Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

17/7 To the QAA Line campsite

After another great night we packed up and continued towards the French line on the Knolls track. This time with clear skies and sunshine! We kept an eye on the maps and surely enough we joined the track again as depicted on the map. Just a small deviation!
As you approach the French line you come across these two small hills called the Approdinna Attora Knolls. They are remnants of dunes that were formed by flour gypsum that blew off the lakes. There is a car park under the knolls and signage about them and the Aboriginal dreaming stories related to them. Also along this path are a lot of smaller limestone mounds peaking out of the ground. They make for a bumpy ride as they can't be avoided most of the time! I stopped in one place to take a closer look and noticed some of the crystals on them. Pretty fascinating stuff to see.

We then came upon the French line and Knolls track junction and stopped a bit. There is a tree there with a sign about surveyor David Lindsay who passed through here in January 1886. I'm pretty sure it was a lot hotter then!

Back on the French line the sand dunes keep getting bigger! As mentioned before everyone uses their UHF channel 10 to announce their location and direction so oncoming vehicles know you are at the other side of the dune! You don't want to collide on the middle of a sand dune. This worked very well most of the time.

We only had one instance of someone coming over a dune that we were not aware of. Luckily he came over just before I ran up so I could stop in time. At least a couple of times we were aware of oncoming cars, so we did stop and Sibba and Annika walked up the sand dune to check if all was clear. The second time they saw the oncoming cars stopped on the other side of the sand dune waiting on us to pass. We didn't have any issues with other fellow travelers. All were pretty curteous and happy to give way when applicable.

We crossed a few more salt lakes until we got to Poeppels corner. This is the state boundary between South Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. We stopped there to take some photos and take Kylie to the border. We also saw the replica of the old post that was originally set up there. When surveyor Poeppel set this point up back in 1880 it was placed in the middle of the salt lake just nearby. It turned out that it was to far west by 274 meters! The post was moved to it's present position in 1883. It then got lost and wasn't found until in 1936. Then in 1962 it was taken to Adelaide to a museum and replaced with a replica post.

Shortly after Poeppels corner the French line ends! Turning south takes you via the K1 line to the Warburton track that then joins the Birdsville track, turning north along the K1 line takes to the the junction with the QAA line that then goes to Birdsville. We headed north along the K1 line. The track runs on the edge of a salt lake for the 19 km until you cross it to join the QAA line.

Once on the QAA line we continued to cross the sand dunes. A few km's along the line we met a couple of police cars. We couldn't figure out what they were doing?? At least they travelled in 4WD's and in two cars. After about 20 km drive we found a reasonable campsite and settled down for the night.