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Published: June 20th 2008
The Painted Desert!
or more formally known as the Arkaringa HillsSunday 18 May - we head out of Coober Pedy for the first real taste of Australian outback since the Nullarbor. Heading down the gravel road towards the Painted Desert, we encounter the South Australian police coming the other way at 100kph - and bingo, a broken windscreen from a loose stone - thanks!
First stop the Painted Desert, which was spectacular, even though the corrugations on the road through shook the you-know-what out of our caravan - shower door came off, front of the air con unit fell off, pantry shelf broken and a few cupboards loose! Some repairs to be done later! Found ourselves a bush camp by a dry creek (all the creeks were dry!) and settled in for the night.
Next morning we drove to the small town of Oodnadatta, which for us was the start of our trip down the Oodnadatta Track, which runs 600km from Marla to Maree - we did 400 odd km of it. The Pink Roadhouse is a bit of an icon, a large general store/ café which is the heart of the township, stopped off for refuelling and coffee, and got some expert advice on tyre pressures from Adam
P who has run the store for 30+ years. Dropped our tyres down to give us more traction and a smoother run over the corrugations.
Nice to be back into warmer weather (25 and up) although the flies were not a welcome change! Chugged along the track until nightfall, traveling quite slowly as the road was pretty rough in parts. Mid-afternoon we were most surprised to meet a cyclist coming the other way! We stopped for a chat to find out that Glen is cycling from Sydney to Darwin! He was finding it tough going on the surface of the track and was looking forward to getting back on the bitumen again. Found ourselves a nice spot to camp out under one of the many old railway bridges along the track. The Oodna track follows the old Ghan railway line pretty much all the way to Marree. It was so quiet that night all we could hear was our own footsteps. Amazing though to be out in the middle of nowhere - so much open space.
Off to William Creek in the morning and called into the pub for a drink. There are not many settlements on the
and again
loved the colours! track - William Creek is the only one between Oodnadatta and Maree - with a population of 2! Actually I think there are about 11 if you count the residents of the nearby Anna Creek cattle station, the largest cattle station in the world at almost 15,000 square km!! We got talking to the only other person at the bar, a stockman from Todmorden station further north, who told us that because of the drought, their station has had to cut down on numbers of staff and cattle they hadn't had rain for over 18 months. The pub itself is full of memorabilia left by its patrons from all over the world as you can see in the photo - it is also a tradition for patrons to try and flick donations up into a collection bucket suspended from the roof for the Royal Flying Doctor Service - quite hard to do in practice!
We stopped at Coward Springs mid-afternoon, which is an oasis really as they have an artesian bore and therefore they have water, showers, an artesian spa for soaking in (28 degrees) and date palms! Good thing we got there early for a site as it
was popular, including a group of 12 caravans travelling on a 4wd tour together. The camp sites were nice with individual campfires at each and wood supplied. It was nice to have a good scrub up - travelling on dry dusty roads, everything gets dirty. And then there is bulldust - very fine dust that gets into every drawer, cupboard and crevice of the caravan and car! Gave up worrying about it until we onto bitumen roads again - just washed the cutlery before use!
Oops - lost our battery power about teatime that night -so it was dinner by candlelight again! Next morning we headed off towards Maree. Called to see the Mound Springs, these are natural fresh water springs - the water travels underground all the way from Queensland over a very long period of time! Also along the track there are many ruins of old railway sidings and fettlers’ cottages, some better preserved than others - Curdimurka being one of the better ones. Stopped at Maree for lunch at the hotel - the end of the track, but still about 80km before we got back onto the tar again. The Oodna track was a great experience
The Pink Roadhouse
the centre of Oodnadatta - the vastness and emptiness of the landscape is quite something and very different to NZ.
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Alison Dyer(Lang)
non-member comment
Hey Guys!
Hi there and how are you? Its nice that you are surviving the great outback! Some more fascinating places! We go on our Big holiday next week . Cant wait of-course! Take care and see you soon. Bye Ali XX