Rachel Grindlay

Day 1: Sydney to Mudgee (Driving: 276km / 3h 45m)

We left home at 6:45pm in the end. Roads were not on our side. Crashes on the M7 & Richmond Road meant we took the main line. But then Victoria Pass was closed from 8pm, and with us arriving at 8:30pm… detour via Darling Causeway. Coffees at McDonalds in Lithgow fuelled us to Mudgee at 10:30ish. Paragon Hotel (pub) was a perfectly acceptable overnight stop. Though for no particular reason I didn’t sleep much.

Day 2: Mudgee to Dry Tank Campground, Gundabooka NP (Driving: 580km / 6h 30m)

Left Mudgee at 6am. Breakfast in Dubbo. Finding an open public toilet – fail. Pushed on to Nyngan, home of the Big Bogan, for coffee. Had a Sydney-acceptable quality coffee at Gundog Espresso. Then photos with the Big Bogan – Tom appropriately dressed in his flannelette Bulldogs pants.

The volume of goats on the side of the road was surprising. Assuming that they aren’t all just hanging out on the roadside, there must be thousands of them roaming Western NSW.

Lunch in Bourke on the bank of the Darling River. With good timing, the paddlesteamer PV Jandra had just re-started operating that day, and with a 2:30pm trip it worked well. The hour trip was enjoyable (paddleboats are slow) and there were a lot of birds out.

Immediately we hit the road, with another hour and a bit (Google was a bit off in estimating the dirt road section) to Dry Tank Campground, Gundabooka NP. Fortunately there were less goats on the side of the dirt road. We appeared to be 1 of 2 parties at the campground. The other party – Mike – came back from the Little Mountain walk after dark and came over to say hi.

Day 3: Gundabooka NP (Driving: 0km / none)

I slept 11 hours! We’d agreed to go cross-country from the end of the Little Mountain track to Mt Gunderbooka (note different spelling) rather than having to drive half an hour to the Valley of the Eagles trailhead. After all this was supposed to be good rogaining country.

The going was pretty good, though there were some slow sections on the long spur we took to Mt Gunderbooka.

The moment of truth at the Mt Gunderbooka summit – would there be a navlight at the top? (as expected per a couple of sources), and would the keys we had unlock it? Success on both fronts. We bumped into Mike again and ate lunch together.

We headed down the standard Valley of the Eagles track and then went cross-country again. This section was more tedious and while we visited a couple of control sites we were both well and truly ready for it to be over by the time we got back to camp at 4pm. The GPS said 22km so no wonder we were a bit tired!

Day 4: Dry Tank Campground, Gundabooka NP to Homestead Creek Campground, Mutawintji NP (Driving: 665km / 7h)

Another long day of driving. We got up at 6:15 and were on the road by 6:45am. Made it to Cobar by 8:20am where we had breakfast at the Newy Reservoir. Lots of birds about. Then 255km (2h20) of driving (me) to Wilcannia. We got petrol (again) and replenished the missing brie supplies (left in the fridge at home) before heading on for another hour (Tom) to White Cliffs.

We had lunch then checked out the Visitor’s Centre and an opal store. Service too slow to stop for coffee, when we didn’t know if Google’s estimate of 2 hours was accurate or not. As it turned out – not too bad about 2h 10. Got to Homestead Creek Campground at 4pm.

Day 5: Mutawintji NP (Driving: 0km / 0)

Rained overnight a little bit, and was gloomy when we got up. Another camper came to tell us there was rain in the forecast in case that affected our plans. But we were comfortable since the amount forecast was 0-2mm. We headed off to do 4 walks in 1 – very confusingly written up on the National Parks website. Started with the big loop (Bynguano Range – or is it Byngnano?) in the opposite direction to the way we were meant to go. Heavier rain had us sheltering in an overhang for a few minutes. Got excited as the old sign board had something about ropes we needed to climb. But we passed where we thought they were meant to be with nothing resembling a scramble.

Later on we did have a small scramble where there were hefty ropes in place (largely unnecessary).

Had morning tea on the tops admiring the country – which was surprisingly interesting – a bit Utah-esque. The Bynguano Range track was actually very enjoyable – not what we had anticipated. We’d started with it thinking we’d get the ‘boring’ bit over first.

