Driving the Gunbarrel Highway is one of those fabled Australian journeys where the legend has become longer than the road itself.
Isolated and challenging, the rugged track is dotted with peculiar landmarks like stacked car bodies.
But nothing is more bizarre than the football oval on a claypan, identified by a handmade sign boldly declaring "WACA/MCG".
According to Darren Farmer, a traditional owner of the area, the oval was created in the 1980s for a one-off match among Martu people.
A homemade oval
A teenager at the time, Mr Farmer was living and working in the desert, harvesting sandalwood with his family.
He said the harvesters decided to invite a footy team from Wiluna — 400 kilometres down the Gunbarrel — to play a match.
"It was about cultural gathering and showing that we can do things together," he said.
The claypan lies in an area known as Ngyulbiin to Martu people, located near the Mangkili Nature Reserve.
To prepare the claypan for the occasion it was graded with a small tractor. Gum trees were cut to make some of the goal posts and flour was used to mark the lines on the 'field'.
"The funny part of it was that when we set up the scoreboard, we used the bonnet of an old car," he said.
Mr Farmer thinks more than 100 people came for the match, camps were assembled around the ground and campfires lit.
"People drove in their old cars from Wiluna. It took them two days to drive from town, just for this game of football," he said.
The car that never made it home
Nose down at the side of the oval is a Valiant ute pockmarked with bullets.
The ute belongs to Lena Long, who lent it to some relatives but it never made it home.
It has become a memento of the only game of football ever played at the claypan — and perhaps the most remote game played in Australia.
"My ute couldn't start so they left it out there and it's there forever," Ms Long said.
But she doesn't hold any grudges, instead saying those were happy times.
"My car will be there for the memories they had at the Ngyulbiin Claypan," she said.
No one the ABC spoke to remembered the score, but everyone agreed "the Wiluna Moonlight Roos" beat the "Mungilli Desert Warriors".
'Spirit of the game'
"Unfortunately for us we lost, but it was all in the spirit of the game," Mr Farmer said.
"It was about bringing people together."
Today, save a few sandalwood harvesters working nearby, very few people spend time around Ngyulbin.
But in the 1980s Ms Long was one of many Martu people harvesting sandalwood in the area.
In the middle of desert they lived without any mod cons, and the memory that comes to her now is of washing clothes in a cement mixer.
"It used to go round and round, we could hear the engine going, when it stopped we knew our clothes were washed."
The match and the period when the outstation was flourishing have etched themselves into Martu folklore.
Mr Farmer said it was still talked about.
"Our kids and grandkids can't get over the fact that we set up a football oval out there," he said
But the memories the oval provokes are bittersweet.
"It reminds us not only of the game but it also reminds us of a lot of the old people that have passed on now," Mr Farmer said.
"They helped us put it all together."
'Let's have it out there'
It seems the WACA/MCG sign appeared years after the game, most likely put there by passing 4WD fanatics.
But the sign has given Mr Farmer an idea — why not hold this year's AFL grand final at the other MCG — the Ngyulbin Claypan.
"Everyone's arguing about where the grand final's going to be. Let's have it out there," he said.
"With all the COVID[-19] issues in Victoria, they can have it out there, no worries."
It is a long journey to the other MCG, but stranger things have happened this year.
