriginal lands with their cattle drives. Numbers of people both Aborigines and stockmen died in the early days when the stockroute started to be used. 130 Departed lunch spot. More sand dunes many of them scalloped. Bumpy driving! 2.10 Arrived Wandurba Rockhole Cave. This feature is just beside the track and a dark hole in the side of a rocky outcrop. Some simple small paintings under a ledge inside it. A snake and perhaps a person. Seems as if these are the dominant motifs along the CSR. This makes a good shelter in old layered sandstone - an ancient layered seabed? Several more smaller terraces nearby. Departed 2.22 2.40 Convoy of nine cars passing south bound. We pulled up to let them pass. 3,00 Came across an old bike trailer left by a former cyclist just prior to well. 3.00 Arrived well 38. (Wardabunni well) Sited on a high exposed escarpment with great views. Could do paintings here. Departed well 3.07. Nice camp spot 2-3 km further on out under white gums. 3.55 Passed a south bound convoy of six cars including one camper trailer. 4.00 Stopped for firewood collection with 16 km to go to night camp. We noticed how difficult it is to find dead wood for fires on the northern part of the track. Soon the Dept of Parks/Environment will have to make a ruling about forbidding campfires to preserve and remaining fallen timber and prevent destruction of green trees. Departed 4.20. 4.20 Passed trig point on top of sand dune. We later realised that this was the ‘Mother Of All Dunes’. We hardly noticed it. 4.25 Drove along the top of small escarpment with good views. 4,30 Driving through spinifex ground cover that was very thick. Nearest possible camp site may be Lake Tobin to avoid spinifex. 5.05 Found very nice campsite under casurinas. Good find. Dave and Kay drove ahead to Lake Tobin to see if there was a better camp. They returned saying it was exposed and desolate with no trees. We stayed where we were and enjoyed the site. It was here that the very large bullants sought out some of our group and bit them. Dunes around us pleasant and had odd large "worm"holes with piles of sand beside them. These holes were believed to belong to marsupial moles according to one of our party.