Then we descended and headed up Homestead Gorge, needing to do a high bypass to get around a waterhole since the rock was all slick from the rain.

Then we did the rockholes/rockart loop (one name on the signboard, another on the website!?) where we had a high, early lunch. Back at camp by 1:30ish.

Back at camp I managed to use some dental floss to reattach a plastic cover on the undercarriage of the car which was half way to falling off. We headed off on the Western Ridge loop at 3pm. Given it had been spitting and was still overcast we weren’t expecting much from sunset. It was a pretty boring walk, and sadly there was a hole in the fence so the goats were all through the area. Maybe better light would have improved it!?

Day 6: Homestead Creek Campground, Mutawintji NP to Broken Hill (Driving: 181km / 2h)

After breakfast and packing up, we drove round to the Mutawintji Gorge trailhead. A very flat easy walk in. The gorge itself was an impressive canyon – but full of manky water. We climbed around as much as we could but no temptation whatsoever to get in that water – plenty of dead goats and animal poo in it.

Had morning tea back at the car and then headed to Broken Hill. Unfortunately it became clear as we drove the dirt road that there had been a lot more rain on the road than we’d had at the National Park. Some sections were very slushy and we went for a couple of uncontrolled slides in the mud. After a few of those I relinquished driving to Tom.

Inexplicably they were doing road works and watering/grading the road which didn’t help things. I was very happy when we finally got to the tarmac. We had a windy lunch in the park in the middle of Broken Hill and decided to go for comfort and got a motel room for the night. After resupplying we had a rushed visit to the Desert Park – cultural loop, flora loop, then a mad dash up the hill to see the sculptures at sunset.

I tried to book Grindells Hut for when we were planning to be in the Gammon Ranges only to find it (and every other campground I looked at on the South Australia National Parks website) booked out for the King’s Birthday long weekend. That put a massive hole in our plans, and I was so cranky with myself for not booking it earlier. I spent the rest of the evening (and most of the night) trying to come up with alternatives. Added to that Tom had not read the quarantine stuff carefully so we’d bought fruit & veg which would not be allowed across the SA border. It was not a relaxing evening!

Day 7: Broken Hill to Marree Hotel (Driving: 715km / 7h30m)

We had an early start, though given the light probably could have been earlier. Had breakfast wraps (to eat our tomato & avocado that couldn’t cross the border), in the freezing wind, at the Manna Hill rest area. Then stopped just before the border to eat apples and the remainder of our avocado. Ended up handing in 1 tomato, 1 apple, 1 zucchini & a lemon. Restocked in Peterborough, and discovered that all the campgrounds were no longer full (WTH? some kind of mass block on everything the night before!?)… so booked Grindells Hut for 5 nights. So much stress for nothing.

We then drove through to Hawker for coffee and a quiche for lunch. Then the final 3 hour push to Marree (swapping drivers half way). 7.5 hours of driving. Phew. Turned out the Marree Hotel no longer does free camping, unless you’re fully self-contained (i.e. have a toilet), so after much deliberation we ended up getting a cabin for the 2 nights. Had a wander around ‘town’ – nice sunset from the now defunct train platform.

Day 8: Marree to Marree Airstrip (Driving: 3km / 6 minutes)

Since we didn’t have to be at the airstrip till 9:15 we had a leisurely start to the day. It had been a cold night – even inside. 10 of the 12 of us were at the airstrip at 9:15 for our 9:45 departure. One couple was late and they said 1) they’d been told 9:30 and 2) had got lost!? (there’s like 2 streets in Marree).

Anyway, Tom & I scored the back seat of the Cessna Caravan, which was kind of like having the back seat of the bus – extra wide, lots of leg room and effectively two windows each. My theory was we were allocated there because we had the combined lowest weight of the couples on the plane.

The flight up was really good – Marree Man, Lake Eyre South – which was empty so salt pan, Lake Eyre North – full. Then following the Warburton Creek, seeing some pelicans, before eventually arriving in Birdsville for lunch.

We had lunch at the iconic Birdsville Hotel then 1.5hours to wander about town. Wished we’d bought the fly headnets!

