Desert trip 10/05
Desert camping trip
10th May 2025
Driving the 90 odd minutes out to the milkyway spot there is always a moment when it’s suddenyl just desert for hundreds of miles, with the sun blazing down on one side, and dunes and the road extending out for miles ahead - and it’s a great feeling.
Headed to what we now consider to be “our spot” a kilometer or two into the desert from the track road. Over the last month or maybe a bit longer since we were last there, the dunes have shifted considerably, and so we had to carefully path a new route out. Strange to not have any tyre tracks to follow to know which were the safe routes over/ through the dunes, but fun to figure it out!
Note
All the images in this post are from my phone (or sent lowres to my phone from my camera wifi). Will add higher res images to the astroblog when I get to it!
It must have rained fairly recently, not just because of the explosion of greenery (for the desert), but the crisp feel to the tops of ridges on the sand. We managed to find what we thought was our last spot - dunes have shifted, but the tallest dune (‘sundowners dune’) was still recognisable.
We were carrying on the campfire veggie kebab concept, still good - some advancements on how to balance them (using a small wire grill plate leaned into the centre of the fire). Also used up the last two timtams with marshmallows. Still the king of smores, but unfortunately hard to get hold of out here…
After some initial teething troubles got the skyhunter up and running and did a little astrophotography, though incredible moon meant not so good for DSOs.
We were lucky with the weather - despite the encroaching summer it was cooler than the last time we were out - but we still turned our attention to how to extend the camping season a little longer. Some shade would be helpful - both for the afternoons when you arrive, and also for the mornings - partially to keep the car (or a tent) cooler, and darker… and for having breakfast under. We’ve been giving some thought to how to rig up a tarp, so hopefully get to try that out next time.
Whilst reinflating it occurred to us that we could just time the first tyre and then start the next one off and sit in the nice air conditioned car for a set amount of time before we needed to get out and stop it. Obvious when you say it, but taken us quite a lot of trips to realise it!