Madigan's Line with AJ120

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Back home now all safe and sound. I shall sort through the pics and try and work out how to edit and upload some of the Gopro footage from the trip. I may take a while as It would be good to get some pics from some of the others on the trip for the report, I actually headed home before everyone else, (too much damn work to do) the others are only expected home in the next day or 2 after they have a leisurly wander home.

Certainly we are all pleased with ourselves after being the first group to do Madigans this year, and the first group to get past camp sixteen and all the way through in at least 2 years

It will be hard to describe the trip, parts were actually very easy, other sections were with out a doubt the most demanding circumstances I have ever found myself in whilst 4wdriving. This trip is certainly not for the inexperienced and definately not for the faint hearted. The dificulty and the demands of this trip are not because the dunes are huge or steep, infact they were mostly low and the sand was really hard, no one had been through before us to chop it up! The demands and the difficulties came on a few fronts. For much of the trip there was simply no track to follow, and even when there was a track it was often almost impossible to see and loosing the track was an all to common event. So much of the trip we were simply making our way across country, heading to a spot on the GPS screen and trying to find a star dropper (which is all that there is at each camp) in the vast expanse of the Simpson desert.

Most of the country we travelled through had been burnt out by the huge fires that tore through the Simpson late last year, whilst in some respects this made life easier as the spinifex was mostly low and green and soft, it also meant that the area was reshaped by the winds which is why we often had no track, it also left millions of small hard sharp burnt sticks; sticking out of the ground just waiting for an unsuspecting tyre to poke a hole through. Much of the burnt out country now resembled what we referred to as Moguls, vast expanses of extremely rough ground where the wind had blown the sand away from around the burned out spinifex bushes, meaning we were constantly crawling over this rough country being thrown from side to side. One day we travelled for 7 - 8 hours and I think we covered 25kms, with barely a single minutes respite from the hard slog 4wdriving.

Added to this was the fact that for all but the last day in the desert the temperature was around the 40 degree mark, usually well over forty in fact. The hottest I noticed acording to the Prado's outside temp was 47 degrees, but I rarely had time to look at that so it may well have been hotter.

Note not only the temperature, but also the time in the pics below.






We also had the odd fly or two hanging around whilst out there

I will add updates as I get pics and stuff sorted out.

Cheers Andrew

[craigm Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close craigm]

Wow. This is one trip report I'm looking forward to reading. Well done Andrew. Congrats on taming Madigans!!!!

[Snaga Wishing I was lost Find all posts View Profile Close Snaga]

Can't wait for the rest of the adventures to be told...

[Hutch Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hutch]

Snooooooozzzzzzziiiiinnnggg!!!!! u been home for a night whats the hold up!!! lol

[sapradogxl Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close sapradogxl]

AJ,

Great work, yet another Recce completed for the 2012GTG, well, just crossing that one off the list as not quiet workable with such a large group

Wel done on making it, looking forward to seeing the bush party under the Ostrich wing

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

We will definately give this track (?) a misss for the GTG

I thought I would start by giving you a bit of history about Cecil Madigan, the man who's footsteps we were following.

2 points that I found particularly interesting is that firstly he was born in Renmark, which is only about 40kms from where I live, the second really interesting thing is that Madigan is the man responsible for giving the Simpson Desert its name.

The info below is a bit of a read, but very interesting.

Madigan, Cecil Thomas (1889–1947)
by L. W. Parkin

Cecil Thomas Madigan (1889-1947), by Frank Hurley, c1913
National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an23323356

Cecil Thomas Madigan (1889-1947), geologist and explorer, was born on 15 October 1889 at Renmark, South Australia, son of Thomas Madigan, contractor and fruitgrower, and his wife Mary Dixie, née Finey. Cecil was the eldest of two sons and two daughters. Family associations with the pioneer William Chaffey were close. Thomas Madigan died on the Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, goldfields so the children were raised by their mother who worked as a teacher. Cecil attended Adelaide High School and, on a scholarship, Prince Alfred College before studying mining engineering at the University of Adelaide (B.Sc., 1910, surrendered 1932 for B.Eng.), where he graduated as an exhibitioner, and the South Australian School of Mines and Industries. In 1911 Madigan went as a Rhodes scholar to England, but deferred the appointment when he was selected by (Sir) Douglas Mawson as meteorologist for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

