Highlights:
- Pink lakes
- Red kangaroos
- Orange sand driving
- Innovative cooking
- Hammock camping
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| I guess the road sign wasn't clear enough for some folks |
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| Last Hope Track |
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| Car poo |
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| Selfie the first |
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| One of the many dry lakes in Murray-Sunset NP |
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| This was actually taken outside the park, but still pretty cool |
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| Ditto |
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| Mt Crozer (a.k.a. campsite #1) |
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| The sunlight glistening off the red river gums was pretty amazing. Sadly, the pictures don't do it justice |
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| What do you suppose made those tracks? |
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| Lake Kenyon, one of the many Pink Lakes |
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| Remnants of an ancient inland sea |
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| Lake Hardy |
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| I forget exactly which lake this is, but it shows off the whole "pink lake" thing |
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| The lakes are pink because they're so darn salty that only a single specie of alga can survive in them. Dunaliella salina happens to be pink in color. It is one of the world's leading producers of beta carotene. |
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| Porcupine grass (read the sign above) |
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| What do you suppose made those scratches in the ground? |
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| Red kangaroos have developed some pretty crazy adaptations for survival in the desert |
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| Prior to establishment of the park, the Pink Lakes had a pretty big salt mining operation going |
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| I think this might be salt |
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| This equipment was abandoned when salt mining ceased |
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| The pink lakes formed when an ancient inland sea receded When the lakes dry out, vegetation moves in |
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| In areas of high salinity, lichens grow in place of plants. Nature is awesome |
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| This bearded dragon was about two feet long, from tip to tail. He seemed pretty happy sunning himself, and wouldn't move out of the way. Thankfully, the track was wide enough that I was able to creep slowly around him, with my head out the window to make sure I didn't run over his tail in the process. |
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| Mopoke Hut Built in 1962 by Alan Henschke, a local cattleman Alan built the place so he wouldn't have to haul a bunch of extra camping gear on his cattle drives |
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| Campsite the second The General's bullbar came in handy for tying off the rainfly |
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| Porterhouse steak for dinner with a little Slap Ya Mama for seasoning |
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| It was too windy for a campfire, but I didn't have any fuel for the butane stove... |
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| ... so let's improvise! |
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| Obligatory sunset picture. |
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| The hammock was rather cozy, and the wind rocked me to sleep |
Videos:
| Gnarr Road - I came across this fella on the way in |
| Honeymoon Hut Track |
| Sand driving along the Mt Crozier Track |
I'd gone home at the end of September and I was eager to try out the camping hammock I'd brought back with me, along with the fridge-freezer I bought a couple weeks ago. I've also been wanting to get back into the outback before the summer heat sets in.
Murray-Sunset National Park is the second-largest national park in the State of Victoria. It sits in the state's arid northwest region, bordering South Australia to the west (it's actually closer to Adelaide than Melbourne) and only a couple hours' drive from New South Wales to the north. One of the key features of the park are the Pink Lakes - remnants of an ancient inland sea.
With all the extra time spent gathering supplies and packing the car, I ended up leaving my place around noon. Thankfully, traffic was pretty light at this time, although the rain slowed things down a little. Having loaded up my car, I headed out the West Gate Freeway and caught the Western Ring Road up to the Calder Highway towards Bendigo and Mildura.
It's right at 500km (312 mi) from my apartment to Underbool, which is about 10 or 15km from the park entrance. Even with the speed limit on the Calder Highway being 110km/h (68mph) for most of the distance, the highway cuts through a lot of small country towns where it drops to 60km/h (50km/h in the larger towns, and 40km/h through the handful of school zones it passes). That, combined with a longer-than-expected stop in Bridgewater for sunscreen, meant I didn't get to my campsite until well after dark.
Initially, I wasn't sure whereabouts I was going, but since I was traveling alone to a place I'd never been before, I decided to stay along the outer edges of the park. A quick look at the map showed the two nearest campgrounds were at Lake Crosbie and Mount Crozier. Since Lake Crosbie is easily accessible by road from the park entrance, I decided to head for Mt Crozier.
Leaving Underbool, I headed up Mamengoroock Road towards the park. I could have followed the Mallee Highway further west to Linga, but I was eager to get off the pavement, and the dirt road was just too tempting. I followed the road to an access track, where I engaged 4WD. From there, I headed North through a gate and up to the Mount Jess Track.
The Mt Jess Track runs along the southeastern border of the park, passing Mt Jess before intersecting with Gnarr Road. Inside the park, Gnarr Road becomes a 4WD track. You have to climb some pretty tall sand dunes, so it's a good idea to come equipped with a sand flag and drop your tire pressures. The sand was pretty dry, and I failed to make it up one of the dunes on full pressure, so I backed down off of it and dropped them to about 20psi. I cleared the dunes with ease after dropping my tire pressures, and the rest of the drive was a piece of cake.
From Gnarr Road, I hung a left to the Honeymoon Hut Track and followed it until I found the Mt Crozier Track and the campground. My first attempt at hanging the hammock didn't go too well, but with the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm, I decided instead to sleep in the car.
I awoke early Wednesday morning and found the back end of the car was now in a wide, shallow puddle. Climbing out of the front doors, I took down the hammock and threw it in the front floorboard before a quick hike up to Mount Crozier. At 109 meters above sea level, it's not particularly tall, but considering how flat the surrounding countryside is, you can see quite a bit of the park from up there.
