Movie Stage III

Chinese wheelbarrow - this is how gold prospectors travelled in Australia in the 19th century (photo: Low-tech magazine). A big, heavy wooden wheel, a lot of equipment, poor condition trails - such a journey was a challenge.
I also wanted to feel such an atmosphere. So I bought an used, most reliable wheelbarrow and started to wonder what to improve here. First I installed my wheel from a desert cart (26x4 inches), then I thought about putting the load above the wheel axle, not behind it. Adam from Perth came to the rescue and we worked together. In the end, Adam cut, welded, screwed, bent, sawed it - this is how a prototype was created. Unfortunately, there was too much luggage including the water, so Dave from Doorawarrah installed an additional "rack" in front of the wheel - now the weight was distributed perfectly. My wheelbarrow was like a Ferrari next to old Holden.

  Unfortunately, the Gascoyne River, which shouldn't be flowing, chanched my plans to cross the Kennedy Range, but it allowed me to start in easier scenery. The first kilometers, however, were not what I had imagined. Too heavy load on my arms, despite the additional belt slung over my shoulders, I cannot scratch myself or chase away flies, and in addition to struggling with balance, I was thrown to the left or right once and for all, and it took a lot of physical effort to correct the balance.

  On the second day, I reorganized the load - everything heavy put as low as possible, in the middle, or in the front to relieve my hands. After two days, I found my sweet spot with distributing the weight, and the wheelbarrow grip at an angle of 45 degrees also became an additional solution.

However on the third day I got crazy and I decided for an off-road adventure. I went to the station and asked the host for the shortest route to their neighbour. Unfortunately, it turned out that due to recent rains I will not be able to cross another river. In the end, sitting over the topographic maps, we decided on the optimal option for me.

This was it! Hard, lonely, hot, insecure, so natural. A challenge for navigation, because maps are old and out of date, and such pseudo-tracks were not even on the built-in Topo maps in GPS or in the maps.me application. But thanks to the fences, intuition and description, somehow I didn't get lost. However, the most beautiful thing about it was to be in such wilderness, as there were often no proper paths. My off-road wheelbarrow did a great job on rocks, sand, grass, dry floodways. It is true that I had to deflate a lot of preassure from the wheel and sometimes take a heavy backpack on myself to be able to push it through sandy sections at all, to take more momentum at the steep exit from the creek drybed, and once I had to detour a 10-meter wide paddle for an hour.

I think that on these three unforgettable days off the official tracks I crossed about 150 streams (usually dry), working a day for about 7-8 hours of active pushing, starting before sunrise (once with the accompaniment of a howling dingo) and ending after sunset without going below 40km a day. I was able to walk across the off-road across the Lyons River, Eddamullah and Mt Phillips stations. In addition, on all these farms (later also in Cobra) I was well received, hosted or advised, sometimes fed, I got a supply of water and I was ready to hit the road again.

I walked later on the gravel road again, in order to make it in the 38C heat to the sunset viewpoint at Mt Augustus, and then take a day off at a nearby campground, after all Easter was coming.

 

Anyway, Good Friday was also great for me. I relished the sight of the setting sun illuminating Mt Augustus, more than twice the size of the more famous Uluru. It is often stated that Mt Augustus is the largest rock in the world, but whether it is completely monolith - opinions are divided on this. In addition, I camped in this anazing place at Emu lookout. Needless to say, I woke up with the camera in my hand for a unique sunrise and I was charging my mental energy from the moment. I was at the top of Mt Augustus two years ago, so this time I was admiring the rock from a slightly lower perspective :)

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