Outback Trip - Day 4

I woke before dawn after a very quiet night and decided to explore the nearby 'Breakaways'

   

It was a late start this morning as we only have a relatively short distance to travel.  However the track became both narrower and twisty with numerous native trees extending into the track.  I was doing my best to avoid the vegetation whilst both attempting to remain on the track and hold my place in the convoy.  Each time a branch scraped down the side of the 4WD I gritted my teeth and winced!  In the back of my mind was the thought I bought the 4WD to do this type of driving.   There is very little rainfall out here and the flora has to be hardy to survive.  Growth is slow which results in a very hard wood that can easily scratch paint just brushing past and even puncture a tyre (called 'staking').

The convoy stopped when one of the drivers noticed a Thorny Lizard.

He/She was only 4" long which made spotting him/her whilst driving along a narrow and twisting track a rare occurrence.  It's probably true that few Australians have seen a wild Thorny Lizard.

From Wikipedia

The thorny devil's scales are ridged, enabling the animal to collect water by simply touching it with any part of the body, usually the limbs; capillary action transports the water to the mouth through channels in its skin. The thorny devil is also equipped to harvest moisture in the dry desert following night-time's extremely low temperatures and the subsequent condensation of dew. The process involves moisture contact, their hydrophilic skin surface structures with capillaries, and an internal transport mechanism.^[7]

• The lizard rubs its body against the moist substrate and shovels damp sand onto its back, the outer epidermis layer equipped to draw in cutaneous moisture.
• The keratinous fibered epidermis is hydrophilic with hexagonal microstructures on the scale surfaces. When trace amounts of water contact its skin (pre-wetting) these microstructures fill with water, the skin surface becoming super hydrophilic. This allows moisture to spread across wider surface areas, yielding faster uptake, as water is collected via capillary action in small channels located between its scales.
• Captured water is transported passively via capillary action in semi-tubular channels located beneath the partially overlapping scales, in an asymmetric and interconnected system that extends over the lizard's entire body surface. The channels terminate at the mouth where active ingestion (drinking) is observable by jaw movements when moisture is plentiful, e.g. water puddles.

Another interesting feature of the Thorny Lizard is it extracts all the moisture from its urine before passing the residual as pellets.  Sounds painful!

We reached Lake Rason Shack mid afternoon.  The shack doesn't officially exist.  however a small group of 'hard core' supporters have transported all the building materials to the site and built a communal shack.  Only dedicated desert enthusiasts come this far and as a consequence there is little sign of vandalism.  

Unfortunately one of the vehicles 'staked' a tyre entering the campsite.  The hole in the sidewall was 2-3" making it beyond repair.  One reason why I carry three spare wheels.

I found myself a quiet corner where I set up my en-suite tent and had a great shower followed by a change of clothes.