Leaving Mt Crozier, I followed the track back South to the Pink Lakes. Prior to the establishment of the park, this area was used for salt mining. The remnants of this operation can still be seen at Lake Crosbie - old machinery rusting away next to huge mounds of salt. Unfortunately for the miners, the best time for accessing the salt was during the hot, dry summer months, where temperatures can exceed 120°F. Fortunately for me, the weather was nice and cool.
From the Pink Lakes, I headed back into Underbool for some hot coffee and a quick stop at the Parks Victoria office. The ranger assured me I'd picked an ideal time for my visit. "The heat's chased off most of the other folks up there, so I doubt you'll see anyone else. Yesterday was 38 (100°F), today's looking at around 23 (73°F), and tomorrow's supposed to be even cooler. We had around 6 mils of rain last night, so the sand should be good and wet. You've got a big four-wheel drive, so you shouldn't have any dramas getting around up there."
After my visit to the park office, I returned to the Pink Lakes and followed the Grub track out towards Clay Lake before turning back onto the Honeymoon Hut track (from the opposite end). I didn't have anything particular in mind, just a desire to do some four-wheel driving, and soon enough found myself back at Mount Crozier. Instead of stopping, this time I followed the track further north across some dunes and a dry lake before reaching the Underbool track.
Seeing that it was getting pretty close to mid-day by this time, I figured I needed to settle on a place to spend the night. I decided on the Mopoke Hut campground and turned onto the Last Hope track, stopping once for a lizard in the middle of the road, and again a few minutes later to make sandwiches for lunch. I arrived at Mopoke Hut early in the afternoon and set up camp there.
When hanging a hammock, it's important to pick the right trees. There are a lot of red river gums in the park, but here's the thing... red river gums have developed a pretty unique adaptation for surviving out here. In order to conserve energy during the hot dry season, red river gums regularly drop their limbs. Seems a bit strange as a survival tactic in such a fire-prone region of the world, to add more fuel on the ground, but that's what they do. It also means they're a particularly poor choice for hanging a hammock.
Thankfully, I found a couple evergreen trees growing in the campground which were just the right distance apart. Although the hammock's ropes are supposed to be tree-friendly, I used the webbing from a set of tie-downs to protect the shaggy bark (credit goes to my brother Charlie for giving me the idea). Initially, I had threaded the ropes through the grommets on the rain fly, but the wind caught it like a kite, causing it to jerk the hammock violently, so I tied it to the webbing using parachute cord. As for the sides, I used the bull bar to tie off one side and an iron fire pit for the other.
I wandered around for a little bit, but I didn't want to stray too far from the truck, and besides, I was getting pretty tired, so I ended up napping in the hammock and reading instead of exploring. Around 7:30 or so, I got up and started getting things ready for dinner - steak and onions. However, I hit a little snag here. It turns out, I hadn't brought any gas for my butane stove, and it was too windy to light a fire.
So, I improvised.
Wrapping the food in tinfoil and placing it in a couple of enamel pans, I fired up the General and popped the hood. Ideally, I would have placed them on the ehaust manifold, but the top of it sits at an angle, meaning the pans would almost certainly have slid off. However I did find a nice little spot on top, next to the air box. It took longer to cook than I'd expected, and between the aluminum foil and the enamel pan, the steak didn't get that nice searing effect on the outside, but I had a nice hot meal all the same.
By the time I finished my dinner and got everything washed up, it was pretty dark. I'd wanted to take some pictures of the stars, but it was too cloudy, so I just went to bed instead.
Between my jacket, two blankets, and my sleeping bag, I stayed warm through the night, and ended up sleeping until about 9:00 the next morning. I broke camp and decided it was time to make my way home, this time heading east towards Hattah. It was still a good couple of hours to the park entrance, which was still a good 30 minutes from the Calder Highway.
I passed a middle-aged couple with a camper along the way, as well as a couple guys in a pickup truck with their dog tied up in the tray (which I reported to the park rangers as soon as I got into cell phone range... it is not cool to bring dogs into the park, and I'm pretty sure they drove over the fence to get in, rather than using the gate). Stopping briefly to pump my tires back up, I turned back onto the Calder Highway and headed back to Melbourne. It was around 7:30 when I got home, and luckily there was a parallel parking spot open right in front of the entrance to my apartment building, which made unloading tremendously easier.
I really enjoyed this trip, and I'll definitely head back up there again some time. I think next time I'll want to bring more people with another vehicle. That would open the park up for further exploration. Since I kept the car in 4WD the whole time I was in the park, I ended up using it in a lot of places where it wasn't really needed. I don't see this as a bad thing - not doing so would have meant a lot more stopping to lock and unlock the hubs, and when you start talking sand dunes, you really don't want to be stopping at all.
This trip confirmed to me that I've been putting money in the right places when it comes to my car. The fridge-freezer worked out really well, and when I get a proper set of drawers in it'll be much easier to stow all my gear. Most invaluable was the upgrade I did a while back on my car stereo. I replaced the factory head unit with one I got from eBay, which runs Android 4.0. I installed an app called Memory Map and bought a set of high-resolution topographic maps of Victoria. It had all of the tracks and campgrounds in the park on it, and the real-time GPS positioning meant I knew exactly where I was at all times (by comparison, Google Maps really sucks when it comes to the tracks in this park... they don't have a lot of the tracks, and if you look at the satellite view, it's obvious that some of the tracks they do have are laid out just plain wrong). I think next time I'll grab the Hema off-road maps (and a canister of butane for the stove).
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