24. – 30. May

Time to move on, we left into the direction of Innamincka. Or goal was to get to the Strzelecki Track, which would get us back to Leigh Creek. – Oh, I think so far we really didn’t mention that it’s winter down here. You might think that there is now need to note it here, everyone knows even the winters in Australia are warm… Wrong, they are bloody cold in some parts of the country. Especially in the region we are travelling! The temperature can drop down to zero degrees or below. Know you will finally understand why we were so keen to have stops close to hot bores/spas. :-) … And you can get a fair bit of rain here. During the night from the 23th to 24th it rained a bit. Maybe a bit more than we thought…

At first it was easy travelling on the road to Innaminck  but it changed after 140km when a really soft, muddy section started. It took us nearly 3h to cross the following 10km – only mud which blocked the tyres within seconds. The mud got so thick under the car and around the wheels that it started to block the steering. – Every mud is different and this one was a nasty one. Consisting of clay and tiny to small rocks mixed with sand. Sticks to everything and anybody. A pain to remove from the care when it’s still wet but a nightmare when it’s try! It get’s as hard as stone! But if you put a bit water on it and it gets instantly soft. Yuck, I think we had around 75-100kg of mud collected under the car. – Driving on mud is like driving on wet snow. The only difference is that you have to remove the mud manual, waiting for warm weather to melt it away doesn’t work! :-)

But we made it, just stopped every 1000m and cleaned the tyres… Some other cars were not so lucky – they were towed. We couldn’t understand how you could try this road in a normal 2WD or in a motor home. This road was tougher than the Birdsville track… Unfortunately we had to abandon our plan to go to Innamincka as the roads were impassable – one crossing got deeper over night and all other roads were closed. There was even no possibility to go to Cameron Corner… so we decided to return via the Birdsville Track.

And what a change it was… the track looked completely different! The first part (Birdsville to Mungerannie) was a bit tricky. This time we had to cross over 10 flooded areas and not just one like the first time. Sometimes they were creek crossings and other times they were muddy sections. - Luckily we didn’t clean our car – it would have been dirty all over again. – Two or three creek crossings were pretty deep, the water was over our bonnet and went up to our windows when we crossed. - $500 well spent for the snorkel! … 1st or 2nd in low gear, high RPMs and the little Grand Vitara Diesel gets you through it! – The track was officially open for 4 wheel drives with high ground clearance and heavy trucks. As you can see in the photo trucks didn’t have a problem with the mud and water. 40 tonnes and 500 PS, nothing stops you! – Don’t get me wrong! The truck driver of this truck waited for us at the next very deep creek crossing. He wanted to make sure that we were able to cross safely! – Outback Australia, you care for people!    

This time we didn’t had to stop to get rid of the mud, we had to clean our windows instead. Basically the hole trip was driving from one muddy section of track (collecting mud) to the next creek crossing (washing away the mud). But we reached the campground with the bathtub while the sun was still up and enjoyed the relaxing spa. And then it got cold – suddenly a cold breeze has started. We even had to think about sleeping in the car due to the heavy wind. The wind didn’t stop during the night neither the next day – so we’re hoping the wind would stop otherwise we might have to change our future plans. – Oh, just for the record and the curious people… the last part of the track was muddy and we had to remove the mud ‘manual’… No, there wasn’t a carwash in the area! :-(

The area around Maree and Leigh Creek has changed as well – they received rain and it was much greener and there was water over the road as well. We were camping in Leigh Creek and saw the big coal train going from the coal mine to Port Augusta – it has 170 carriages and 3 locomotives. At least that was the length as I counted it. The train comes every day to carry coal to Port Augusta using the railway tracks of the old Ghan line. We had to camp for two days as the grocery shop was already closed when we arrived and won’t open on a Sunday but a bit of R&R was coming handy.

Bye, bye,
Tom and Anja