Kimberley Adventue

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August 5th 2009

Published: August 11th 2009

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Bearncec

Brian and his toy chainsaw

Phil - you need to travel with Brian. His little chain saw worked a treat.

Day 7 5/8/2009 Lake Eyre to Oodnadatta
The road from Lake Eyre back to William Creek is badly corrugated with bull dust holes to make sure you’re awake. From William creek to Oodnadatta was a mix of sand, rock & corrugations.
We called into the old Peake ruins - ruins of the overland Telegraph repeater station. The road was hard work but it was worth the trip. A lot of work went into the buildings back then - all rock, wide walls and huge fireplaces. Around the ruins are a lot of natural springs which was relied on once but now they have a high salt content leaving the ground with a white crust.
From there we moved on to the old Ghan rail bridge which is no longer used. The structure was built in England and shipped to Australia. The Ghan last travelled over this bridge in 1980 as the rail line was moved further west.
We needed firewood so Brian broke out his toy chainsaw (well it looks a toy in his hands) and cut up some old dead trees.
We had planned to camp at Oodnadatta but we had a look around, spotted the "Pink Hotel" and noticed

Landscape

This was the landscape near where we collected wood. When you kicked them together it made a metal sound!

that a lot of other structures had been painted pink as well. Our gut feeling was to move on so we ventured another 15 -20kms towards Marla and found an awesome camp site near a river bank. Full moon, good weather, great fire, baking in the camp oven - what more could a person ask for except a toilet!
Heading for NT tomorrow.

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