Marree - My Heart Is Breaking

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Marree was a big time railway town up to 1980. About 400 kilometres south of Oodnadatta and 685 north of Adelaide, it was firstly a terminus, then an important stop on the Great Northern Railway from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. Then it was a break-of-gauge station when the standard-gauge railway arrived. It was a serious railway and service town.

In 1980, though, the railway line was re-routed a few hundred kilometres to the west. When the last train left Marree for Oodnadatta, the locals, desperate to keep the railway going and in a just-slightly-futile protest, kept uncoupling the carriages so the train couldn’t depart. It’s apparently been all downhill since then.

Marree now has a pub, a general store and a collection of rusty old Commonwealth Railways locomotives gathered around the remains of the railway station. It deserves more recognition, located as it is at the junction of the Oodnadatta and the Birdsville Tracks.

Tom Kruse, the legendary Birdsville mailman, set off from here every few weeks or so for 21 years to deliver the mail, and other essential items, to properties on the way there, taking anything from two to five weeks for each trip. Marree seems to be dripping with history that is in danger of disappearing into the dirt.

A few days earlier we had driven south down the Stuart Highway and watched as the deep red dirt and dense vegetation of the Territory gave way to the pale red dirt and sparse vegetation of the South Australian Outback. Finally, after 7 hours, the barren, alien landscape turned into a barren, alien landscape with piles of dirt all over it, and we knew we were nearly in Coober Pedy.

One of those places that every Australian should visit - once, we quite enjoyed Coober Pedy. It took about half a day to see the sights, both on and under the ground, and it is quite unique. We tried “noodling”, which is the equivalent of going through someone else’s garbage only on an opal field, but didn’t get rich.

William Creek was our next stop. It has an airfield – flights over Lake Eyre are very popular from here – and the corrugated iron William Creek Hotel. What the hotel proprietors may lack in charisma and helpfulness, which is quite a lot, they have made up for in the eccentric decorations of the place. People have left hats, tee shirts, business cards, a few expired drivers’ licences, in fact anything they could attach to a piece of wall or ceiling somewhere. It certainly has character, although the fact that they try and charge you to take a photo is a bit over the top.

From William Creek we followed the Oodnadatta Track (and the ruins of the old Ghan Railway line) south through Coward Springs. Coward Springs has a three-person hot spring (as long as at least two of them are rather good friends) and a nicely set up little museum in a restored engine drivers’ cottage, and, like Marree, quite a bit of now-vanished history.

We also stopped for a look at Lake Eyre South, and were lucky to see water in the lake. Water or not, though, the expanse of salt flat on the edge of Lake Eyre and in the numerous other salt lakes was quite amazing, and rather beautiful in a dry, hot, lots-of-flies sort of way.

And so we arrived in Marree, where we started this episode.

From Marree we drove south again to Hawker, relieved to be off the dirt but feeling good about having conquered, in our own puny way, a part of the Outback. Turning left at Hawker, which has so little to offer you wonder why it’s there at all, we drove back north to Wilpena Pound, in the South Flinders Ranges.

What a change in the countryside. There were trees! There were hills! Much as we enjoyed our trip though the semi-arid South Australian outback we were pleased to see some green again. And Wilpena Pound is a very scenic place itself, a crater-like depression surrounded on all sides by the ranges.

We walked up to Wangarra Lookout for great views of the Pound, and on the way passed the Hills Homestead. The Homestead was interesting, not for the building itself, which is just an externally-restored stone cottage, but for the signs showing the story told by Jessie Hill, the youngest sister of the family who tried to make a go of farming in the Pound. They tried sheep, they tried wheat. They suffered years of drought, and when finally, on Christmas Day 1914 the drought broke, they got home to find their road had been washed away. What a life.

So the South Australian leg of our trip has come to an end. Thanks to Gaz and Jan, and their generous and incredibly accurate advice and information. We have seen some great and varied scenery and countless examples of the toughness and resilience of the people that live out here.

Next we head out of South Australia - just - to Broken Hill.

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