Outback Tracks

From Rawnsley Park Station, we decided to backtrack a little to Hawker and take the main road up to Leigh Creek. We planned to take the Oodnadatta Track and overnight at Leigh Creek and William Creek on the way to Coober Pedy. Yeah… none of that happened! LOL.

First there was NOTHING at Leigh Creek. The Coal Mine tours no longer operate and they have even closed the viewing section from the highway. The Beltana Roadhouse, which I had read so much about, was also closed, so we decided to push on to Marree. We stayed in a free camp adjacent to the Hotel and it was great! Heaps of space for a big rig and the guy at the pub was lovely. We wandered all over the old hotel and he even let the kids have a swim in their pool. We love a free camp that only costs a drink. And Dunc finds it soooo hard to order a beer after a long day driving…

 The next morning we popped into the Arabunna Aboriginal Centre for a quick visit, and we are soooo glad we did! We had a wonderfully informative talk by one of the men working there, and the children (and adults) learnt all about the different tools and baskets used in the past.

And then we were off up the official Oodnadatta Track. Where we bumped and bounced and enjoyed the view of… nothing. It really is the most barren of outbacks out here. 

We DID enjoy the sculpture park and we stopped to wonder at the awe-inspiring sight of Lake Eyre – it truly DOES look like an inland sea! Even though it was stinking bloody hot, Dunc was keen to go and stand on the salt pans. I remember walking out all that way when I was a kid and was keen NOT to do it again. Lexie and Angus were keen to avoid the flies.

Ahh the flies – flies and flies everywhere! They crawl all over you – up your nose and in your ears and they can’t really be swooshed away – you have to physically swipe them off! Horrible little beasties. We are well used to wearing our fly nets now.

A little while after stopping at Lake Eyre, we had to stop again. This time through no choice of our own – Bertha overheated and that was it. Dunc and I had our hearts in our mouths for a few minutes, until he realized that we had lost a fan belt and that had taken out the second one too. We had to wait for the engine and radiator to cool down and gave it a few minutes extra since we were comfy enough on the side of the track. Thank goodness we had 1200l of water and a long hose to top up the radiator with!

So in the end, we decided to free camp at Coward Springs for the night. A relaxing dip in the natural arterial spa cooled our bodies and heads and we decided to cut our time on the track short and head back to the turn off to Roxby Downs. Dunc’s wrists were sore from hanging on to the wheel on the corrugations and Bertha was choc-a-block full of dust! We had dust on EVERYTHING. (This morning I spotted the dust IN the griller which missed out on the spring clean.) Duncan was worried about the toll on the old girl. He wasn’t expecting the track to be as rough as it was. We’d lost 2 reversing lights from the trailer and the wiring for the trailer breaks had lost all its cable ties. We decided to cut down from 3 more days on the track to 1.

The next morning, after a quiet night and a lovely sleep in, we were off. The track seemed much better when we were fresher, but it soon deteriorated once more. Dust yet again came in through our back bedroom somewhere/somehow. It was impossible to see where – there was just a constant haze of powder. In the end, the children had to wrap damp tea towels over their mouths and noses. It felt just like we were playing old fashioned Cowboys and Indians… Celebrations were in order when we finally hit the blacktop once more – yippee!