datenkave
X-TRAIL NEWBIE
Date Registered: 08-2010
Location: whitfield
TOTAL POSTS: 10
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Cairns to Birdsville races and back - eventually
Greetings everyone from Cairns!
We drove to the Birdsville races this year, what an experience: set off tuesday through ravenshoe and mt garnet to lynd junction then on to hughenden - the Kennedy Dev. Road, some works on that stretch left us with a nice mud pack:
also there was some soft sand along the way, more roadworks with some ambiguous detour signage which had us emergency stopping and reversing out of the way of a couple of graders. camped in hughenden then an early start and a bit of a dash thru winton towards boulia (all sealed) stopped to feed our faces at Cawnpore Lookout - awesome scenery:
Encountered a pretty heavy downpour at Boulia and there was plenty of standing water round the town - sign of things to come?? We had planned on staying the night in bedourie but we'd made excellent time and the roads both sealed and unsealed were in really good nick, and pretty dry just south of Boulia. So we got to Birdsville wed night.
We dont have any shots of the xtrail outside the birdsville pub (Shame!) the street was cordoned off. also, good to see a few other xtrails there too! Needless to say we had a few beers in the pub over the coming few days. Thursday we drove to SA, about 15ks to the border just to say we'd been to SA and parked up on a little sand dune:
Friday consisted of races and rain and mud. Saturday morning was a scene of devastation: tents all around were blown down/full of water/destroyed and the mud! who suggested camping in a river bed??? No hassles getting out though a friend had to dig a little mud out before he could get his 4x4 moving. We relocated to the rodeo grounds with the blessing of the local constabulary:
and we were blessed from saturday onwards with clear weather:
sunday was a recovery day at the pub and round the shows - everyone finding out we were stuck in birdsville, all roads out closed.
Monday we took the opportunity to drive up 'Big Red' oz's biggest sand dune (40m high i think) plenty of water on the road getting there and a decent detour on sand round the lake that had cut the road at the base of big red:
we escaped on tuesday, our biggest hurdle was the water at Cacoory, it had dropped from 120cm to 60cm when we crossed, all good except we lost the trailer cable connector in a deep gutter:
through bedourie to boulia and a bit more mud:
wednesday we drove to mt isa then on to normanton via the quamby pub!!!:
thurs we went to Karumba then back through normanton, croydon on to georgetown and friday a short dash home to cairns 11 days and about 3,700ks later:
same again next year...
--- Dave and Kate: X-1670 (c)
2003 Ti auto Diamond White
Towbar, roobar, roofrack, geolandar a/ts
Cairns FNQ
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14/Sep/2010, 10:05 pm
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jalalski
Date Registered: 02-2004
Location: SUTHERLAND, SYDNEY
TOTAL POSTS: 29100
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Re: Cairns to Birdsville races and back - eventually
Awesome report and pics Dave & Kate. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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15/Sep/2010, 8:55 am
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BarneyB
X-TRAIL ENTHUSIAST
Date Registered: 11-2008
Location: Blakeview, Adelaide SA
TOTAL POSTS: 183
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Re:
Would have liked to see some photos of the race action, flew to Birdsville twice around 15 - 20 years ago for the races and had such a good time cannot even remember seeing a horse. Looks like you had a good trip and all went well, hope you have many more.
--- Regards,
Barney X1047 (c)
2008 ST31, CVT, Flint, Towbar, Cargo mat, Headlight protectors, Dashmat, LED kick steps. Bonnet protector
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12/Oct/2010, 9:52 pm
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