Simpson Desert French Line

CASHBOOK AND CLAYPAN

The French Line across the Simpson Desert was completed in September 1963 and no one in the Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG) construction team could have envisaged the volume of traffic that would flow across in their wheeltracks over the years since. The notion that their road would open up other less arduous routes in several directions as well, was quite preposterous for the CGG originals to contemplate.

Many crossings have been carried out by all manner of travellers using an even wider variety of vehicles (and contraptions) since those first journeys and lots of people make a habit of 'doing the French Line' time and time again but it is doubtful if any one yet has clocked up so many 'clicks' as the early CGG fellows, who will probably remain unchallenged for some time as the most experienced of Simpson Desert drivers. Typical odometer readings for the truckies in the three month seismic campaign was 20,000km or the equivalent of fifty crossings each.

THE SIMPSON
RECORDS A
VISITOR'S MOMENT

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

(Under Construction)

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TRUE LOCAL
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WILD
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EATING OUT
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French Line Pioneers

THE CGG CONSTRUCTION TEAM

FIRST ALONG THE FRENCH LINE

September 1963

COMPAGNIE GENERALE DE GEOPHYSIQUE Party S6507
Jules Baeb Michele Bertrand Marc Cardinalli Frank Delmonte Roy Elkin Joe Gawlik Bob Gouldie Roy Helfert Marcel Lestrade Ian Mackie	John McFayden John Blaney-Murphy Vic Nicholls Rene-Paul Pietri Jean Tixeront Harry Wemmerslager Marc Barjolin Tony Braz Roland Colasin Pip Dunkley	Bernard Finzi Peter Leathem Ross Loader Bill McCarthy Tankred Mueller Kevin Murphy Tony Pearson Bill Tsoutouras Max White Maurice Beaussaert	John Dawson Joe Eime Claude Gauthier Joe Goossens Danny Hayes Luke Kotulski Kent Longmate Karl Muller Tom Penny John Thompson Omer Wilhelms

OILFIELD CATERERS
Milton Bunning
Tommy Burns
Noel Gibson
Ian Kaines
Reg Lee

ROCHE BROS
Tom Campbell
Wally Gregory
Peter McCormack
Mick Smith
Bluey Wells

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN AIR TAXIS
Kron Nicholas
Graham Wright
Trisha Wright

FRENCH PETROLEUM OF AUSTRALIA
Dean Drayton
Rene Quin

ADELAIDE ADVERTISER
Peter Michelmore

Delhi/SANTOS
John Klug

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
Thomas Playford

Oil Men Leaving Mark On Simpson Desert

Surviving veterans of the CGG conquest of the Simpson in 1963 that resulted in the creation of the French Line added their signatures to an article from the Adelaide Advertiser, here displayed in its frame by Ruth Doyle, proprietor of the Birdsville Caravan Park. Peter Michelmore's first-hand report from September that year, now hangs in the park's popular Billabong Cafe and is a concise record of an important chapter in the history of Australia's Simpson Desert as a major tourist attraction. Look for it. It's a good read.

The second phase of the French-Australian assault on the Great Artesian Basin oil prospect began in the latter quarter of 1963 and centred on the Channel Country, between Birdsville, Bedourie and Boulia. It was at this point that several of the men listed above, left the party. They had toiled for three months on their arduous crossing without a break from the Simpson and were replaced as needed. Among the new recruits were Joe Bauer, Stewart Caldwell and the two Canadians who jumped ship from the Diamantina Shire Council to join CGG, Ken Charlton and Bob Seaman.

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Coles Express Picks on a Pensioner .....

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

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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

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