The former premier of South Australia, Sir Thomas Playford, made it his habit to inspect operations of ongoing mineral exploration once a year, during Parliament recession. In 1960 he indicated that he wished to inspect the Department of Mines? seismic crew which was in the process of carrying out a seismic reflection traverse from Boulia in western Queensland to Marree in South Australia. The crew was to cross the entire Great Artesian Basin (now called Eromanga Basin), a distance of some 800 km. After inspection of the seismic operation near Birdsville, Playford wished to travel from the Birdsville Track to Oodnadatta. It meant crossing the treacherous terrain of the Kallakoopah Creek region, country which had never been traversed by motor vehicle before. Although I had been employed by the department for less than a fortnight, I was given the task to make the premier?s wish come true. To obtain first hand information I undertook a low-level air reconnaissance of the proposed traverse (30 May to 1 June) and then one week later set out in a Land Rover for the ground traverse. We reached Cowarie Station on the Birdsville Track without problems but from there on it was uncharted country. Our only navigational aid was a set of air photographs and my notes from the air reconnaissance. The Warburton River was still carrying water which forced us to cross to its northern side near New Kalamurina Station. After five days jolting across dunes, we crossed the main channel of the Kallakoopah Creek. From there on we first followed the Macumba upriver, then the Nardiebuckina and Frew creeks until we reached Peachamurrinna artesian bore. Finally, after nine days we reached civilisation at Mount Dutton railway siding on the Central Australia Railway. A fortnight later, on 26 June, I met the premier?s party at Leigh Creek and proceeded to lead them up the Birdsville Track and then across to Oodnadatta along the same route. All members of the party benefited from the journey, especially as most had not experienced that sort of wild and untouched desert country interspersed by salt bogs of the Kallakoopah. Now they knew it and had a better understanding of the bush. The premier used his knowledge to his advantage on any dealings on questions of the outback, especially with the Commonwealth Government. He always had the edge on them because he had been there. For the people of the outback, the trip resulted in the grading of the Birdsville Track. For the department, it ensured the approval of a seismic traverse from Oodnadatta to the northern end of Lake Eyre in the following year. This survey proved for the first time the existence of Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks below the western Great Artesian Basin. It was one of the incentives for the French company, Total, to take up a farmout over the Simpson Desert from Delhi?Santos a year later.