The Border Track (Ngarkat Conservation Park)
Living in Adelaide and being a four wheel driver, completing the Border Track that runs through the Ngarkat Conservation Park is almost a rite of passage.
I first completed it 2 years ago, in a beat up old 80 Series on a wet & muddy winter weekend. The old girl did it well, but unfortunately blew up a year later. She had a hard life, living most of her years out in the remote North-West corner of WA.
If you don’t feel like reading, watch the video & see how our journey unfolded. It didn’t go well…
Anyway, it’s midway through 2021 & we are set to go complete the Border Track. We’ve planned this trip for 6 months, juggling the spontaneous COVID lockdowns.
Tagging along with me was about 6 other cars, made up of close friends & partners. For all of them, this was their first time doing the Border Track. I felt a bit of responsibility planning and organising the trip.
Our motley crew of cars & passengers.
The stars aligned & our ragged group of cars left Adelaide, staggered across a Friday.
I was driving my 60 Series, we called her Franny, because she was a Frankenstein of pieces. I had my hands full getting her ready for the trip, she was eating glow plugs for breakfast & her oil relief valve just jammed.
Let’s just say, I had my hesitations going into this trip, but I knew I was surrounded with plenty of other 4x4s.
Well well well… My gut instinct was right, Franny certainly needed help throughout the trip. More on that later…
If you want to see this trip in video format, watch here.
Planning the Border Track
Our roadmap for completing the Border Track.
Planning this trip, I spent a few hours studying the Ngarkat Conservation Park maps & I had a detailed idea of where I wanted to go.
The planned route over the weekend.
I planned to spend the Friday night at Comet Bore campsite, because it was an easy campsite to get to - once again I was wrong…
Then the next day, we could make our way north along the Centre Track. Swing back south and complete the one way section of the Border Track. Hopefully getting to Doggers Hut campgrounds with a few hours to spare.
This would leave us the Sunday, to complete the muddy section of the track & then make our way home. A leisurely Sunday, well so I thought.
Comet Bore Campsite
Back to it. My girlfriend and I pulled up to Comet Bore’s campsite first, it was a lovely place. Big flat campgrounds, albeit a bit wet & muddy.
We set about preparing camp & getting a fire going. The rest of the convoy was rolling in, split across two groups. One was not far behind us & the other due a few hours later.
The first group found the campsite, after getting lost & missing the turn off. God knows how they missed it, they had day light & modern technology.
The second group was due to arrive a few hours into night. As a kind gesture, I left my high-vis fluro jacket tied to the sign post. To help them spot the sign in the night.
It was late in the evening & we were doing the dishes after dinner. The second group still wasn’t here & we were starting to get a little concerned. Anyways, we hear the sound of a big diesel engine with an obnoxious exhaust. That had to be our mate Horse (Alec is his real name).
Phew, they must have found the campsite…
Wrong, the rubble of Horse’s 1HZ continued on. They had driven right past the campsite turn off.
We jumped into action & sprinted to the closest car. We sped along the camp track & swerved onto the highway, trying to chase them down. Note, we were in a LN 106 Hilux, not the fastest car on the planet…
Immediately our fear was, they had too much of a head start on us & we were never going to catch them. So we set the UHF to scan mode, to try & find their channel.
Sure enough, we caught them bickering on a channel. We screamed “STOP! STOP!” into the UHF, we must have sounded like serial killers to them.
Finally we caught up with them & led them back down the road. Picking up my jacket on the way…
It was fair to say, that first night wasn’t off to a great start. But it was certainly an adventure…
Day 2 Starting the Track
The next morning, it felt like the real deal. We were finally all together as a convoy. The weather nice. The cars looked good. Smiles were all around.
I jumped in Franny & turned the key. The dirty old 2H in her, spluttered & spluttered, but wouldn’t kick into life.
Fuck… She ate more glow plugs over night.
In my preparation, I had packed spare glow plugs for this occasion. But I decided to try some bush mechanics first, to see if that would start her.
