At the start of the Madigan Line
The Madigan Line is an amazing adventure
Senecio daisies carpet the desert floor
Warm the cockles of your heart around a blazing gidgee fire
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In the winter of 1939 Cecil T Madigan led a scientific expedition across the Simpson Desert, from Andado Station in the Northern Territory to Birdsville in Queensland. The expedition took 25 days. The party of nine included a biologist, a botanist, a geologist a photographer, radio operator and cook. The great cameleer Bejah Dervish turned down the offer to wrangle the camels, giving the job to his son Jack. Madigan named the Simpson Desert after the Adelaide businessman and President of the Royal Geographical Society Horace Simpson.
Our expedition will follow the route of the original from Old Andado to Birdsville. We will depart from Alice Springs, visit the Santa Theresa Mission and passing through the Rodinga Range we enter the sandhills of the desert. We will travel south to the Finke and fuel up for our crossing at Mt Dare Station just over the border of South Australia. From Andado we will travel out across the stunning Allitra tablelands and cross the Hale River into a sea of sandhills. At Madigan’s Camp Camp 15 we cross the Hay RIver and head south into the magnificent riverine country of Eyre Creek. Our desert crossing culminates with a crossing of the Nappanerica Dune nicknamed “Big Red and we roll into Birdsville.
From Birdsville we travel west along the QAA Line to Poeppel Corner, the tri border junction for Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia. Northward to Kilpatha Native Well we eventually reach the bottom of the Hay River. As we head north the river becomes more defined and we eventually arrive at Jervois Station on the Plenty Highway for our return to Alice Springs.
Cecil T Madigan was born in Renmark SA in 1889. In 1911 he went as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford, but deferred when he was selected by Douglas Mawson as meteorologist for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, and received the Kings Polar Medal in 1914.
He served in France during WW1 and later returned to Magdalen College at Oxford gaining a doctorate in Science in 1933. He won blues in rowing and boxing. Like Mawson he was a heroic exploration geologist. Whilst introduced to deserts in the Sudan, he adopted Mawson’s interest in the arid zone and made endless surveys of Central Australia and northern South Australia. Madigan died in 1947 in Adelaide.
Spectral analysis of sand particles in the Simpson Desert show that it is geologically 19-24,000 years old, only dating back to the last interglacial. Before that it was grassland and shallow lakes.
This would suggest that the Wangkangurru people who lived in the Simpson, also lived there when it was a much wetter place and adapted as the desert dried out. The desert is now a vast sand ridge desert. The longitudinal sand hills are up to 40 metres in height and can run unbroken for one hundred and twenty kilometres. The colour of the sand runs from almost white through to a deep red depending on the age and oxidisation of the sand.
We pick up at all Alice Springs Hotels and head south to Santa Theresa Mission. The church here has stunning murals painted by Indiginous artists. We will also visit the art centre and the craft centre before heading south to singular Rodinga Range. Through a cleft in the range the road heads out into a vast frozen sea which is the Simpson Desert. We camp in Sandhills.
Awake to birdsong and fresh brewed coffee. We break camp and travel south to the fascinating Old Andado Homestead, for many years the home of outback icons Mac and Molly Clarke. The house has been lovingly preserved and we will spend a fascinating couple of hours discovering the rigours of outback life in days gone by. Further south we cross the Finke River into South Australia. We travel on to Mt Dare Station Homestead which now lies in Witjira National Park to refuel for our desert crossing, We recross the Fine and camp on the Finke floodplain surrounds by huge coolabah trees at Mayfield Swamp.
From Old Andado we head east to the Mac Clarke Acacia Peuce Reserve. The reserve protects one of only three copses of these rare and unique trees. We are now on the path less travelled as we wend our way to Camp 1a. There are some spectacular jump ups in the area. We camp on the floodplain of the Hale River, which rises two hundred kilometres to our north in the Eastern Macdonnell Ranges.
Our day is taken up with dramatic scenery changes. Fletcher Hill, an ascent of the Twins, a crossing of Allitra Tableland and the Colson Track before our camp among the Coolabahs at Illogwa creek
We are now deep into the sandhills. Our days will involve some challenging driving as the vehicles best some reasonably steep and sandy dunes. We will camp amongst Gidgee trees near Camps 8 and 12.
We arrive at the Hay River, mad obvious by the coolabah trees. We head south along the river floor soon turning eastward again. We are back in the sandhills again, and eventually camp in a gidgee grove
We arrive at Eyre Creek, which depending on the season can be an oasis of greenery or a barren parched riverbed of cracked grey clay. Both are beautiful. We will explore the ruins of Annandale Station. Annandale was taken up in 1876, and from 1896 until 1918 it was owned by the Cattle Baron Sidney Kidman. It is now part of Adria Downs, owned by the Brook family. David Brook’s grandfather managed Annandale. We will head south along Eyre Creek to our camp on the QAA line.
We cross Big Red and arrive in Birdsville. After a well earned shower there is the option of exploring Birdsville including the Bakery, visitors centre and the famous Pub. We camp west of Birdsville.
Back over Big Red, we now cross many of the largest sandhills of the Simpson Desert as we ply our way to the tri state border at Poeppels Corner.
We head north to the remains of Kilpatha Native Well, which sadly was dug out by an oil exploration team in the 1960s destroying the aquifer. Gradually we start to see coolabah trees, indicating that we have arrived again at the Hay River. As we head north the river becomes more pronounced and we start to see stunning giant river red gums redolent of Central Australia.
We visit the spectacular Lake Caroline and cross the Tropic of Capricorn.
Eventually we arrive at Jervois Station on the Plenty Highway for a refuel and optional ice cream….
Our day is spent travelling south along the Plenty Highway arriving in Alice Springs early afternoon and the end of an incredible adventure.
