nicole.madxd.hewett

The Madigan Line:
From Mt Dare to Birdsville..758 kms
We used 174 litres of diesel in our 100 series turbo auto , towing our awesome TVan all the way....L/100 kms: 22L
We shared our Adventures with new found friends. Who were in a Nissan 4.2L Manual diesel ute with canopy and also were towing a TVan..They averaged 21L/100kms.
.The whole trip was spent in low range and we averaged 40ks a day.
We stopped at approx. 3-4o'clock in the arvo and often didn't leave to 9.30(on a good day), each day.

A very leisurely trip.

From Mt Dare, our last refuelling stop, we headed toward Old Andado Homestead. There was a large section of bulldust not far north of Mt Dare, which coated our car, drowned our Tvan and filled the car with lovelly fine dust..unfortunately our fan was on. We didn't expect such a large plume/ hole, so before we could close our vents, our car was powdered with superfine bulldust. mostly outside thank goodness.
The TVan was following us and remained dust free inside.

At old Andado, we enjoyed a bit of history and some fresh scones from the homestead caretakers.

Our first night out was not far out of Old Andado, still south of Mac Clarke Reserve.

Day 1 on the Madigan, as many have said, was interesting. The actual starting point to get to Camp 1 was on the western side of the fencline, which begins at the entrance gate to Mac Clarke reserve.
Following that fenceline, we reached the bore and had a look around...
There were lots of tracks going in all directions, but after eventually having to cross over a broken fence, we discovered the next way forward was actually north,now along the Eastern side of a fence...virtually doubling back on our track, but on the other side of another fence!

The scenery to camps 1 & 1A weren't that remarkable, until we got past camp 2

Camp 2 was near the old "fossil"..Case tractor which was very interesting. Why it was there at all is a mystery!

Camps 3&4 were not visited as they are on native title land, so we headed to the Colson, camp 5 and then camp 6. A bit longer day travelling

Camp 7 was really where the dunes started to get a little serious.. Deflated tyres even more, repair/ landscape a few dunes and move on peacefully..only one camp that day.

Camp 8-10 a continuation of the previous days terrain, with some beautiful colours of the sand changing throughout the day.
We were blessed with prolific wildflowers and flowering stands of Gidgee trees.

Camp 11 has quite a collection of logbooks, "I've been here" tags and mementos from many visitors.
We ended up camping there the night, then discovered some nice trees and wood just over the next few dunes :(

Camps 12-16 took us 2 days.
At Camp 16 we placed our plaque next to everyone else's and turned off the Hay River Track, towards camp 17.
Camped fo the night between 17 and 18..then it was off on a big day to Birdsville.
Not visiting camps 23 & 24 as they are on private land.

The clouds were starting to gather and we needed showers, so It was off to Birdsville for a bit of luxury.

As usual..the QAA was in bad condition, with side tracks veering off the track and around the badly eroded/ damaged sections.
No problems for our TVans.
We got to Big Red, just on dark, but we didn't want to miss out on another big dune...The tyres were still down, so we took it on in the dark. After carefully picking our lines, we made it up without banging, spinning or getting bogged...Love the TVans..they travelled so well behind us...in fact...we forgot they were there, as you never feel any tugging and jumping from our "passenger"

Whilst now a very defined track, The Madigan is a great trip.

Some dunes show signs of "abuse", but no where near as bad as those on the QAA.
The colours and scenery were spectacular. The desert benefitted from rain in the recent months and bloomed beautifully.
In my notes and pics above, you will note that camp 11 pics have located themselves a lot earlier on in the track notes
Our total trip was over 5000ks, however only my waypoints for the Madigan are all intact!