#4: [16-Jan-18]

#2: [16-Jul-01]

#1: [11-Jul-01]

25-Oct-2008 -- Continued from 37S-140E.

Travelling towards Tintinara, we were cocooned from the outside temperature, with the air conditioner going in our vehicle. It was a very pleasant 25°C inside the car, while the outside temperatures was tipping 39°C, so we were not looking forward to this confluence walk. What a contrast in 2 days, yesterday it only reached 19°C while we were travelling through Victoria and successfully logged 3 confluences within a very short time, and here we were, 24 hours later and 20°C hotter in temperature.

Turning off of the main highway before reaching Tintinara, we found the track that we were to follow, only to find that it had a wire fence/gate across it. Seeing Fiona was the passenger and I was the driver, her new role now became official fence/gate opener and closer. We passed through five such fence/gates before arriving at a farmhouse that was very close to the confluence. Being greeted by some friendly sheep dogs and armed with my Degree Confluence Letter, I knocked on the front door. Being Saturday afternoon, nobody was home, either at cricket or tennis, so we then went down the road to a point that was as close to the confluence as we could drive. The 1.3 kilometre walk did not bother us, but the 38°C temperature did, so armed with camera, tripod and water, we set off at a quick pace to get the confluence recorded in as quick a time as possible.

Like other parts of Australia, the area around Tintinara had not escaped the drought and the crops in this area were just barely hanging on and one feels a great sympathy for all the Australian farmers that are doing it very hard because of these very dry times. Even a small lake that we passed on the way to the confluence was showing the effects of the drought, with a number of trees around the edge of the lake dead, due to the high salinity and no fresh water to flush the soil of salt.

Arriving at the site, it was the usual confluence dance and then all the required photos from the actual confluence point itself. As mentioned before in my reports, I always take the required photos from the actual confluence point. The other photos taken by other visits here are taken approximately 30 metres north of the actual confluence point, thus the difference in the actual photos. The flies were very friendly, so this made the visit even quicker, wasting no time to get back to our car. When we arrived back at the car, the temperature had now risen to 39°C, so we wasted no time in getting the car going and the air conditioner flat out. It was not long now and we were back on the bitumen and northward bound, arriving home a further six hours later. All in all it was not bad to have logged the six confluences, as my original plans were only three, owing to the fact that the original photos did not turn out owing to the faulty memory card and when I planned the way back, we happened to pass those very easy to log confluences in Victoria.