Thread: Simpson Desert in the mid sixties

I think it was about this time of the year, I decided to bring my own Landrover from Sydney to the crew. This was a Series 2 shortie, ex SMHEA, which I had owned for a couple of years. (I was becoming disillusioned with my company FJ45V, especially after a rear spring broke all the leaves clean through. I think this was the roughest riding vehicle I have ever had to put up with.

An uncle of mine had recently retired and offered to accompany me on the trip. It was the usual route from Sydney to Broken Hill, then Port Augusta and to Pimba and up the Stuart Hwy. No bitumen past Broken Hill, if my memory is correct, except in towns.

About 30 miles short of Pimba, disaster struck. The steering arm on the bottom of the steering relay broke. The rest of the trip into Pimba was slow. The deep ruts in the loose gravel kept us more or less straight, but every so often I would have to stop and pull the front wheels over to keep following the ruts. Fortunately, we were able to find a welder in Pimba, who welded the steering arm. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except for our last camp before Alice. We pulled off the road and laid out our swags, making a small fire to boil the billy and heat some tinned food. During the night I half woke to see the moon overhead sort of just fade out. In the morning, visibility was about 5m in dust, our heads and our swags and everything else left out were a uniform brick red, and our tracks had disappeared.

Fortunately, I remembered which way we had pulled off and we were able to use the compass to find the road again. The trip into Alice was "interesting" - and slow. I remember being fascinated by the scene as we came into town. With our eyes becoming accustomed to everything being dark red, the scenery all appeared to now be orange rather than red, as our vision adjusted to the light. The few cars coming the other way all appeared to have lights the colour of a welding arc. And the same applied as we came into town. The streetlights and interior of buildings all appeared to have electric blue lighting. When I stopped at our office, I found that when I went inside the brightly lit office (compared to the gloom outside) after a moment my vision snapped back to normal, and it was now normal white office lights, and outside was deep red rather than orange.

Next stop was the Landrover dealer, who, of course, had a steering arm in stock - and it was markedly heavier than the old one. Beefed up for the 2a I expect.

After a couple of days in town and seeing my uncle off as flights resumed, I headed off to camp to resume work.

We worked for roughly six weeks, and then took a two week break. The company would pay for fares to and from either Brisbane or Adelaide. On two occasions, we had enough wanting to go to the one place (Adelaide or Brisbane) for the company to charter a DC-3 to take them on break and return direct from the Desert, using a large claypan (called Observatory Claypan, as it had previously had a temporary weather observatory there) near Dakota Bore, in the SW corner of our area, not too far from Mt Dare. These flights were one to Brisbane and one to Adelaide.

I travelled on the one to Brisbane, which was the first. The DC-3 found the claypan, apparently without difficulty, and we burnt a tyre to indicate the wind. The surface had a salt glaze, and the captain did a trial approach and just touched the surface, because he thought it might be wet, but was satisfied and did a circuit and landed.

DC3_Observatory_claypan_1965_00243.JPG
I think this was the Brisbane flight, but I am not sure. We took off without incident, and landed at Birdsville to refuel. Everyone except the copilot walked over to the pub, conveniently located adjoining the parking bay at the airstrip, leaving the copilot and fuel agent to refuel from drums using a hand pump. The rest of the trip was incident free.

This could not be said of the trip to Adelaide. Unfortunately I was not on it, having decided to spend that field break looking round central Australia. But I got a detailed description of it from the Observer, who was a close friend of mine, and was on it, having moved his family to Adelaide.

When they left the claypan the weather was deteriorating, and they headed out into a sky thickening with dust, for a refuelling stop at Oodnadatta. After what seemed to be an excessive time for the first leg, my friend was getting a bit concerned, especially as nothing except red dust could be seen out the windows. There were no announcements from the Captain, but the seat belt sign was on, as the strong wind made it bumpy.

Then the plane could be felt maneuvering, and sandhills appeared below, very close, and the landing gear could be heard extending. Moments later, a bitumen runway appeared and the main gear touched the bitumen, and the plane rapidly slowed, turned into a parking bay, and shut down the engines. The Captain asked everyone to remain seated, and a few minutes later walked down the aisle and opened the passenger door, as a Landrover load of soldiers arrived.

The Captain had a conference with them for about ten minutes or so, and then he came back in and addressed the passengers. They had made an emergency landing because of the weather, and would be spending the night there. You can take your luggage with you. No photos, and don't wander. Ten minutes later, a khaki bus arrived and took them to the accommodation, where they were fed and provided with accommodation for the night.

The had landed at "Mirrikata" a then secret base in a prohibited area. It was the base from which the Atomic tests were carried out, and at this time was being used for the Blue Steel rocket tests. It did not appear on any maps.

The next morning, a new crew flew up in a light twin from Adelaide, and they got away about ten, having been refuelled by the army. According to the gossip, the Captain retired the next day.

Their return trip from Adelaide was uneventful.