Madigan was to install and read the meteorological instruments during the two-year project. He made several exploratory sledge journeys from the base camp at Denison Station, Adelie Land; on one, his party reconnoitred the ice plateau in winter, experiencing record cold and wind. In the summer of 1912-13 Madigan led the eastern sledging party which traversed the sea-ice and coastline of King George V Land, a round journey of 500 miles (805 km), which took two months. Overcoming many near-disasters, the party collected significant data on the ice, and discovered a coal-bearing rock formation. His account is in his chapter of Mawson's The Home of the Blizzard (London, 1915). Madigan's journey had coincided with Mawson's southern sledging party during which his two companions perished and Mawson struggled back alone to base camp only to miss the relief ship. Madigan led the group which had remained behind to wait for Mawson's return or to mount a search for him. Madigan received the King's Polar Medal in 1914 and published The Meteorology of Cape Denison, Adelie Land in the records of the expedition (1929).

After one term at Oxford in 1914 he joined the Royal Engineers, 76th Field Company, Guards Division, becoming captain in 1916. He served in France and was twice mentioned in dispatches. 'A fine looking, broad-shouldered fellow' of 6 ft 3 ins (191 cm), on 20 August 1915 in London Madigan had married Wynnis Knight Wollaston of Adelaide; he returned to the front immediately, was wounded, and after recuperating went back to France in May 1916. Their first son was born in July.

After demobilization he returned to Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A., 1919; M.A., 1922; D.Sc., 1933), taking first-class honours in geology and winning blues in rowing and boxing. In 1920 he went as assistant government geologist to the Sudan where he first encountered deserts and the use of camels in geological field operations. He returned in 1922 to the University of Adelaide as lecturer in geology, a post he held until his death.

A renewed friendship with Mawson, now professor of geology and mineralogy, coloured Madigan's academic career; both were heroic exploration geologists, of striking stature, vigour and personality; keen to succeed scientifically, they divided fields of interest—Madigan's arid central Australia, Mawson's the Antarctic and Precambrian South Australia. They influenced each other importantly. Their pupils regarded them with awe and affection. Madigan supported the students' union and the graduates' association and founded the Tate Society for students of the natural sciences whom he led in the field during vacations.

His initial South Australian research centred on Fleurieu Peninsula; the results appeared in papers published in the Royal Society of South Australia's Transactions in 1925-28. In 1929 he won the support of the State branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia and its president A. A. Simpson, and the co-operation of the Royal Australian Air Force for aerial reconnaissance of Central Australia and northern South Australia. This was the first time that systematic aerial strip-photography had been attempted in Australia and aeroplanes used for geological work. The surveys, in August, took nineteen days. The first covered the mines at Broken Hill, New South Wales, followed by a traverse across Lake Frome to Marree, then over the other dry salt-lakes—Callabonna, Blanche, Gregory, Torrens and Eyre, all in South Australia. The next flight ran north-easterly to Birdsville, Queensland, and the margin of what Madigan named the Simpson Desert. Three flights were then made over it, the first from Birdsville to Alice Springs, the second across the northern end to Lake Caroline and the Hay River, and the third south from Alice Springs, traversing the desert's length near its western margin. The party then ran several traverses across the vast, dry, salt bed of Lake Eyre and attempted to analyse the lake surface.

The aerial reconnaissance of Lake Eyre aroused Madigan's curiosity about this lowest area of the Australian continent, the focus of a vast drainage system bounded by the MacDonnell Ranges and the Queensland coastal ranges, a watershed of almost 500,000 sq. miles (1,294,995 km²). It seemed that the lake-bed might be accessible to a motor vehicle, so in December he made a ground survey and several auger holes were sunk in the lake surface. The results of the aerial reconnaissance and the Lake Eyre (ground) exploration were published in the local Geographical Society's Proceedings, 1929, and in the Geographical Journal, 1930. Madigan calculated that the whole lake-floor could never be covered by water; he would have been astonished and delighted by several total floodings since his death.

