Little Desert National Park Trip

Outstanding Trip Leaders: Les & Joy
Trippers: Iggy & Joslyn, Rick & Cindy, Stuart & Karen, Gordon & Chris.

Our trip started on Saturday where we had to meet at the junction of the South Australian and Victorian border at 10am. Near our meeting place Joy and Les had been busy creating signs to ensure that we didn’t miss our meeting point. They also had balloons to ensure that you didn’t miss the spot. With such a welcome we were assured of a well planned trip.

Everyone arrived on time and we soon set off for our camping site just a short trip down the road. Although Les and joy had gone to the trouble of purchasing maps of the area you just can’t trust them to get you to where you want to go. We ended up along the wrong track and wondered if we would ever see civilization again. At times it got to be a little overgrown but quite passable because les and Rick had their camper trailers. Just before we hit the bitumen we came across water on the road and of course Rick seems to be attracted to it. We all watched him to ensure that he didn’t get into trouble.

Back up the bitumen and found the unsigned turnoff that we should have taken the first time and soon set up camp. It wasn’t long before we were off discovering the Little Desert National Park. Les took us on a circular trip just to have a taste of what the next few days had in store for us. We got out and had a look from a viewing platform. You could see for miles the area rich in native plants. I think I saw more native plants in flower than we did when we went to the Flinders only a couple of weeks ago.

Back at camp and after drinks and a meal the entertainment for the night was a quiz which had been well thought out and researched by Joy and Les. It must have taken them ages to prepare - trouble is the group of wanderers tried their best but answering trivia questions was not what you could call their forte. We had a great time and learned some really useful trivia should we ever be called upon to use this information. (When you see Rick don’t believe him that other people cheated so that he couldn’t win - would we ever consider doing such a thing?)

Next day we were up early so that we could do more discovering of the eastern and central blocks of the Little Desert. The tracks we took really required 4wdriving skills. The way consisted of sandy tracks dispersed with areas of mud and water. The 4wdriving was constant and required the divers to be concentrating all the time. Thank heaven for seat belts as it really shook the occupants of the cars around. We had four and a half hours of this type of driving at an average speed of 40-50 Kms. Our destination should have been the Pomponderoo Camp Site but the road had been closed because of poor conditions. We were just at this section when we met up with a group of bike riders who showed us an alternative route to Dimboola - another one and a half hours of repeat conditions of where we had just come from. Les thanked them for their assistance and assured them that we were not in the habit of getting lost. (Ha ha!)

This time Gordon was following Iggy who had done a detour to avoid the water on the road which at this point stunk really bad. Gordon must have gone too close to a tree stump and all we heard was a loud bang as the air escaped from his front tyre. Some thing must have snagged the wall of the tyre and caused a great gaping hole in it. We had to stop and replace the tyre that had only done 10,000 kms. ($187 to replace - sob, sob.) After something to eat we followed the river to Dimboola where Karen and Stuart left us. After filling up with petrol we headed back to camp and pre-dinner drinks and a review of the day’s events. This time it was more a more sedate affair than the previous night’s entertainment.

Next day after packing up we held a boating regatta. Everyone had to design their own boat to race on the waterhole that we were camped near. There were some really inventive designs. The following is a list of entrants from left to right in the picture. The bottle catamaran (Rick), Chip pack (Cindy) which was a last minute entry because the Milk Carton entry had sunk during the trial runs and was considered an outsider to win, Enterprise meat tray (Gordon & Chris), the winner Alfoil trays (Joy), Mother’s Donated Plastic Dish (Iggy & Joslyn), Biscuit tray (Les) which really should have been made out of sterner stuff because it was unable to stand up to the rigors of competitive sailing.

It was a great to be with these people who have such a great sense of fun and easily entertained.

After all the frivolities and ensuring the camp site was left in the same condition as we found it we set off to discover a little more of the area around the borders of South Australia and Victoria. We saw the tanks that had been built during the second world war to store aircraft fuel. It was beautiful country to drive through.

After having lunch at Bordertown we all set off for home.

Thanks Les and Joy for organising a top weekend of 4wding, entertainment and competitions.

Chris

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