FRENCH LINE SITE MAP

The Simpson Desert FRENCH LINE site can be accessed entirely from this page. It is arranged in five books or 'digests' that are reached initially upon entry to the home page and each of these books has five major components or 'articles' making up the bulk of the text. Some articles have been retired to mothballs and links to these can be found at the bottom of the page.

Links to the French Line home page can be created easily on your own home page. First click on the CGG logo below and then copy and paste the images of your choice. The editor, Kevin JR Murphy, can be contacted readily by email and generally responds within a short time.

KEVIN MURPHY
SITE EDITOR
CIRCA 1990

DESERT DIGEST

Cashbook and Claypan
Share in the tribulations of the admin manager as he balances the books from his Office-in-a-Blitz

Birdsville or Bust
Learn how French know-how and Australian muscle carved the French Line through the Simpson

East From Oodna
Marvel at the initiative of the early pathfinders who solved the mysteries of the Red Centre

Alive in the Dead Heart
Recollections from the crew who first burst the road through Australia's One True Desert

B-line for Birdsville
Join the CGG veterans on their return journeys to the French Line. Take their tip and travel with experts

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FRENCH LINE
PHOTO GALLERY

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Simpson Desert French Line

SITE MAP

Starting Out
From
Dalhousie French Line
Beginnings Starting Out
From
Birdsville

DIGESTS

For the most ambitious and daunting prospect in Australian onshore seismic exploration yet attempted, French Petroleum chose Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG) to break through and conduct the geophysical survey of the Simpson Desert. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Birdsville is Australia's last remaining frontier town, straddled at the head of the famed Birdsville Track and the eastern gateway to the enigmatic Simpson Desert. Marooned by floodwaters for up to three months every year, the people of the tiny Channel Country outpost have long been reliant on air transport to get supplies through. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Camelback explorers David Lindsay (1886), Edmund Colson (1936) and Cecil Madigan (1939) all chose to begin their confrontation with the Simpson Desert from the western side, as did the first man game to attack the desert by motor vehicle, Reg Sprigg, who headed east and gallivanted through with his family in 1962. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. The French Line began as CGG Party S6507's bulldozed 'Line B' at Dalhousie Springs in South Australia on July 1st 1963 and ended at Poeppels Corner at the tri-State border two months later. In another month they had reached Eyre Creek. Click on the caption to go directly to the story. Join the CGG veterans on their return journeys to the French Line. Take their tip and travel with experts. Under Construction.

Cashbook and
Claypan Birdsville
or Bust East from
Oodna Alive in the
Dead Heart B-Line for
Birdsville

ARTICLES


Fat Cattle Country	Page Family Perish	Poeppel Stretches Belief	Mobile Homes of the Simpson	Tagalongs and Tours

Coles Express Picks on a Pensioner .....

Try the "with Malice a'Forecourt?" link and read what they did

GONE TO MOTHBALLS .....	Thommo's Desert Report	The BeeGees Page
	Coles Express Picks On a Pensioner	The Kid From Towra Point
	Bulldozing a Desert	Trans National Causeway
	Signwriter for the Simpson	The Long Haul
	Simpson Desert Birdlife	French Line Circa 1979

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