All posts were done by John McLaine (based in Tasmania) on behalf of Louis-Philippe who sent Garmin Inreach texts to him. Many Thanks John.
D0 - 30/07/2024: LPL: Ian is driving me to Old Andado Station. It was superhard to start the pump to get water from the bore. We filled in the jerricnas there to avoid carrying all that water from Alice Springs. I ate, got my cart and equipment ready. Spoke with a couple of Tasmanians who were camping. Started to fly my drone and even chased a dingo with it. I will start in morning to have a full expedition day.
D01 - 31/07/2024 - Start 8.30 fast on flat. 90liter water. 22kg food total haul. Hard with 170kg. Dingo stalking me since 4pm. Temperature ok, shoulder strap harness torn, will repair tomorrow with zip ties, mood happy.
D02 - 01/08/2024 - Repaired harness. Low dunes all close together. Flies on my face all day. Net is too warm. At night saw two eyes glowing, it was a wild cat.
D03 - 02/08/2024 - Terrain is like a giant potato field. Soft sand too. I go up dune with backpack while scouting passage for cart. Still short days to train body and avoid injury.
D04 - 03/08/2024 - Terrain has so much vegetation. Cloudy day and night. No stars so too hard to navigate. Any error is lost time, energy and water. To bed. First eat and science.
D05 - 04/08/2024 - Haul cart to dunes without 30kg backpack. Then walk following cart track in sand back to backpack. Go back to cart. Cows. Cloudy. Drizzle. Stopped at 5pm because of rain. Ggrrr
D06 - 05/08/2024 - Left after mist. Now will camp here, but first solve big mistake. Find my camera that fell from cart. I forgot to attach it.
D07 - 06/08/2024 - Already one week. I observe insects mating. Cart load better. Around 77 litres of water left. Finally took photo of a lizard. Left knee small pain, so sleep. New moon here. Good.
D08 - 07/08/2024 - Many doubts today. Thinking too much, hauling too little. Went for a random walk to take photos. First big dune I had to go back down because it was too steep.
D09 - 08/08/2024 - John: At around 4pm I messaged Louphi to ask for his state of mind today, and to let him know that he has received a lot of support comments on his Facebook page. His encouraging response was as follows: “Cart rolls better as valleys are becoming wider and this means hard dry crust of sand. Still too heavy to not break crust but in a few days it will roll. Higher dunes. Mood ok. Thanks.”
LPL: Thanks for the support. John told me. I haven’t called with iridium. No need. Thirsty hungry now. At 6pm I trek shirtless till camp. Travel with stars hard. Too many.
D10 - 09/08/2024 - Routine starts but must progress more hours. No breeze this morning, so hot. It came at 2pm. Even enjoyed some dune crossings. Headlight low: recharge. 64 litres of water.
D11 - 10/08/2024 - I finally started earlier and shorter breaks. Good breeze all day helped. Pain left tendon knee stable. Slight twisted ankle as cart makes me stumble on bumpy spinifex.
D12 - 11/08/2024 - Third of a moon. I see my shadow but not clear enough to walk. Saw a sand tornado 2m wide by 7m high. Fly entered eye at 4pm. Discomfort. Took it out. Made flaps for sunnies.
D13 - 12/08/2024 - Did some filming. Forgot tripod and went to get it. Then in the afternoon less breeze. Drank 1 litre in 2 hours. Evaluated risk. Poeppel possible, but not Birdsville. Quit. Walk to Alice now. Safer.
John: LouPhi called to add additional explanation; daily progress eastbound remains insufficient to achieve the original goal. He has spoken with his Alice Springs logistics advisor Ian, and his parents at home in Belgium about his decision. The new bearing NNW is near parallel to the dunes and should therefore allow greater progress for a controlled self-extraction. A rough 4WD track in that direction might give some relief from fighting the vegetation with the cart. The revised intermediate goal of Low Dunes West is still a long distance away.
D14 - 13/08/2024 - Self exit in process. After 1 hour I found dirt track and decided to follow, as going north. Track has hard or soft ground. On phone app mapy.cz found ireach (track? JMc) Madigan 50km
D15 - 14/08/2024 - I think I’ve got it now. Low dunes west close to each other = more soft sand. Heavy cart super slow. Track mostly sandy today. No fun. Boring. Probably Madigan Line west.
D16 - 15/08/2024 - Sun so strong, sky is pale blue. Ground radiant. Between 1 and 4pm I rest under cart. Madigan track can only be driven west to east. No pick up before 1 week. New plan: off track to Madigan Camp 1 - 29km.
D17 - 16/08/2024 - Good wind all day helped decrease heat and flies. But climbing dunes west is harder on muscle and tendon. Pain knee and ankle stable. 8-9 days supplies.
D18 - 17/08/2024 - Almost no wind today. Valleys are getting scrubby. Lots of plants, trees and beautiful carpets of flowers. Zigzag and ankle hurts more. Hope body will hold.
D19 - 18/08/2024 - Arrived on flat dirt road at Madigan camp 1A. Cart finally manageble but carefully. I must not tear ligament of ankle. Knee tendon pain stable. Six days of water left.
D20 - 19/08/2024 - Walking in a pulsed air oven. Fortunately Madigan Line is good surface. Did explore caves in hill. Fell asleep under cart to be awakened by 4wd. Gave me treats.
D21 - 20/08/2024 - Boring road. Visited Mac Clarke Reserve. Few cars passed. Now with cattle station people who invited me. Fire, first beer since March. Learning how they work.
Following days:
21/08/2024 - I spend the morning with the cattle station people filming their job. Their work was further towards Santa Teresa. Then early afternoon we loaded my cart on a truck that had a plateau. The guy worked for Allambi Station. I retrieved my spare/safety 7th jerrican at the border of the Aboriginal land. Then we drove towards Santa Teresa to a place where he dropped some cattle (24°14'42.5"S 134°21'27.3") and he dropped me finally close to the first turn off that brings to Santa Teresa. I walked in Santa Teresa. The locals (mostly aboriginal people, well it's the largest community owith around 1000 people) were curious of me and curious of big army planes that had just been passing above our heads. It was the conversation starter. I visited the church (no allowed to take photos inside), made a few calls (I had 4G in town) and people told me where I could pitch my tent for the night hopefully away from a gang of wild dog that were very brutal. A few wild horses stayed where I was and I was more scared of them.
22/08/2024 - I woke up, walked around Santa Terase, visited a cultural art center, spend some money in the supermarket (a dog stole some of my food) and asked around if anybody was going to Alice Springs today. Around midday, I decided to walk to the main road and wait for a potential lift. A old couple from Melbourne picked me up. They had no place in their car for me and the cart but they had a trailer campervan, so we could dismantle the cart and put it there. Actually I saw their campervan the previous day it had a flat tyre and needed repairs. They drove to Alice Springs to get spares and drove back in the morning to repair it. So I got lucky because of their flat tyre. A few hours later they dropped me on a parking near the Todd River in Alice Springs. I mounted my cart, put my stuff on it and walked the 300m to the YHA backpackers. A long recovery started there to rest my tendinitis and sprained ankle.
I know that I will never go back on a solo expedition in the Simpson Desert. I'm not even sure it is still humanly possible to cross it. It was too warm, there were too many plants/vegetation. Perhaps in 2008 I was lucky that it was a "colder" year. I'll have to find out one day after searching for mean temperatures of all years.
