No matter how much padding you think you need to bring, if you are not used to sleeping on the ground… you need to bring more! Especially when it is 30º overnight.
So… After a long, hot, sticky night we headed off early to ‘Red Top Lookout’ for a dawn shoot.
On the way back to camp we found a road that led us to the base of some sand dunes.
We headed back to camp to wait out the hottest part of the day (we couldn’t drive around in air con all day as it was at least 100km to petrol and wanted some extra for exploring)
The ‘hottest part of the day’ seemed to last for ever! We moved the tent a few times to get the best shade and optimum breeze through the tent but despite our best efforts it was still 42º in the tent… a blissful 5º cooler than it was in the sun… Which also meant our drinking water was 42º! But we kept up our fluids and monitored our health and each other’s morale as we sweated through the day.
Late afternoon we were off and finally in some air con again (ahhhhh), even if it was just for 20min till we were out of the car again scouting for our dusk shoot location. We went to ‘Mungo Lookout’ and saw the full scale of the dried up lake. As we were driving back towards the wall Sarah suddenly broke into a panic “There’s people on the WALL! THEY ARE ON THE WALL!!! We need to be on the wall!” After a quick debate Sarah was on a mission and before Ruth knew it she was halfway to the wall and picking up speed.
This is where we met the saviour of the trip, Graham who was running a tour throughout the park- amazingly he let us join for the last bit which is where we had been wanting to go the whole time but were restricted from entering unless on a tour (much of the the wall if stepped on would simply crumble away)
For 20 minutes as the sunset, we shot like there was no tomorrow.
When the light was gone and the group was led off the wall we had a chance to meet Graham properly.
Before parting Graham gave us each a bottle of ice cold water! It was like heaven, no joke we have literally never enjoyed a bottle of water more!
Back at camp we had dinner with the flies, all 500000 of them and decided to call it a night for the early start we had the next day.
Then we spotted a scorpion on the ground! After a scan of the ground we found at least 3 more… time to shake the beds and triple check the tent!
With no scorpions in the tent (that we could find) we got ready to sweat through another night.
Check out Grahams Tours here http://harrynanyatours.com.au/