I poured litres of boiling water over the engine head, in an attempt to heat it up. It didn’t work…
So I resorted to a pull start and that did the trick. Like a teenager who doesn’t want to get out of bed, Franny reluctantly roared into life (after 4 or 5 attempts).
Let’s just say, I was relieved when she started.
Off we headed to the centre track, Franny leading the charge.
The start of the Centre Track is a perfect spot to let a P’s & I’s out of your tyres.
The Centre Track was quite picturesque. A very mellow track with a few hills along it. As a two way section, we bumped into a few other four-wheel drivers along the track.
As we reached the top of the Ngarkat Conservation Park after about an hours drive. We did the obligatory test and threw our cars into the mud at Scorpion Springs.
All of the cars ate it up, with mud spraying everywhere.
In some ironic revenge, one of the mud pits, swallowed the number plate of Horse’s 80 Series. We shuffled through mud for 15 minutes, searching for his plate.
When my big toe curled around a piece of aluminium, I cried out in excited. I had found it!
I reached down and pulled it out. It was crumpled & full of mud. We unfurled it, waiting to see if the letters were still legible.
But wait. This wasn’t Horse’s number plate, we found some other poor bastards plates. At that point we gave up & moved onto the one way part of the track.
One Way Section of the Track
This one way section of the Border Track is brilliant. Vast swathes of natural land swallow you up, making you feel very alone in the world.
I cannot recommend visiting this track enough.
The track was very firm for us, with a bit of rain the days previously. This made the sand-hills fairly easy, with only a couple of cars having a few cracks.
At other times, I have seen these sand-hills quite challenging as they were soft, with cars sinking up to their chassis.
Doggers Hut
A gorgeous sunset behind Doggers Hut campgrounds.
We reached our campsite of Doggers Hut with a few hours before dark. Just like I planned.
But what I didn’t plan was a hail storm… Whilst setting up camp, were showered with ice, topping up our eskies & keeping our beers cold.
Thankfully the weather was remarkably clear after that hail storm.
After a few beverages & sing alongs, we finally made it to bed. There was going to be a few sore heads the next morning…
After a very slow morning another pull start, we set about completing the last part of the Border Track.
After Doggers Hut, there’s pretty much only two obstacles left before you complete the track.
One, a nice little desert area, perfect for taking the cars for a spin.
Two, a pile of giant mud pits, perfect for turning your car into a boat.
We made it to the desert & did a few cheeky doughnuts. I look across & Horse has the bonnet of his 80 Series up…
Shit Hits the Fan…
As I’m thinking, that doesn’t look good… His engine bay explodes, a shower of steam squirts out, with a dribble of coolant out the bottom…
This definitely isn’t good.
It doesn’t take us geniuses long to realise, his radiator has cracked. He is not driving anywhere under his own steam.
So we set about a plan. It’s about midday, on a Sunday and we all need to be back in Adelaide for work tomorrow morning.
We don’t have many choices, first step is to tow the 80 out back to civilisation. By civilisation I mean Keith, thankfully I have family there.
Although this sounds easy, in reality towing a heavily modified 80 Series isn’t much fun, because it’s quite a heavy car.
After shifting some weight around, we manage to start towing the 80 Series out. Thanks to Fish & his ever so reliable Hilux. He was also the man that pulled started me through the trip.
After slowly towing the 80 Series, we finally got to Keith and parked up the 80. Ironically we parked it in the hospital car park, the poor car looked like it needed surgery.
So it looks like the Border Track wins this time. But we’ll be back to complete it.
If you want to see the full complete, recorded version of the trip. You can watch that here.
Thank You!
If you’re doing a lot of driving, and you own a broad brim hat, you know how painful it is to store them. So I recently invested in designing a hat holder to fit 4WDS (& most other cars).
It literally takes 2 minutes to install & will keep your hat safe forever. I designed it to fit underneath the grab handles of popular cars.
If you want to support me, this would mean a lot to me - check out my car hat holder.
