Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

10-11/7 To Lambert's Center and back from Mt Dare

We are still camped in Mt Dare and plan to stay there until our friends, Annika and Tim arrive. They were due on the 12th of July and then we would start our Simpson Desert crossing on the 13th. So Sibba and I have arrived early to Mt Dare and today (10th of July) we are heading out to visit the Lambert's center. This is simply a point, which marks the geographical center for the Australian continent. We have been to the various state corners, so why not the center of Australia.

In the morning we noticed that there was a large queue to the Diesel pump at Mt. Dare. The queue snaked into the camp ground and looped all around it. When we left I counted 21 cars in the queue and more waiting in the campsite, yet to queue up. It became clear that the Diesel truck did not arrive the day before. Now the sign on the Diesel fuel pump said "No Diesel Fuel available, due today AM". When checking the delivery truck hadn't arrived yet but the drivers were told it was definitely on the way and getting closer.

We headed out mid morning from Mt. Dare and drove to Finke first, which is on the way. Shortly after leaving Mt. Dare we met the fuel truck on the way to Mt. Dare. Thus a lot of people would have been relieved!
Finke is a small aboriginal community with a grocery store and fuel. We thought we would go there and fill up, just in case the truck to Mt. Dare never arrived! After getting the tanks filled we went into the grocery shop and were pleasantly surprised how many items and variety they had. Quite the mini super market with lots of stuff. I even bought a Toshiba 1TB portable USB3 hard drive for a reasonable price! Just as a backup for my photos and videos.

From Finke we continued to the Lambert's center. The turn off is about 21km out of Finke. The drive to the Lambert's center is a track, which is quite sandy and very corrugated. In fact there are two tracks which parallel and diverge in places. We used the left one on the way in and the other one on the way back. The distance from the main road is about 14km, but it's slow going due to the bad condition of the road. At the Lambert's center there is camping and a toilet, although not in the best condition. We let Kylie out and took some photos. I walked around and noticed a lizard on one of the dead logs. It played completely dead, so I picked it up and showed Sibba. I then put it back and in a flash it was gone!

We then headed back to Mt. Dare, just stopping on the way at the Charlotte Waters ruins. Charlotte Waters was one of the twelve telegraph repeater station between Adelaide and Darwin, opening in 1872 and closing in 1930. There is practically nothing left of any buildings anymore.

As we drove back into Mt. Dare and to the campsite, we noted that there were still three cars waiting to fuel, but the campsite was empty and practically everyone was gone! Talking to the staff, they noted that it wasn't until half past one in the afternoon when the last car got fuel from the morning queue! A very busy morning indeed.

We decided to have our dinner at the Mt. Dare hotel in the evening and have the following day as a rest day and not go anywhere. I was interested in checking my starter motor, starter relay and ignition switch as it had on occasions, simply clicked without starting the engine. This was highly intermittent and when it failed I rarely could measure or check anything before it worked again!. The dinner was quite good at the hotel so we had an early evening.

11/7 - After a lazy morning I proceeded to check the connectivity to the starter motor, item by item. I crawled under the car and removed the main connection to the starter motor from the battery. It all seemed to be fine apart from some engine oil on the end of the cable at the starter motor. I cleaned it up and re-attached. I also tested the starter relay and it seemed to be fine. I even buzzed out the circuit to the ignition switch and it was fine as well. Sibba went to do some washing. As I was tinkering with my starter motor problem, Annika and Tim suddenly rocked up! They had come a day early and had suspected we would be a day early to!. They then set up camp next to us and we decided to leave for our Simpson crossing the following day i.e. the 12th of July.
It would appear that my tinkering with the starter motor and circuitry resolved the intermittent starter issue as it hasn't missed a beat since!