EXPEDITION SAND & STONE

Leave Alice Springs via Honeymoon Gap with visits to Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm. Then onto Wallace Rockhole for a guided art tour, before heading onto Hermannsberg and the Finke River Gorge where we make camp.

We continuing travelling down the Finke River Gorge exiting onto the Ernest Giles Rd with a stop at Curtin Springs before heading onto Uluru where we will be stopping for the day and you may choose do a sunset tour or make your own way.

Today we spend the day in the National Park with the opportunity to make the amazing morning walk around Uluru and lunch, before heading on to the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta before heading back into Yulara.

Leaving Uluru Kata Tjuta behind we out on the Tjukaruru Rd (Great Central Rd) towards the Petermann Ranges, Puta Puta and the fabled Lasseter’s Cave in the Curdie Ranges. We head onto to Katulkatjara (Docker River) to refuel and cross over into Western Australia. We visit the Schwerin Mural Crescent, Gill Pinnacle and Len Beadell Blaze tree before heading up the Sandy Blight Junction track to Pangkupirri Rockholes where we make camp.

Leaving Pangkupirri we track north up the Sandy Blight Junction through some very pretty desert groves along a winding sandy track. We head up into the Sir Frederick Range for some amazing views over the surrounding landscapes. Descending get back on the track continue north crossing back into the NT. We make camp for the day.

We track the last section of the Sandy Blight passing Len Beadell’s 200-mile stone and the Tietkens Blaze Tree and then on the Great Desert Rd. We pull into Kintore to top with fuel and then westward down the Desert Rd towards Kiwirrkurra, crossing the border back into WA and passed the abandoned Muyin community. Kiwirrkurra is a refuel stop – We head into Nyirla Warlayirti and camp in the region of Elizabeth Hills.

We leave Elizabeth Hills and head north to Lake MacKay, the second largest salt lake in Australia which sits on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. We explore the shoreline of the lake and take a stroll out across the salt floor. We make camp and enjoy a fiery desert sunset and the Milky Way like you’ve never seen it before…

Travelling North. We stop for water at Dwarf Well. Great for a freshen up and quick wash. We push further into the heart of the Great Sandy Desert where breakaways and claypans puncture a rolling desert landscape, and beneath one of these breakaways we make camp underneath a canopy of stars.

We travel through and ever-changing Pintubi country. Past the ruined Bilbarrd outstation and cross Laka Claypan. We pass Mangkala outstation and visit an extraordinary Aboriginal stone quarry just south of Lamanbundah. Just north of here the country opens up to breakaways there was in the 60s digging of another kind. In 1965 Aquitaine Petroleum drilled to a depth of 2441m. At Point Moody we make camp.

Today we move into more hilly country, home to the Lizard Dreaming of the Western Desert. The caves and holes that pockmark the countryside signify where they were digging for snakes. We visit abandoned community of Yagga Yagga where social decay and suicide undid promising dreams of a better life. All that remains is the infrastructure of a previous life… we continue north and make camp somewhere…

We skirt Balgo Pound with its spectacular breakaways and amazing views, before coming into Balgo to refuel and visit the art centre of the Warlayirti Artists. After lunch we follow the Kerney Range south east, along what was once the original Tanami Rd towards McGuire Gap where we make camp.

We cross into the Northern Territory and onto the working cattle station of Tanami Downs. From the homestead it’s short drive to the Tanami Rd where we pass the Granites Mine, Quartz Ride, Renahan’s Bore and Chila Well to our camp at Mt Doreen.

From Mt Doreen we head into the community of Yeundumu to refuel before turning south towards Mt Wedge. We cross over Central Mt Wedge and head down towards Pupunya before joining the Desert Rd, Haasts Bluff and back onto the blacktop of Namitjira Dve. We skirt the West Macs to Finke River we we camp.

Today we head into Alice Springs visiting the West Mac gorges including Glen Helen, Ormiston, Serpentine, before joining Larapinta Dve for the run into town where the will be a few hours to rest and relax before the final evening’s meal.

 Expedition Sand & Stone