ON a rainy afternoon last week, Owen Davies and his herd of nine goats reached Birdsville after a 994-kilometre walk from Camooweal.

When Mr Davies originally dreamt of the walk, he was going to complete it solo and without goats.

However, after being involved in a camel trek across the Great Victoria Desert, he was inspired to research pack goats.

"I decided that I didn't want to do it with camels after that experience, but the idea of goats came to mind," he said.

He found goats were sometimes used on treks in the US and Europe.

After buying some equipment online, including several harnesses and packs for goats, he purchased some goats and began training them to walk wearing saddles and loaded packs.

"The first thing the goats wanted to do when they felt the pack on them was get it off.

"We had packs sliding off and all sorts of things. It was a bit comical at first," he said.

Another problem was water. The goats could see water on the ground but they wouldn't drink it because they hated getting their feet wet.

"So, we did a lot of training preparing them for the walk," Mr Davies said.

In September last year, he began walking from Camooweal, breaking the long trip into two sections, pausing in Urandangi where he waited to be picked up before a break over the hot summer months.

"We were getting into really hot weather and I had no intention of going right through to Birdsville," he said.

"It was getting too hot.

"I was doing most of the walking at night to beat the heat and I didn't have a sat phone, so I was pretty much isolated."

On April 5, Mr Davies returned to the exact spot near Urandangi where he had ceased walking the previous October.

The aim was to walk straight through to Birdsville and he now had a satellite phone.

He faced challenges like losing his spot tracker, uncharacteristic April heat, near misses with snakes, a dust storm, extreme numbers of flies and brackish water in what he thought would be sources of fresh water.

"When I started I knew nothing about goats but I quickly gained enormous respect for them," he said.

Mr Davies said that although goats usually hated water, his became used to crossing creeks, rain and drinking from bores, dams and rivers.

"I wanted to push the boundaries and see how deep they would go and at one water crossing they actually swam for 17 or 18 metres," he said.

Finally, on May 31, he packed up his camp in the rain and made one last push for Birdsville, reaching the town early in the afternoon.

"All the goats wanted to do was get out of the rain," he said.