In mid-1930 he journeyed by camel through the MacDonnell, James and Waterhouse ranges and established their geological succession and structure. The results of this and earlier work were published in a series of papers and he wrote a popular account, Central Australia (London, 1936). Commissioned in 1932 by Sydney newspapers, Madigan had reported adversely on an alleged major gold discovery at the Granites, Central Australia. About 1933 he began to describe meteorites and their craters. He visited the Henbury and Boxhole craters in the Northern Territory and recovered and described the Huckitta meteorite, now in the South Australian Museum.

The Simpson is a sand-ridge desert extending 200 miles (322 km) west to east, the ridges running parallel from north to south at roughly quarter-mile (0.4 km) intervals, some reaching as high as 100 feet (30 m). Madigan planned a ground crossing in the winter of 1939. A party of nine, including a biologist, a botanist, a photographer and a radio operator, with nineteen camels, made the exhausting crossing from Andado station in the Northern Territory to Birdsville in twenty-five days. It verified Madigan's previous conclusions that the area was a wasteland. This last classic Australian exploration adventure pioneered the use of mobile radio communication; national broadcasts were made through the Australian Broadcasting Commission from desert camps. The scientific results were published and also a popular account, Crossing the Dead Heart (Melbourne, 1946). He saw the 'Dead Heart' as a land of everlasting sand-ridges and salt-encrusted clay-pans; while his conclusions seemed correct then, within twenty years the area was criss-crossed by petroleum explorers.

In 1940 Madigan became chief instructor in the School of Military Field Engineering at Liverpool, New South Wales, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Later he reported on water resources. He retired from the army in 1943 and returned to the University of Adelaide.

Madigan was a fellow of the Geological Society of London; president of the Royal Society of South Australia (1936), a council-member and its Verco medallist (1945); president of the geographical section of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (1937); and Clarke memorial lecturer to the Royal Society of New South Wales (1938). He received the Murchison grant of the Royal Geographical Society in 1941 and was a local councillor of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia in 1939-46. He was State chief commissioner of the Boy Scouts' Association from 1934 and also worked for the Legacy Club and the National Co-ordinating Council for Physical Fitness.

He died in Adelaide of coronary vascular disease on 14 January 1947 and was buried in Centennial Park cemetery; his wife, two daughters and three sons survived him.

Madigan bridged the period between the era of intrepid endeavour and that of modern transport and communications; his work in the MacDonnell Ranges, the Simpson Desert and Lake Eyre made him an authority on central Australian geology and geography. In teaching he concentrated on practical geology and, at a time when the discipline was mainly academic, introduced students to its mining, engineering and economic implications, which later became major preoccupations. In 1962 at Birdsville a cairn was erected to commemorate his 1939 crossing of the Simpson Desert.

Cheers Andrew

[wooley Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close wooley]

Prince Alfred College... I thought he might have been an alright guy until I read that...

[iantz Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close iantz]

pfffft.... talk about leading a 'Boring' life

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

The trip started on Friday morning at 7.30am with some of the group meeting just outside of Berri. We had 6 vehicles for the trip after one couple pulled out at the last minute for personal reasons.

We had a varied group, a V6 Challenger, A Pajero 3.2TD, a Nissan Patrol with the 3.0lt hand grenade TD, a Hilux with the naturally aspirated 3.0lt diesel, a 105 series Landcruiser with a 4.2TD and of course the Prado! I hadn't met the owner of the Pajero before and after we introduced ourselves and he had a drool over the Prado he pointed to his rig, "its not a Pajero, it's a Vagero" he told me.......... that's because it is a C#%T of a car, his words not mine! He was spot on with that statement as it had its fair share of troubles on the trip.

We also had a wide variety of occupations as well, A very experienced Paramedic, a pharmacist that came well stocked, a computer expert with particular skills in GPS technology, a qualified 4wd instructor and a few other professions that were less useful on the trip such as a school head mistress and a former property developer and of course myself.

