Something about Chambers Pillar intrigued me so we just had to go even though it was a big side trip. Warnings in the guide book about high clearance 4WD, steep jump up's, sand dunes and sand drifts did nothing to put us off after the last few tracks we have ventured onto with similar warnings. Given the slow travel time we decided to drive out their and camp seeing the sunset and sunrise on the Pillar and get maximum bang for our buck. Nearly the whole track except for a few KM out of Alice was gravel, rocky or sandy.

You hit Old South Road that basically follows beside the old Ghan Railway and in most places it is a great gravel (stony) road. Easily sit on 80Kmh or more along most of this BUT keep your eyes peeled for rocks and washouts / drains. First stop after about 30km was the Ewaninga Rock Carvings site. Much better than the ones at N'dhala Gorge. Strange here as behind the car park on a long straight section they were doing 4WD / gravel road driver training and they would belt down the road at what looked about 80kmh and then have to lockup to feel the ABS and skid. Created LOTS of dust. I heard a bit of what he was teaching them on the way in. Sounds like I am doing the right thing already from what I heard.

All along old South Road it is shadowed by an off road track with all sorts of signs and jumps that is used in the Finke dessert race and the local off road club. All the distance markers are painted onto old bonnets of cars stood up verticaly. Given the huge amount of cars on the side of the road they would be easy to source. There are several old historic railway sidings ruins along this route like Rodinga. After a while we were flagged down by two guys on the side of the road. They asked us if we had seen an old blue Dodge? We hadn't and they explained they were the support vehicle for it and they had either over taken it or been passed by it since leaving Finke this morning (it was using some of the off road tracks as well). They asked us to fill them in if we saw them which we didn't. After another 60km belting down the road we got to the turn off for Finke some 121 bone shaking KM down the left spur.

The road deteriorated slightly here for the short 13km run into Maryvale station and Titjikala aboriginal community. You will not believe this but Maryvale station way out here in the middle of nowhere has a shop! We pulled in and used the toilet facilities and watched the local muster helicopter refuel and felt obliged to buy something so treated ourselves to a couple of ice creams. Fleeced of $7 and very little conversation from the Canadian guy behind the counter we headed off again. The shop had the weirdest assortment of items you will ever see. Tyres to Ugg boots and takeaway food.

The 45km from Maryvale to the Pillar was the worst section of the road. Some sections were highly corrugated others sandy, small washouts that hit really hard and anything else you can think of except wet water crossings, plenty of dry ones. A sign directed us to collect firewood before the reserve so we did. We had it stashed under the camper in the draws, stuck up under the camper, in Sharon's foot well and I tied some larger pieces onto the towbar mount with ropes.

We made it to within 10km of the pillar as we passed over a very steep climb up and over the Charlotte Range in 4WD low range first gear. Great views up here and our first sighting of the pillar in the distance. More warning signs about sand dunes and driving conditions which we quickly dismissed. The sand dunes turned out to be a gravel road going over a series of crests! We bypassed the first campsite and setup in the second one right next to the Pillar with it just out our camper window 450M away, what a view! Only one other couple camped here tonight.

Coffee and the Pillar next to the tree out our window.

Castle Rock across the road out the other window

Walked all around the area taking photo's and checking out everything after we setup camp. Some old historical carvings in the pillar from early explorers in the 1800's, including the famous explorers "Nigel & Shaz of NOV-1986"! There really are some tools around, heaps of them by the way they have ruined the historical carvings and almost carved over the top of them in places. I setup for some nice sunset photo's and then got the fire lit. We invited the other couple over and had a great evening under the stars with the occasional bat wizzing past and donkeys in the distance, a new one on us. We also heard a train on the Ghan only 15km away. I had setup my camera to take a star trail shot over the top of the pillar with the clear sky and late arrival of the moon it should turn out great. Just need some mains power to get enough computer grunt to process it all, you will have to wait for that one.

One of the originals, there are quite a few

Hmmm

Sunset on the Pillar

The viewing scaffolding is hard to get out of a photo.

Moon lit pillar and stars around 10:30PM

The pillar was a worthwhile side trip and because we have our house on our back it works great for an overnighter. Most people seem to do it as a very long day trip from Alice. This was our first night around a fire and under the great star show as we finally got a camp setup before dark, about 2PM today.

PS: The flies are soooooooo bad here it is unbelievable. Up your nose, in your eyes, on your lips, in your ears and tribes of them at once. Thanks goodness they all go to bed when the sun goes down!