The flight back was quite hot and hard to top the morning. We went past the Coongie Lakes and then followed Cooper Creek to where the flood waters had got to. Seemed hard to imagine they would keep flowing enough to get to Lake Eyre but the pilot was confident it would. Landed in Marree at 5pm – so a full day. Glad we weren’t trying to go anywhere after that.

The plan was to go to Grindells Hut the next day but Tom had done something to his big toe earlier in the trip and wasn’t sure about our multi-day walking plans. So then we had to go through the whole deliberation of what to do all over again. Decided to go to Arkaroola instead for a couple of days to test the toe out with some day walks.

Day 9: Marree to Arkaroola (Driving: 254km / 3h30m)

Didn’t have a particularly early start. It had rained overnight (0.4mm), and continued to drizzle as we drove back to Leigh Creek. We saw 6 wedge-tailed eagles sitting on posts/trees on the side of the road. Not good flying conditions

By the time we got to Leigh Creek there’d been enough rain I didn’t want to drive on the dirt (scarred from Broken Hill). Went to the Sassy Emu Cafe – what a delight – for excellent coffee, scones and to discuss options (yet again). There were no good ones, with it being the start of the long weekend, and poor weather everywhere. So, for lack of a better option, eventually decided to give the dirt a go.

The dirt turned out to be fine and we got to the Gammon Ranges Parks office about 1:30pm but no ranger to be found. So pushed on to Arkaroola for a late lunch once we’d chosen a ‘bush’ camp site. In actuality just a site on the side of the drive in road – but at least not in the sparse caravan park.  Walked up the Spriggina Track to the telescopes then back down. The fly nets got a work out – fortunately by the evening the flies had gone to bed. We went to the rock wallaby feeding, which Arkaroola does each evening, got a good view of lots of yellow-footed rock wallabies.

Day 10: Arkaroola (Driving: 22km / 45m)

In the morning we got a transfer down the road to do the Acacia Ridge through walk. Saw lots of wedge-tailed eagles. Views from the top were great. Met another walker there who had popped a tyre trying to get into Grindells Hut so were at Arkaroola getting their tyre fixed. We then headed down the other side and back to the visitor centre.

As we were walking back to our campsite this van stopped as it was going past us, and the driver hopped out and started marching towards us. I was wondering who the crazy person was. It took me a while to recognise John H (my coach from WUGC 2016) – who had fortunately recognised me! He & his partner Hannah had just finished several days in the Gammon Ranges doing largely what we had planned, so we could get beta on the water situation. It sounded amazing and made me even keener to do it. We chatted for a bit and sorted him out with $2 coins so they could do laundry. In exchange we got half melted Golden Gaytimes from John’s van freezer – best Gaytimes ever 🙂

After lunch we drove 10km to do the Bararranna Gorge Walk.

The walk was ok, but Tom’s toe was feeling it by the end of it. It seemed if he couldn’t get through day walks then multi-day walking, lugging large amounts of water, was not really an option. I was bitterly disappointed after so much planning, travel and effort, and knowing there was water in the rock holes, to not be heading into the Gammon Ranges.

Day 11: Arkaroola to Chambers Gorge (Driving: 109km / 1h40m)

There was more rain overnight (!). We did the Griselda Hill walk before heading off, which was probably my favourite of the trip. We saw lots of rock wallabies at the top and it was quite scrambly to get to the summit ridge.

Left Arkaroola at 11:30am and headed to Chambers Gorge which is meant to be a 4WD road but Tom thought we’d be able to get in. More rain on the drive. Got there, after many corrugations, and it was exceedingly windy so we ate lunch in car. Drove to end of road, visited petroglyph site in the side gorge and then walked a fair way down the main gorge.

Everywhere we’d gone we’d seen lots of goats and this was no exception. However, we almost brought one home with us. A kid was bleating mournfully and I jokingly bleated back. This brought the kid to us, and it followed us up the gorge for a few minutes. Fortunately not all the way back to the car!

It was still very windy, so we drove back up the road to the other camping area and sat in the car for a couple of hours reading out of the wind. The wind did eventually die off, so we could have soup/dinner/tea outside without it being horrendous.