On this trip we also were running a fines system for anyone that did anything a bit stupid on the trip, $1 for each misdemeanor with the proceeds going to the RFDS along with a list of the offences for them to laugh over. The first dollar was raised when the Patrol was late arriving, which was made worse by the fact that the meeting point was 300 metres from their front door. Having a "comfort stop" in front of the Prado with the Gopro still running at one stage cost me a dollar, someone forgetting they had a fly net on and trying to eat was another fine. The fine to beat them all though was when despite having a million square miles of nothing in the desert the big 105 managed to run over the only thing within cooee.......... one of the Madigans camp markers (all fixed and no real harm done). I haven't heard the final figure but I think we might be sending the RFDS a donation of around $100 or so.

4 vehicles left Berri, we caught up with the Hilux in Burra and the 105 who's owners I had not met either eventually caught up with us that night after dark 20kms short of Coober Pedy where we camped. We were supposed to camp somewhere a bit sooner but our trip leader missed the spot, that cost him a dollar!

As is almost always the case whenever I travel anywhere we had a strong headwind all the way to Coober Pedy, the Northerly's kept up pretty much all the way up and across the desert which also helped keep the temperatures in the 40's most of the trip, not surprisingly the wind changed to a southerly almost at the exact time we turned south!

A hot night and then up early and into Coober Pedy to top up with relativly cheap fuel before leaving the bitumen and head to oodnadatta and then Mt Dare.

Sunset South of Coober Pedy




The line up as we aired down before hitting the dirt at Coober Pedy




Fogarty's Clapan and then onto Mt Dare.






Cheers Andrew

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

I have never owned a video camera before so this is the first time I ahve tried to upload video footage taken with the Gopro, hopefully it works.

Its only short and the interesting bit is near the end, if you have never seen a Bustard (Bush Turkey) before then have a look. Bustards a legendary tasty, but they are a protected species nowadays so this one was safe, just.

http://s1116.photobucket.com/albums/...andBustard.mp4


EDIT: I am staggered, the video upload actually worked

Cheers Andrew

[big-trev Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close big-trev]

Hi AJ welcom back to reality.Looks like you have had a fantastic trip can't waite to hear all about it at the meeting.Dennis,Meridath and myself had an interesting time at the Bordertrack with a fairly simple run up the centre as you have probably read.Any way welcome home and see you soon.

[Hutch Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hutch]

AJ, informative as always, thank for sharing.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

It is amazing to see how green everything is in the outback at the moment, this area is normally just barren gibber plains with barely a blade of grass to be seen anywhere.




And I wasn't expecting a water crossing on this trip either






As you can see from the second pic I should get a few good shots of me going through once I catch up with some pics from the others, pity the gopro had a flat battery at that stage, another thing to add to my list, a second battery!

We were looking to make it to Mt Dare on the second day but ended up camping at Kidmans Water Hole as not for the last time on the trip a Mitsubishi needed a bit of attention.




Cheers Andrew

[LiveFreeAndRoam Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close LiveFreeAndRoam]

Glad to see you're back safely AJ. Thanks for the report; it's living Madigan's through your experience.

It sounds like it was quite challenging. It was interesting to read one of the drivers had a bad opinion of his car before even setting out and also that it was troublesome on the trip. Maybe that should go down as a Min Vehicle Requirement; Must have a good opinion of one's car .

LFaR.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Glad to see you're back safely AJ. Thanks for the report; it's living Madigan's through your experience.

It sounds like it was quite challenging. It was interesting to read one of the drivers had a bad opinion of his car before even setting out and also that it was troublesome on the trip. Maybe that should go down as a Min Vehicle Requirement; Must have a good opinion of one's car .

LFaR.

Thanks Lfar

Minimum vehicle requirements should have been to bring a Toyota, but the guy who organised the trip had the Challenger so the minimum vehicle standards had to be a bit lower than us Prado owners are used to

Kidman Water hole is a very picturesque spot, but the Mozzies were in plague proportions and it was still in the 40's when the Mozzies forced me into the swag at around 9 O'clock.








Next stop Mount Dare!

Cheers Andrew