 gentle slope driving over small spinifex clumps which then gave way to grasslands and a variety spring flowers. I was now attempting to come in from the western approach to the Vale of Tempe. The first couple of kilometres of the terrain was covered in fine grassland, but then once again, I ran into shrubby country which only seems to grow in and amongst the sandstone rocks. Soon the rocks became too large to drive over. Being on my own out there, I was a little worried that I may push my luck too far and decided then and there that I would come back next winter and hopefully bring a friend along driving their own vehicle so that we may try to get closer and if not right into this fabled place.
Back on the faded seismic track over the dunes I watched my digital mapping make a track where none existed. The countryside had low breakaway hills and some stony outcrops before I came out on the track we used some months previously. After that is was about 20km to the Mereenie Loop Road via some ‘Private’ mining roads.
Once back in the main stream of traffic on the Mereenie Loop Road I wondered as the tourists flocked by towing their new vans over the horrendous corrugations and if anyone had told them about the condition of the road?
At Ginty’s Lookout over Morris Pass on the edge of the small escarpment, I looked in vain to see if the Vale of Tempe was visible from that height, but it appears that the rise of the hills in the valley below hides this elusive place.