04-Jun-2006 -- After completing 30s128e our original plan was to backtrack south through the scrub to where we left the track and follow it southeast, eventually it would head around towards our next point. However at 30s 128e the vegetation we had traveled through to get there was not that bad so we decided to save ourselves quite a few kilometers and take a short cut directly east through the bush some 60km to meet up with a track that would take us north towards out target. We now take a satellite phone so changing our plans on the fly is not a issue as we can easily let our partners back at home know what we are doing.

What started off as a good idea turned out not to be so as we encounted pockets of thick vegetation that hindered our travel. The 60km shortcut ended up taking around 4 hours to complete and a couple of flat tyres. Though we did find a couple of small caves on the way that the kids enjoyed exploring.

After getting to the track we headed north past windscreen camp (old rabbiters camp) and on to the Forrest Lakes area. Late in the afternoon we crossed the Western Australia/South Australia border and made camp where the track terminated at a salt lake (29 12 52s 129 02 01e) some 38km south of the CP and 3km east of the border. This is the start of the sand ridges that are vegetated 6 to 8 metre dunes. This is as close as we got to the CP as we basically ran out of time, it would have taken most of a day to get there and back through the sand ridges from our current position and we had a day’s travelling to return home to Kalgoorlie. As it was Sunday evening and we were all due back at work on Tuesday there was no way we could do it. If someone else does not get it in the meantime we might return and bring along our quadbikes for the last leg through the sand ridges.

- GPS : Garmin 12XL

Map Names : Australia’s Great Desert Tracks (SW Sheet) 1: 1250000

:Mason SH5206 1:250000