Day 12: Chambers Gorge to Angorichina (Driving: 86km / 1h40m)

The wind died off completely overnight, and it was a pleasant (if chilly) morning. After packing up we walked up to the Mount Chambers summit.

Back at the car mid morning, I needed to do some more dental floss repairs to hold up the car undercarriage that was falling off. I wasn’t confident it would last given the vigorous corrugations on the Mount Chambers road.

We got to the Blinman Pools trailhead about 12:40pm and were a bit surprised to read the sign saying it was a 5 hour walk. Given the time of year that would have us getting back after dark – so we ummed and ahhed briefly about whether to wait till the next morning but in the end decided to go for it. Checking the information I’d researched pre-walk, it said 3 hours – we hoped so.

We were surprised to find pools of running water very early on – since the walk is supposed to be about getting to “first pool” and “second pool”. In actuality, there were many, much nicer, pools before we got to the designated “first pool” which was pretty skanky.

Given our time pressure we had put off having lunch until we got to First Pool so we knew whether we were up against the time. It had only taken just over an hour to get there so we figured we were going to get back before dark.

There were many goats everywhere – I think we saw over 100 over the course of the walk.

We couldn’t be bothered driving anywhere else so stayed at the Angorichina Tourist Village – enjoying a shower, and using the gas stove (our camping stove had been struggling to perform in the cold conditions).

Day 13: Angorichina to Wilpena Pound (Driving: 135km / 2h)

There was a heavy dew overnight leaving the tent saturated – not something we’d had to deal with up to this point on the trip!

We had a wedge-tailed eagle fly in front of the car, and then sit on the side of the road next to us. Unfortunately my camera was fogged up so I couldn’t get a photo – but I’d unfogged it by the time we went round a few more corners and found this emu.

Plans from this point had been very vague as we hadn’t known how long we would have available to us. We headed to the bakery/cafe, and most importantly mobile reception, in Blinman to make some plans. After indulging in multiple coffees and various quandong bakery items we eventually hit the road for Wilpena Pound. In perhaps not the most efficient plan, after setting up the tent so it could dry, we drove out to Rawnsley Bluff. Once again we were faced with a sign saying 5 hours, and us starting with less than 5 hours till dark.

It had been quite a pleasant morning but by the time we got up to the Wilpena View for lunch the cloud had rolled in.

The track was marked by yellow/white painting on the rocks. And in some sections all the loose rocks had been gathered into piles – not sure why – just to make the walking easier?

Unsurprisingly we were back at the car before dark, though didn’t make it back to camp much before dark. It was a very cold night, and I’m sure the man camped next to us who offered to share his fire thought we were crazy when we didn’t take him up on his offer.

Day 14: Wilpena Pound to Quorn (Driving: 147km / 2h)

Wilpena Pound was the first place on the trip we’d been to previously – back in 2005! I’d been checking the photos from that trip and found a photo of me with a curious kangaroo (with joey) taken at the same campground – so it seemed apt when a bold kangaroo (with joey) came round in the morning. It was not interested in being scared off – in fact more incredulous that we weren’t going to feed it anything.

When we’d visited Wilpena Pound in 2005 I didn’t feel like going up Mt Ohlssen Bagge when Tom did it. So it would be a first time walk for me – but not for Tom. We passed a group of 13-14 year old school girls on our way up (one of them was struggling big time). Unsurprisingly they hadn’t made it to the top by the time we were on our way down again.

We passed the girls again on our way down. I think they were astounded old people could be so fast, “You did really well” they told us as we went past… Ah, to be young again.

From there we headed to Quorn and to the Devils Peak. It was cold and windy and I wasn’t looking forward to having lunch on top – but fortunately we found a spot in the sun and somewhat out of the wind.

We were delighted to find Scruffy Fella cafe in Quorn which did an excellent coffee, and many beard products (amongst other eclectic items).

It was full moon and Tom was keen to photograph it – but we were in a flat part of the world, and finding a spot with any elevation in Quorn was tricky. As it turned out, it didn’t matter as there was so much cloud on the horizon we didn’t see the moon till it was well up.

We settled in, with around 15 others, for the Quorn Silo light show. Everyone else cleared out after the films but we stuck around and made our dinner and watched the art display, before returning to the caravan park.

