5AM Friday morning and the house is stirring. We are off by 6AM and
well ahead of any heavy traffic. First stop is Wagga for an egg and bacon sandwich. Next stop is
Mildura for fuel and then
Renmark. 12 hours after leaving
home we are at
Renmark. Half way to
Marree the step off point for tours to
Lake Eyre. Leaving
Renmark and a night of doof-doof sounds from a few local yokels, it's full steam ahead to
Hawker for fuel and a bite to eat. Small detour as I turned the GPS voice off and missed a turn. Just a small 60Kms detour. But we make up a little time and get to
Marree in plenty of time to
check out the town and the
lake Eyre Yacht Club. Tom Kruse's old mail truck is still there and a bunch of old Ghan engines. Not much more in
Marree so we lie down and wait for dinner. Asleep by 9:30 in the old
Marree Hotel. I don't think I would rate the bed too highly. Woken nice and early by a family of birds nesting in the wall. It was quite pleasant actually.
At 9:30 we climbed aboard the helicopter for a 90 minute flight over
Lake Eyre. I will hope to get one or two videos up on our account on youtube and will give you the link when uploaded. It was fantastic. The
lake is over half full with water in
Lake Eyre up to 2M deep just above
Jackboot Bay. We flew straight up to the area between the two halves of the
lake,
Lake Eyre South and
Lake Eyre North. We then flew down the banks of
lake Eyre South and back to
Marree. We got down to less than 500 meters. Low enough to see the salt sparkling. Just above a Wedge Tailed Eagle. You could see the pinkish shade of the algae. Unfortunately we are not allowed to land. The "local" mob doesn't like it.
After the flight it was into the trusty Toyota to start our trip
home. But at a much different rate. We have three days to get
home. Not two like the drive over. First stop is Parachilna where we are staying at the
Prairie Hotel. This place is quite
well known for all its Australian "game" meat meals, Kangaroo, camel, emu etc. Not really our choice but dinner was must welcome. A magnificent sunset on our cabin and a good meal ended the best day for ages. A bonus at about 9PM when a coal train rumbled through town. 168 BCH bilk coal hoppers. That makes 1.87Kms of train, not including the three big diesels pulling it. Just 50 Feet from our cabin, on the old Ghan train line that is now upgraded for coal transport to
Port Augusta to fuel the
Adelaide power generation. I was in my element. The driver let a whole series of blasts on the horns. People came from everywhere to wave and watch. It was over 17300 tonnes. A BIG train.
Monday we head east through the
Flinders Ranges and then swing south to Wilpena, hoping to see something of the ruggedness of the area. Quite disappointed but it may have been my choice of roads. You cannot drive into the pound and we did not see any
lookout. Plenty of ways of walking into
Wilpena Pound, but that's physically beyond us. Oh
well.
Next stop is
Broken Hill via a few cross country tracks to pick up the Barrier Highway at
Yunta. FLAP, FLAP, FLAP. Oh hell I think there goes a stub axle. Luckily it was the tread coming off one of the older tyres. Changed tyres and we are off. Not long after a cuppa on the side of the road we come across a bloke stuck in the soggiest, stickiest mud. He is making headway very slowly. Naturally we stop to lend a hand. After a while we decide to hook up to our car with a snatch strap and get him out. The strap does its job and he is out. Tidy up and off to an Egg and Bacon sandwich at
Yunta. We get to
Broken Hill just in time to find a Fish and Chips
shop still open. Some tucker and its in to bed.
Because we only took one spare on this trip we decide to stay with the traffic and not come
home via the
Menindee Lakes and the dirt roads. Down to
Mildura and
home in
Canberra at 11PM. Phew. A killing drive but you have to take the chance when you can. I would do it again. It was
well worth it.
I do not have a blog so this is the report.
Phil