Burton's Perth to Cape York Muloorina Station to Mungerannie Day 14 -13 April 2011

A quick pack up in the morning after a sound sleep avoided the worst of the flies as we took the track towards Lake Eyre South. Not a bad track, even with the trailer hooked up, only a few concealed gutters and short sections of bad corrugations. Apparently camping at the lake is no longer permitted, notwithstanding the Hema maps advice to the contrary. The walk over the dune to the Lake presented a stunning vista of salt horizon to horizon. There was a plaque dedicated to Donald Campbell and his famous Bluebird who reached over 600kph on the Lake. We walked way out onto the crust, no water anyEwhere in site.

Back in Maree we topped up the petrol tank, wishing we'd picked up the diesel Cruiser instead of the petrol, but that is another story....bought a great flat white, a phone card and eyeballed the Lake Eyre yacht club building. A quick phone call to say happy birthday on Friday the 13th to Amanda's mum and good'ay to my old dear before hitting the dusty road towards Birdsville.

We headed out onto the Birdsville Track, a few obligatory photos of the signs before absorbing more dust. I'd made a mistake in attempting to recycle the two paper air filters in the freezer box on the trailer. It just blows the dust into the box and also the toolbox without any filtering at all. What a mess, two new filters on the shopping list at Australian Offroad Trailers when we get to Caloundra!

There was no way we could make Birdsville today so we thought we might try the camping area at Cooper Creek. It turned out there was no water and the camping area was average. Where was that damned ferry? I wanted a photo! The track itself was fine, allowing an easy 90 kph. We saw only three vehicles coming the other way all day.

We carried on to Mungerannie, an outback pub with a bush camping ground. They even had a hot water spa much bigger than Coward Springs. It was in a bush setting just next to where we camped. After a soak in the hot water and a shower in the absolutely superb modern facilities we retired to the pub for a meal. We caught up with a lady we met in Marree travelling on her own. She was very friendly and gave the kids paper and coloured pencils..it was like Christmas! We watched the story of Tom Kruse the outback mailman on the pub TV and chatted with Bushy the friendly barman and his mate. The kids met another family and spent hours on the pool table - they deserved some socialising. The pub sported a great collection of old, well used bush hats and some other clothing for the nether regions. A great pub meal, a few ales and straight to the comfy queen size bed for an early start to Birdsville and Big Red tomorrow.