Gotcha Australia: 4.

Let’s call it Oodnadatta Track or following the old Ghan Route!!!

We started the Oodnadatta Track after having lunch in Maree. The guys in Maree told us that you can’t see any water from Muloorina (50km north of Maree) so we decided to go west immediately and just stop at the Lake Eyre South Lookout. We had a quick stop at a little station which had some steel construction in the yard on our way to the lookout. Shortly after this stop we saw the first glimpse of water and arrived at the Lake Eyre South lookout. We set camp and didn’t walk to the water’s edge as it was still 200-300m away and the reflexion of the clouds and sun was better from the car park anyway. – We were lucky to see water in the lake because it only floods every 10-20 years or so!

Next day we stopped at Mound Springs. This was an interesting place and quite hard to get to as the corrugation were tough but that’s outback. We walked to the mound and were surprised to hear the sounds of a waterfall. When we start climbing up the little hill we could actually see a little pond in the middle of the mound which was feeding a small waterfall. Suprise! surprise! - You never know what you are stumbling over when you are in the middle of nowhere.

The pond was bubbling along all the time. Sometimes you just saw little bubbles coming up and at other times it looked like the whole mound was shaking and the ground was moving. You could really notice how different layers of sand were created and reformed. At the other mound you couldn’t see so many bubbles coming up as this was bigger and covered by grass. We noticed several bugs in the water – they might only live in these mounds...

The next stop was at Coward Springs where you could enjoy another bore bath and a shower if you want to. We just changed into our swimming gear and stepped into the warm water. – Warm is a relative term! Compared to the other bore feeded baths it was quite cold. We guessed around 25 degrees only. Means ‘freezing cold’ when you are used to the 30degrees and above ones! Yes, we are getting soft ins the Outback. We are so called ‘Warmduscher’! :-) - This bore bath was in a rectangular shape and had a little shelter using old railway sleepers. We felt refreshed and ready for the next drive. But first we had a look at the little museum in the old quarters. Coward Spring was a stop on the Old Ghan Line and there are a few things on the property telling you about the great old days. Nowadays, the new Ghan Line runs further west, in a more direct line up north.

Then we drove on stopping at the Lake Eyre North camp ground. This was a nice place although hard to get to... the public access route was so corrugated you had to drive most times on the bypasses and check every meter twice for any potholes. Lake Eyre North has more water coverage than Lake Eyre South (at around 75%) and you just had to walk few meters to the water. It’s said that the area is much saltier than anywhere else on the planet... The area is around 15m below 0 and has only water flowing into – there is no way for the water to get out than to evaporate. Have you ever heard of the expression “it rains fishes!”? This happens in this area and we saw lots of small fishes (around 2cm long). Unfortunately they were all dead but I can imagine that they could rain down...

We watched a great sunset and were wondering about one cloud which was formed from the ground and got higher and higher with a really sparkling top... This must have been a rocket launch from Woomera which is just 300km west of Lake Eyre North. – Woomera is a military area which is used for development and testing of new ‘secret weapons’. Even the Europeans used Woomera in the late 60s to do a few test launches for their rockets. This area here was also used to dump old satellites because of the remoteness and emptiness.

On the Next day we drove through William Creek, just stopping to read the sign what happened when the Ghan was still going thru town (just a small history lesson, you can’t ignore all the history signs next to the road). - You could get onto an airplane for flights over Lake Eyre but we didn’t go... (might save the money for a flight further north). We drove until we came to the Algebuckina Bridge. This bridge is on the national register for historical buildings... It was constructed for the railway and spans around 100m... You can walk a little bit on the bridge and imagine how hard the construction must have been.

Then it was time to arrive in Oodnadatta. They have a little loop track which is called 6x4 meaning 6 sand-dunes and 4 clay-pans. This should re-assemble the conditions you might encounter in the Simspon Desert. We did the loop twice (both had to have a go driving the car). It was fun and not so hard. We also learned that the road to the Painted Desert was opened some days ago so we decided to have a look as well.

We arrived at around 3.30pm and had good light to take pictures and to enjoy the beautiful colours of the rocks (which is called Painted Desert). Unfortunately it’s not allowed to camp in this area so we camped at a station close by. There was no guard dog but a guard kitten – after it got patted for a while it never left our footsteps and wanted to stay with us in the tent. The next morning we saw our first dingo in the wild but his lifespan was not long. As dingoes can kill cattle the farmers are going to kill them whenever they see one. So the farmer rushed in, got his rifle out and went after the dingo which he eventually killed. Beside using bullets farmers also use a huge number of poisoned dog bait to control the number of dingo's. There are plenty of warning signs not to bring your dog onto the farm or if you have to, keep it on the leach.

Our next stop was the Breakaways – an area similar to the Painted Desert just 15km from Coober Pedy. There are two lookouts and some places to walk around the Breakaways. This area had been a big rock/ mountain but most of it got weathered away – just some bits are still visible – they broke away. Then we drove to Coober Pedy and checked into the Underground Campground hoping for a warm night with no wind. They offer around 10 unpowered sites and you just roll your mattress out and put your sleeping bag on top and hope for a good night sleep. The area, you sleep in is around 4x4m with walls on three sides so you’ve some kind of privacy. Unfortunately there were 7 other people staying and they kept talking all night... We also did their opal mining tour which was interesting as it was different to the tours we did earlier. This bloke explained more how to determine and find a good digging side and what they used to create the shafts. We had a try with some rods. They used such rods to see if there is any fault in the stone... similar to the rods used to find water... It was really fun holding the rods and suddenly they started to move around. But you need to have good skills as they move differently depending which person is holding them.