Day 15: Quorn to Clare Valley (Driving: 220km / 2h45m)

It was a lovely sunrise and we were just getting settled with hot drinks in the camp kitchen when Tom looked at the weather radar. A band of rain was on its way so we quickly packed up everything just before it arrived. That put paid to our plans to do the walk up Dutchmans Stern that morning.

Instead we just headed for the Clare Valley – driving in the rain for much of the time. It was great news for farmers since 2025 was the driest on record (though they would like much more), following a dry 2024.

It seems every country town has silo art now days but the Eudunda Silos were particularly impressive.

We were happy to exchange the cold and wet for some wine tasting in Clare.

Day 16: Clare Valley (Driving: 63km / 1h)

We had an excellent lunch at Pauletts (Bush DeVine Restaurant) – one of the best meals we’ve had in a long time.

Day 17: Clare Valley (Driving: 58km / 1h15m)

The rain that we’d brought everywhere on our trip arrived on our third day in the Clare. We had thought to hire bikes but with the rain decided against it. Instead we did the short Wymans Hike and a few more wineries (well Tom did, I did had an afternoon in bed with a book!).

Day 18: Clare Valley to Swan Hill (Driving: 607km / 6h45m)

With the weather making camping somewhat unpleasant we decided to fairly directly head for home rather than meander. This meant a long day of driving to get us to Swan Hill just after dark. The main highlight of the day was one of our top 3 coffees of the trip – while sitting in the sun (!!) – at Arrosto Coffee in Renmark.

The bugs in the last half an hour around sunset were full on – windscreen (and the front of the car) was covered in them. I should be glad that’s the only roadkill we hit.

Day 19: Swan Hill to Rutherglen (Driving: 368km / 4h15m)

We had a couple of brief stops in the morning. The first was at the largest Ibis Rookery in the Southern Hemisphere in Kerang – but wrong time of year for breeding. There were still quite a lot of water birds around though. The second stop was to climb Pyramid Hill, in Pyramid Hill. This was a find-your-own route to the top, scrambly, if short, adventure.

We got into Rutherglen in the early afternoon with enough time to find some fortifieds to taste.

We were fortunate to have friends willing to host us for the evening, and it was great to have some different people to talk to!

Day 20: Rutherglen to Sydney (Driving: 636km / 6h30m)

Surprise, surprise, it rained overnight. We headed home pretty directly, with brief stops in Gundagai and Gunning. Sydney was beautiful and sunny – why did we go away!?

Day	Date	Finish	Driving Time	Kilometres	Cumulative
1	Thu 29/05/25	Mudgee	3h 45m	276	276
2	Fri 30/05/25	Gunderbooka NP	6h 30m	580	856
3	Sat 31/05/25	Gunderbooka NP	0	0	856
4	Sun 01/06/25	Mutawintji NP	7h	665	1521
5	Mon 02/06/25	Mutawintji NP	0	0	1521
6	Tue 03/06/25	Broken Hill	2h	181	1702
7	Wed 04/06/25	Marree	7h30m	715	2417
8	Thu 05/06/25	Marree	6 minutes	3	2420
9	Fri 06/06/25	Arkaroola	3h30m	254	2674
10	Sat 07/06/25	Arkaroola	45m	22	2696
11	Sun 08/06/25	Chambers Gorge	1h40m	109	2805
12	Mon 09/06/25	Angorichina	1h40m	86	2891
13	Tue 10/06/25	Wilpena Pound	2h	135	3026
14	Wed 11/06/25	Quorn	2h	147	3173
15	Thu 12/06/25	Clare Valley	2h45m	220	3393
16	Fri 13/06/25	Clare Valley	1h	63	3456
17	Sat 14/06/25	Clare Valley	1h15m	58	3514
18	Sun 15/06/25	Swan Hill	6h45m	607	4121
19	Mon 16/06/25	Rutherglen	4h15m	368	4489
20	Tue 17/06/25	Sydney	6h30m	636	5125

Continued from part 6

And so began our pattern for the next week – getting up well before sunrise so that we could get going in the cooler part of the day, before heading to a motel in the afternoon to cool down. We’d agreed, when we decided to stick with southern Arizona, that the only realistic way to handle the forecast heat was to spend more nights in motels rather than camping.

