I will leave the report to
John......This was just our trip.
We left
Adelaide on Friday afternoon and met Muddy Doe at Dublin at 4.45pm with the weather looking very threatening. Jiarna was running a bit late so we decided to push on to
Port Wakefield and wait for him there.
Well this is when it got crazy. Wind and rain hammered us for an hour whilst we waited for
John.
John & Anita with kids and Evan in his 60 series joined us at about 6.30pm and after a fuel top up it was on to
Port Augusta. The traffic and rain was relentless all the way to
Port Augusta and we finally made it about 9pm for a late fast food tea,fuel and a quick wiring fix to the 60 series. We left
Port Augusta and with it the last of any rain we were to see for our trip until almost
home. First night was at Lake Heart about 40kms north of
Pimba.
After a windy night we woke to a magic morning. We packed up and head to
Coober Pedy via a quick stop at Glendambo where i was lucky enough to find lpg for 82.5c. (most ever paid) At Coober we met Pesty and Glenda and had lunch before heading to the end of town to let tyres down before heading off to oonadatta. We picked up another vehicle to our convoy here. So our convoy was now Evan(60 series diesel) Brew (GQ Gas/petrol) Muddy Doe (TD Prado 120) Chris & pam (Subaru Forrester) Pesty (60 series diesel) and Jiarna in the 80 series diesel. Track was like a highway after earlier being closed and we got to
Oodnadatta just before dark and went to the claypan to set up
camp. Later on we were joined by Johns Brother and his wife and their 6 kids,his sister and her husband and their 2 kids and
John's Mum. (good fire and chat)
Next day was party day but we had still not seen the town so we drove into OOdna (about 4kms) via a play in the sand dunes and then a play in some mud. Spent most of the morning getting guided tour of entire town by
John before driving out of town on a wood hunt. We returned to
camp and were joined by Geoffrey, an aboriginie who had seemed to be adopted by
John and Anita during their 2 years at
Oodnadatta. Unfortunately the oldest Elder in town had passed away during the night so the town was in mourning and many of the aboriginies
John had hoped would come to the party did not come. Whilst the
camp ovens were cooking Muddy and I went playing in the sand where Pesty had earlier been having fun.
Camp oven
cook up was fantastic.(goat,mutton,roo,chick casserole,turkey and vegies and then some damper) Great party.
Monday morning was when we all went our seperate ways. Some head for
home.
John,Evan and Chris's cars went north to Dalhousie and Muddy,Pesty and I headed south to
William Creek.Once again road was pretty good afetr being closed with only a few puddles for Muddy to paint the Prado. We spent Monday night at
William creek and had a meal at the pub and a much needed shower.
Tuesday it was off to
Coward springs,
Curdimurka and down the borefield road to roxby,
woomera and our last nights
camp approx 140kms north of
Port Augusta. Pesty and Glenda left us here after tea and we enjoyed a beer and a red around our last fire.
We were up very early Wednesday and off to
Port Augusta for McDonalds Brekkie. We were
home by 1pm and did not strike rain until Lower Light.
On the whole the roads were very good and and the price of fuel was a max of 1.52 at
william creek and 1.45 for ulp. Hope i did not
bore anyone too much.