Our campers were left behind at camp as well so we could play without them. We weren't prepared to risk drowning them, especially since one of our group had had the door ripped off his back at Palm Creek so he'd have had an instant waterbed.
I think luck may have had something to do with it the day we did it. Our guys did walk it and work out the best line at the time, and we also dropped our tyres to 16psi. The guys also took into account the helpful advice from Symon and the Myswag peanut gallery who were camped there as they'd been watching others attempt it all day.
We actually got 8 cars through together one after another, 4 in our group and 4 from another. We were amazed how firm the sand stayed while we all crossed. We did take a while to procrastinate first though. The guys set out with Nolans as their goal, but when that little stretch of water actually sits before you, all the 'what ifs' start running through your head competing with the adrenalin racing through your body. It's not until your tyres are safely up on the sand on the opposite bank that you can take a breath and 'let go of the seat covers'. It could very easily have gone very wrong for any one of us. Hindsight is definitely a great thing.
We all made it, and none of us regretted having done it for one minute, however it wasn't totally without cost though...we did lose our air conditioner for the rest of the trip (and trust me, it's the one thing you'll really want working up there) and we temporarily lost our UHF radio. We've since remembered to turn it off when doing deep water crossings.
If you do still want to go to the southern side of Nolans Brook just for a look, you have to go past Sam Creek and the bypass track, then through Mistake, Cannibal, Cypress and Logan Creeks, but they're generally firm based and easy if you take your time. Logan's is the only one of these that may pose a problem, and you do need to walk this one. If you don't like the look of it, you can always back track to the bypass and go around.