To give a sense of the heat, below is a graph of actual temperatures versus the long term averages for Tucson for the last 9 days of our trip. We obviously weren’t in Tucson for the entire 9 days but it’s representative of what was happening across much of Arizona and California. 8 of the 9 days were highest temperature records for that day of the year.

Getting from Christopher Creek to Saguaro National Park (Tucson) was one of our longest driving days. We took some scenic back roads, rather than the interstate around Phoenix.   We were excited to start setting saguaros pretty early on. After knocking off a couple of hours driving we had breakfast in Globe (and my second good coffee of the trip!). From there we pushed on to Tucson where we wound our way around the city to the eastern section of Saguaro National Park.

Saguaro National Park (East – Rincon Mountain District) (Arizona)

It was the middle of the day by the time we got there, and hot. We decided we could handle an hour’s walk and did the Mica View – Cactus Forest Trail loop before having lunch in the (shaded) picnic area. Can’t believe we were the only ones out there eating lunch in 40°C!

We drove around the rest of that section of the park, having brief stops, before retreating to the air con at the Visitor Centre. After that I was done. We reversed much of our route around Tucson from earlier to a hotel I’d booked – mainly for the excellent reviews. It was lovely and particularly good value – perhaps because we had to walk up two flights of stairs? (Given the number of people at reception requesting a ground floor room I’m figuring many Americans wouldn’t have been happy with our room allocation) It was a welcome place to retreat from the heat for the rest of the day.

Saguaro National Park (West – Tucson Mountain District) (Arizona)

Another pre-dawn start had us arriving at Gates Pass for sunrise. Tom’s ankle was still a bit sore so he’d agreed to drop me off at a trailhead, after sunrise, so I could climb Wasson Peak. It was a 3-4 hour round trip and I was keen to get going as early as possible. The sunrise photography took longer than expected (as sunrise was better than expected!) so it was a bit later than expected that I started along the King Canyon trail. Even though it was only just after 7am it was already close to 30°C.

At some point I missed a turn in the track and ended up on the top of a knoll with no track other than the one I’d arrived on. The sensible thing would have been to retrace my steps, but those who walk with me regularly would know that would be unlikely to be my choice! Instead I decided I’d be able pick up the trail after walking down the other side. Bad move. I compounded my error by continuing to walk in the direction I thought the track was, before finally consulting the map on my phone. It’s surprisingly hard to work out what direction you’re walking just from a dot on a map.

Eventually I realised the track wasn’t in the direction I expected and headed back towards it. Walking off-track in cactus country is difficult, particularly as I had to cross two gullies. Anything crumbly that you might slide down can potentially dump you in a world of pain. While I’d only erred about 200m I was very glad when I finally found myself back on the track!

I got up to Wasson Peak at 8:30am. I briefly enjoyed the views, but decided that getting down before it got too much hotter was the priority. The next section of track along the ridge (Hugh Norris Trail) was quite delightful.

The King Canyon – Sweetwater – Hugh Norris – Sendero Esperanza – Gould Mine Trail loop was a good one – I’d recommend it if you’re in the area. While I’d been walking Tom had done the driving loop of the western section of the park, and a short walk, fortunately finishing about the same time as me.

The number one thing to do in Tucson (at least according to TripAdvisor) is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. So that was the next stop (and only 2 minutes drive away). More of a zoo/botanic gardens than a museum with many different reptiles, bird and mammals. It was hot work walking around but fortunately regular shade provided some relief. We had another solitary picnic at an outdoor picnic area before hitting the road to Ajo.

I had argued we would be able to suck up one night camping at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. That was before I’d seen the forecast for the two specific days we planned to be there. I quickly backtracked that opinion and booked us a motel in Ajo. The motel was lovely – an old school which had been converted into an accommodation & conference centre complex. Apparently staying there was a tourist thing to do in its own right? (Not sure that says too much for the things to do in Ajo!)

That night a storm raged around us – it didn’t bring a lot of rain but there was plenty of electrical action and Tom got some apocalyptic photos.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (Arizona)

You guessed it… we had another early start heading to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument for sunrise. The car said it was 80°F (27°C) when we left Ajo at 5:30am. Tom quickly raced up the Desert View Trail to get some elevation once we arrived. I followed at a more leisurely pace. Then it was time for the Ajo Mountain Drive – a 34km loop which had a few hikes along it.

