Remote Camp Walk, Remote Camp to Lake Agnes Loop, Wyperfeld National Park - September 2017.

Today's destination, Lake Agnes.

After restful nights sleep I awoke (always a good start to the day) to be greeted by blue sky, according to the BOM forecast today was going to get pretty warm and from what I could see I reckon that the forecast was a good chance of coming true. So with a warm day forecast I quickly had my breakfast and tidied up all my gear, the warm weather was meant to be coming with strong northerly winds and I wasn't keen to return to camp in the late afternoon to find all my gears spread around the Mallee. With breakfast polished off I  chucked some water and food in the pack, grabbed my map and camera, reset the GPS and set off. I was on the track by abound 8:30 am, straight into my first sand dune, all was good in my Feral world.

Early morning and I'm back heading north on Meridian Track again.

To start my day's ramble off I continued heading north up yesterdays nemesis, Meridian Track. The good news today though was that this northern section of Meridian Track wasn't actually too bad to walk on, while there was a bit of soft sand on some of the dunes for the most part the surface was fairly firm under foot. This was the first time so far on the two day walk that I was walking on open tracks, although with the warm weather forecast I only saw a couple of 4wd vehicles on my walk up Meridian Track and they were parked in the sprawling Casuarina Camp. Incidently Casuarina Camp is the only other source of water today, apart from Remote Camp that is. Not needing any water I plodded on up Meridian Track past Casuarina Camp a little further, eventually turning west onto a  closed management track a few hundred metres past the camp.

This section of Meridian Track is open to vehicles but was pretty quiet today.

The scenery was pretty sweet.

This closed track had me heading west towards Racecourse Track. After crossing a low dune I started  skirting a large open plain, the sparse (almost non existent) tree cover giving me my first real taste of the suns sting. The thing about the temperature today was that even though it was getting pretty hot the howling northerly wind was actually doing a very good job of evaporating my sweat and therefore I wasn't actually feeling the heat us much as I would of normally, however on a few spots where I dropped out of the wind I was suddenly baking hot. After a nice walk along this un-named management track it climbed a little and started to follow the crest of a dune, soon arriving at Racecourse Track.

I followed this old management track across to Racecourse Track.

This closed track made for some easy walking.

Reaching Racecourse Track it was immediately obvious that the walking was going to get a little harder again. Turning north west I was back to shuffling through deep soft sand for awhile, to make matters even more uncomfortable I was now heading almost straight into what was a pretty strong hot wind. My walk up Racecourse Track towards today's objective Lake Agnes, turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag in the end. After an initial very soft and sandy section where the track crossed Outlet Creek I crossed a few black box plains, these sparsely wooded plains with their firm surface actually make for pretty good walking. In between the plains Racecourse Track would inevitably cross over another sand dune, although with this track technically open to the public the sand on the dune crests had been compacted by a few vehicles so the going was no where near as hard as my trudge up Meridian Track yesterday. With the sparse cover of trees thinning out even more I found myself walking out onto the vast open spaces of Lake Agnes, with the wind whipping up the dust and the wasteland like scenery I felt like I was walking onto a scene from a post apocalyptic Mad Max film.

Arriving at Racecourse Track, the easy walking was finished.

It was starting to get seriously hot by now.

The wind was starting to kick up the sand a bit...

Heading out onto Lake Agnes....

It was a wild old day out here on the lake.

I was worried that the wind was going to rip the phone out of my hand.

Following my wheel tracks out onto the lake I dropped the pack and dug my phone out, there was no service out here (actually there was no service for the whole three days that I was on this stroll), but what my phone did do was to allow me to take a couple of panorama photos to hopefully show a bit of the epic scale of this big sky country. With the sun beating down and the dusty hot wind howling I decided that it was time to start heading back on my long journey back to camp. Shouldering my pack I retraced the now familiar walk back along Racecourse Track, meeting the link track that I'd come in on instead I continued on south east along Racecourse Track.

Time to start heading back to camp.

This kind of arid scenery is probably the country I enjoy the most.

Even with Racecourse Track open to vehicles I didn't see another person on my southwards journey, the 4wd track passing through some very nice scenery along the way. I was a little worried that I'd be facing a shattering mid afternoon trudging through soft sand, but really apart from the crest of the dunes the rest of the walking was on pretty firm surfaces and was very good walking. I started to pass over some extensive grass covered dunes reminding me a bit of walking across a prairie. After passing a short cut track that heads east back towards Casuarina Camp I arrived at the fenced off Bracky Well, this old well is all that is left over from an old pioneers homestead that was built on this spot back in the day.

Bracky Well

Racecourse Track

Climbing back over the fence I left Bracky Well behind and continued on my roller coaster journey down Racecourse Track, the day was seriously hot now and the wind was also starting to get worryingly strong, buffeting the cypress pines around like they were rag dolls. After checking out the almost non existent remains of the historical Dog-Leg Fence I arrived at Nine Mile Square Track, this was my route back to Meridian Track and camp. First up though I found myself a bit of shade, my dry throat appreciating a bit more of my warm tepid water supply. Like RacecourseTrack, Nine Mile Square Track is open to vehicles and like Racecourse Track I didn't see anyone else out there this afternoon. 

The historical Dog Leg-Fence (well what remains of it), I'm not 100% sure of it's historical significance.

I've just arrived at Nine Mile Square Track, I was starting to search out a bit of shade now.

Mid afternoon on Nine Mile Square Track.

The cypress pines were copping a thrashing by the wind.

Less than an hour after starting east on Nine Mile Square Track today's circuit was complete when I arrived back at Meridian Track. Looking back my main memories of trudging along Nine Mile Square Track was of the wind and baking heat, I spent most of this section searching out any bits of shade that the sparse mallee scrub could give me. Turning south on Meridian Track I passed through a locked gate, climbed one last dune and arrived back at Remote Camp. Taking my pack off I sat in the shade at the picnic table enjoying a bit more of my water. In fact the rest of the afternoon was spent in more or less the same way, listening to the footy, drinking as much water as I liked while kicking back in the shade reading, life was once again pretty sweet.

Remote Camp is just over this last dune.

The Dirt.

I walked 19.5 kilometres and climbed around 228 metres on today's leg of the walk which I'd probably rate as a medium grade walk. Today was a pretty good days walking really, if it hadn't of been for the baking temperatures it would have been a great day. The only water today apart from at Remote Camp is at Casuarina Camp, although I wandered past Casuarina Camp less than an hour after leaving camp this morning so I didn't bother topping up. All of today's route follows 4wd tracks with some of them open to vehicles, that said I only saw 4wd's at Casuarina Camp and was on my own for the rest of the day. The tracks today are mostly not too bad as far as sandy 4wd tracks go, there were some soft sections to slog through but by far the majority of the day was on firmish surfaces.

Over the two days that I'd been on this walk so far I've walked 41.3 kilometres and climbed around 383 metres.

Relevant Posts.

Day 1 Remote Camp Walk, Wyperfeld National Park, 2017.

Day 2, Remote Camp Walk, Wyperfeld National Park, 2017.

Wyperfeld Walk, Wyperfeld National Park, 2016.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon listening to the Tigers win the way into the big dance.....life was good!

Twilight at Remote Camp, the sting had gone out of the heat by now.

Saturday 23rd and it got to 35.3˚, with a northerly wind howling at up to 81 km/h it was a seriously anti social day. Actually my walk up to Remote Camp from Black Flat on Friday was pretty warm as well, no wonder I suffered slogging through the soft sand.