I've just entered Little Desert National Park.
It's 375 kilometres North West of Melbourne.
It's not a full on desert it's just a fairly sandy area but its got a lot of low lying
scrub.
So I'll spend a couple days here exploring what there is to see.
There's a couple of free campsites I'm going to try checking out.
So I've dropped my tyres down and I'll see how I go with these tracks.
They're a little flogged out but I'll give it a go.
The first section of this park 217 hectares was set aside in 1955 for protection.
Over the decades additional land was added to form the parks present size of 132000 hectares.
I arrive at the first feature on the parks map.
This is a salt lake in the middle of Little Desert.
I've tasted the water and it's pretty salty.
It's a little oasis in the middle of nothingness.
I reach Kiata campgrounds, which provide basic picnic facilities, toilets and fireplaces.
In the morning I begin heading West.
I've just pulled off the track to Dahlenburgs Mill.
It's an old windmill site.
Looks like it used to be where cattle were watered back in the days when this was probably
a cattle property.
Not much left of the windmill now.
You can see the old water trough and the old windmill.
Now it's just used as a water point for the park rangers to get water for their firefighting
operations.
There's not much else around out here it's not too remote but it's certainly a nice spot
to get away and listen to the birds.
I've just come out of the Dahlenburgs Mill track on to the junction of the Bee Keepers
track.
You've got all this beautiful desert country out here with all native vegetation you wouldn't
think there'd be much opportunity to grow much but then come out here and just on the
other edge at the corner there's green pastures and cattle feeding.
So we're pretty lucky here in this country to have places like this that have been protected.
Cause otherwise everything you've just seen would have been flattened just for our cattle
production.
There's really not much biodiversity there.
Not much native wildlife just an almost desert of its own.
A green grass desert.
So I'll keep heading down this track and try and get back through to the next campsite.
I must drive a few kilometres North on Harrow Nhill road before re-entering the park.
Well I've just turned on to the McDonald highway which runs right through the centre of Little
Desert national park.
This road will take me down to my next campsite.
Let's see what kind of highway it is.
I've just turned off the McDonald and heading up towards Red Gum swamp picnic area.
Though it might be time to have lunch.
All this area here is a vast change from the previous landscape.
It has all had a fire go through so it's fairly barren and desolate and there's not much wildlife
around.
So I've just pulled in to Red Gum swamp.
I thought it was a bit of a picnic area but apparently not it's just this spot here.
If you blink you'll miss it.
I drove past it thinking that can't be it but it's got literally a parking spot and
a single barbeque spot.
So I'm going to have some lunch.
Returning on to the McDonald Highway I come to some water logged sections.
I had checked the Parks Victoria website for any track closures before starting my trip.
As there was none listed I am hopeful that this area ahead of me isn't going to present
too many issues.
I always like to get out of the car and check areas like this first for bogginess before
risking driving the car in.
It's much easier not to get stuck in the first place than spend hours on my own trying to
self-recover.
I exit the last of the waterlogged tracks and its back to easy cruising.
I've just pulled up to Broughtons waterhole for my second night campsite.
There's not too much here but hopefully first thing in the morning I might see some wildlife
come down for a drink.
Let's take a quick look on the map where I've been today.
So I started off on my first day coming in through Quades road and drove up and spent
the night at Kiata campgrounds.
Then today I've driven down worked my way all the way through started heading along
the McDonald highway decided to head up and have lunch at Red Gum swamp.
I've checked out up through Phillips Track back down on to the McDonald highway and it's
a straight track straight through to the Broughtons waterhole.
Track wise it's all pretty easy.
It's probably a great spot to come if you're a beginner four wheel driver and you want
to get a bit more experience on sand driving.
There are a few waterholes along here you could probably drive through on the main track.
I tended to avoid most of them.
I didn't know how deep they were and as there's no trees around it's kind of difficult to
winch myself out.
I'd have to use my Maxtrax and a shovel.
That's pretty much my 2 days.
I'll head out back to the main road and head up to Nhill tomorrow before heading North.