Our first stop was the Arch Canyon trail – I was immediately suspicious as we could see the double-arch – the supposed highlight – from the car park. Given we weren’t planning on the 300m ascent once we got to the end of the formed trail I didn’t feel like we were going to get a better view than the one from the car park. This proved to be the case, but we did get to hear our first rattlesnake on the trail – not that we were sure that’s what it was at the time.

Signs on hikes always highlight the many dangers of daring to go outside. However, in this case the dangers were primarily illegal immigrants and smugglers who might have snuck across the Mexico border (<10km away). We should not approach anyone with a black water bottle – I was intrigued as to how that was a key identifier. That said, it isn’t really a joking matter – the Visitor Centre is named after a Ranger who was killed by drug smugglers.

We didn’t see anyone (suspicious or otherwise), and so it was time for our next stop, Estes Canyon. We did the 6km Bull Pasture – Estes Canyon Loop. This led us to expansive views looking south to Mexico after a 250m climb. We thought we were leaving things a bit late in the day given the temperature, so we were quite surprised to encounter a group just setting off as we got back to the car at 10:30am.

The air con at the Visitor Centre was a pleasant respite. And the ranger confirmed what we’d heard was likely a rattlesnake. It was now too hot for anything fun so time for a long, hot drive to Blythe.

Why Blythe? Mainly because it was a reasonable location to break up the drive to Joshua Tree National Park. It’s just over the state border (the Colorado River) between Arizona-California. What I hadn’t realised was it was only 100m above sea level (possibly the lowest we’d been all trip) which exacerbated the hot temperatures.

But before we got to Blythe we had to go through an unexpected military roadblock. Given we had driven quite some way from OPCNM by this stage we weren’t expecting it. The officer was highly unimpressed that our passports weren’t within reach and that we’d have to get out of the car to get them from the back. In the end he decided the danger to himself from us getting out the car was higher than his need to see our paperwork so we got waved through – with a stern warning to have paperwork ready in future. How are you supposed to know that there’s going to be a border checkpoint 2 hours from the border!?

Much of the driving we’d done to this point had been on a relatively quiet roads, and the few Interstate roads we’d driven on hadn’t been that busy. This changed once we hit the I-10 which runs between Phoenix and Los Angeles. There was a truck every 50m in the right-lane, and then a truck trying to overtake multiple other trucks every couple of hundred metres in the left lane. I was very happy we’d changed drivers just before the I-10 and I wasn’t having to deal with the chaos. I’ve never seen a road like it. Imagine if all these containers could be transported by rail!

Eventually we made it into Blythe – the hottest location of our trip at 45°C. We quickly checked into our motel where we were warned not to take a shower until after 6:30pm as there wouldn’t be any cold water as the pipes were exposed to the sun.

Joshua Tree National Park (California)

The next morning we headed out, as usual in the dark, to get to Joshua Tree National Park around 7am. We did a couple of short hikes straight-up: Bajada Nature Trail, Mastodon Peak Loop followed by breakfast at Cottonwood Spring.

The ranger at the Visitor Centre warned us not to hike after 10am but the temperatures weren’t any worse (in fact maybe marginally cooler) than what we’d had for the last few days. But Joshua Tree National Park attracts the masses so they need to keep their messaging aimed at the lowest level of competence. The park is full of signs warning you “Do not die today”. They certainly get enough selfies taken with them – hopefully the message, which is about safely walking in the heat in the desert, also gets through.

We proceeded to visit the Cholla Cactus Garden (incredible), Arch Rock and Heart Rock (insta favourites), but we drew the line at Skull Rock after seeing the number of cars stopped to visit it.

I was pleased to find some shade at one of the picnic areas for lunch and then in the early afternoon we visited the climbing area Conan’s Corridor, where we were unsuccessful in scrambling up onto the highest boulders. But we were the only ones there! So for a park as popular as Joshua Tree that’s winning.

Deciding we’d knocked off enough in the heat we proceeded to Ryan Campground hoping we’d find shade there. The US National Park campgrounds generally have photos of the sites up on the booking page. I’d spent quite a lot of time looking at the photos before I’d booked our particular site – but that was a couple of months earlier – when I hadn’t been expecting 40°C temperatures! Fortunately my desire for a somewhat private site meant we had a large boulder that was casting shade so we had somewhere to hide for the afternoon.

In the late afternoon we wandered out, then clambered up to Tombstone Rock – which I discovered afterwards was one of the classic grade 13 climbs in the park. If I’d known perhaps we’d have a packed a few quickdraws!

Tom had hoped to do a bit of star photography since Joshua Tree (along with almost every National Park we’d been) claimed to be an International Dark Skies Park. We had mistakenly thought this meant it should have good stargazing, especially since this is promoted as a key attraction of Joshua Tree. However, the designation just means the park has policies to support appropriate night lighting, and to educate the public. And while it might be a good night sky compared to say, being in Los Angeles, it really wasn’t very dark. The glow from LA was ever present on the western horizon.

The next morning we’d planned to get up early (what!?) and hike up Ryan Mountain for sunrise. Some initial reluctance to get up was overcome when other cars started rolling out – one concern (excuse?) had been waking the other campers. It was pitch black when we started walking – because we were round the side of the mountain that blocked out the LA glow. It was well worth getting up for.

On our way back to camp we hit up the “Hall of Horrors”. It’s an interesting spot as while there is a car park and big sign there is no explanation of the name or a map. If you randomly pulled over there you would just wander around some Joshua Trees and boulders – which are nice enough, but probably be quite confused as to why there is a huge car park.

Hall of Horrors is a climbing area. A couple of mini-slot canyons, that you can loop together, became insta-famous and the park has conceded to the popularity by putting up signage and the car park. But, they’re not helping you find it! You need to know the “secret” way to get to the slots (don’t worry a quick google search will reveal all). We had it to ourselves – if you don’t count a swarm of bees. Obviously compared to what we have done in Utah this was pretty tame.

With two things ticked off for the morning and the temperatures already up there we figured we may as well have breakfast. We finished off our Joshua Tree visit with a couple more short walks – the Hidden Valley trail and the nature trail by Cap Rock.

From there we headed out to 29 Palms and visited the Oasis of Mara and found some shade for an early lunch at Park Headquarters. To kill time and not melt before we could check into our motel we visited the Visitor Centre and then the ice cream parlour. Fortunately the ice cream parlour was not busy so we could sit there for a couple of hours without feeling guilty (except maybe for the “small” ice creams we had).

Our final overnight stop was at a motel that U2 had stayed at when getting photography done for their Joshua Tree Album – for what it’s worth 37 years later. More importantly in the present the motel did have a surprisingly cold swimming pool which was a welcome way to cool down, before the less appealing need to sort out all our stuff so we could have some hope of squeezing it into our bags to get on the plane the next day. We’d also managed to eat our way through most of the food we’d bought in Las Vegas at the start of the trip so that meant we could have a nice dinner out guilt-free.

Our final day and our first sleep in for over a week? Of course I was awake anyway, so was pleased to find there was an excellent view of sunrise from the chairs outside our room.

Eventually we set off on the final drive of the trip – 3-4 hours back to Las Vegas a large section through Mojave National Preserve. It looked like there were a few interesting detours in the area but being slightly pressed for time (and hot, of course) we didn’t stop.

For some reason one of the chocolate producers in Las Vegas also had a cactus botanical gardens so we visited that, and got our free chocolate, before making our way to the airport. (As an aside, Las Vegas’ climate does not seem like the best location for chocolate making!)

We didn’t quite get through Tom’s full music collection. We had just started the Ys as were driving around Las Vegas. Some poor directing by me was just a ploy to drag out the driving time to see if we could get to the end – but we are left wondering if there were any songs starting with Z.

Tom hadn’t yet fully packed and getting everything balanced appropriately for weight & volume between our bags was proving challenging. Fortunately the airline staff member managed to magic up a third bag tag for us free of charge which alleviated a large amount of stress. And so then it was just one short (to LA) and one long and painful flight (to Sydney) before our US adventure was over.

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