In Which We visit the ‘Go Away From Maree, We Don’t Want To Give You Information Centre’, We lose 2 Petrol Caps, We get on to the Oodnadatta Track, A Window is Broken, Darren Finds a Full Bird’s Nest and Has Two Baths (phew!)
Darren wanted to leave early from Mungerrannie, and since I wanted to wash my hair in a real shower (who knows when the next chance would be?), I had to get up at dawn with the sceaching birds. Fortunately I was rewarded with the most beautiful sunrise, causing me to take 10 minutes to walk to the shower block, because I kept taking pictures. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was in the shower I realised I had left the soap somewhere on the ground between the caravan and the showers, when I had put it down to take pictures. Shampoo had to do.
The photos included one of the old mail truck, which the first mailman, Tom Kruse (!), drove over the dunes and stony dessert to deliver mail through up to Birdsville. At the more difficult parts of the dunes, he left corrugated sheets of iron in the dunes, and then would drag them out so he could drive over them to stop him getting bogged. I am sure there were no complaints at the postal service in those days, they would have been just glad to have one!
So we left Mungerannie and it’s oasis of loud birds and bush pools, refreshed and ready for the next adventure. It was a pretty easy 215Km drive down to Marree, which is the other end of the Birdsville Track. It lies just South East of Lake Eyre, and from here we are at last going to gradually head North, around the west of Lake Eyre and up to Oodnadatta and then eventually on up to Alice Springs.
We stopped at Marree for supplies and fuel.
When Darren unlocked the petrol cap doors we discovered both caps had been stolen! Darren was furious, and showed everyone around him what those dirty rotten %**”$!!* (people) had done to us. He had spoken on the first night at Mungerranie to a couple in a Toyota Troopcarrier like ours. He assumed they must have snuck over to our camp and unlocked the cap doors and stolen them. What is the most dirty thing about it, is that there are only unsealed road out of there, so we had driven over 200 ks with all the dust flying in through the loose doors into our petrol(diesel) tanks.
I made the mistake of questioning whether he might have left them at the last petrol station in Birdsville. At this point an elderly lady who was listening gave me a look that said that I was very game to suggest such a thing to this bear with a sore head. Darren treated my question with the scorn it apparently deserved and went in to the petrol station (also the local store and coffee shop) to tell the proprieter. After the story had been told once again to a new group of people, the owner, amazingly, said he had 2 caps that fitted , that other people HAD left behind by mistake. Lucky, lucky, Lucky! While Darren put them on, he told any newcomers what had happened. He was, ‘a bit cross’.
We decided to push on; the excitement of at last heading North was too good. We were looking for any info. on the Oodnadatta track, on which we were about to venture, so we stopped at the Marree Information Centre. Or should I call it the ‘Go Away From Maree, We Don’t Want To Give You Information Centre’?
The lady in there did not seem happy with her job.
She was on the phone when we went in, and she frowned at us as we entered the coolness of the room. We meekly stood quietly by the desk, as that seemed to be required by her. She continued to ignore us, but she was on a business call, so that seemed OK. Ironically we noticed it was also called the ‘communications centre’ (I think you could use their internet). On her desk was a holder full of pink A4 paper with a mud map on it (hand drawn). This covered the Oodnadatta track, with places of interest along the way, but as it appeared to be just a map, and I wanted a bit more info, I hoped they might have something more. When she got off the phone she just looked at us… So, Mr and Mrs Chipper smilingly, and with cheery ‘hellos’, asked what info she might have on the Oodnadatta track. She unsmilingly pointed towards the pink A4 sheets. I chirpily asked if she had anything else?
“No, and that’s $2”
“Right, (all smiles) $2 it is!”
We took one of the pink sheets, handed over a precious $2 coin - goodess knows what would have happened if we had needed change! – and headed for the door. Darren stopped, “Didn’t you want to use the internet?”, he said to me. I glared at him “ No, no” said Mrs Chipper, “it can wait!”, and with a dazzling smile and cheery “goodbye!”, we got the h*ll of the there.
Even Darren agreed she was pretty rude, and not the sort of person for an information centre - shouldn’t they be cheery ladies that work there part time and make jam and knit sweaters for their grandchildren?
As we walked to the car, I saw that the photocoped paper was called ‘A free map of the Oodnadatta Track’. I was too scared to go back…
There was quite a crowd at Marree – of police. All on a policeman’s holiday, I think they came from Bourke and surrounds. As we left Marree at the start of the Oodnadatta track we were in convoy with about 4 other cars. In the end, we decided to let them pass so we could see the road in front of us, rather than dust. A couple of cars had cardboard taped to the back window. We had been told the night before by our ‘Zim’ friends that this was to prevent stones flying up and rebounding from the caravan onto the back window and breaking it.
Note to self: get cardboard.
While we had stopped we put together lunch. We had stopped near the Old Ghan railway track. The Oodnadatta track follows this old railway line pretty much all the way to Oodnadatta, making for some excellent heritage stops where there have been railway sidings and stops. We went to look at the track, and part of the low bridge it went over. Darren, being Darren, (just call me Mrs. Attenborough), found a tiny birds nest just tucked down by the old track on the bridge, and called for me to take a look. When I briefly peered at it, I saw it was full of very young fledglings. I immediately told Darren to come away, as the poor mother bird would be terrified to find us there. D took a few pictures while I looked anxiously at the sky. He saw the mother calling in a tree nearby – poor thing. I then got very anxious, and ran for it, convinced she would swoop down on us – I would have. He said she wouldn’t as he started to come away from the nest area – and then she did give a couple of dives at us – I was secretly pleased. We waited quite some distance away, until we saw the parents return to the nest. I know Darren hadn’t touched the nest, but I was afraid they might now abandon it after Harry the Heffalump had been looking at it.
Remember what I wrote about putting cardboard on the back window?....You guessed it! As we were driving along I looked back and the larger of the 2 back windows had completely shattered. The tinting film was the only thing holding it in place. Arghghghgh! And this road was one of the best unsealed roads we had been on.
Note to self: get cardboard.
The artesian springs that are dotted around this area really caught Darren’s imagination, and after the very warm dip at Mungerrannie, he was keen for more. There were a couple I had earmarked to go to along the way, Coward Springs and Mound Springs, I just wanted to see Lake Eyre. As there was a lookout to it and Darren was still happy driving, we carried on intending to reach the springs after the lookout. Lake Eyre was a bit disappointing. I really wanted to get up close, and the road lookout I think was a bit too far away. We had decided on the return trip back past Lake Eyre, on our way down to the Flinders Ranges, we would go on the 4 wheel drive road out to it and perhaps camp a night. So next stop Mound Springs.
Mound Springs is a 2Km detour off the Oodnadatta track. It has 2 main springs in the Conservation park. WE stopped at the first one, called The Cup, and it was like walking up to the edge of a big tea cup to see rather slimy water in it. A bit disappointed we got back in the car and drove to the next one. There was noone in sight, and Darren bounded up the walkway ahead of me. The next thing I asw was him way ahead was stripping off and disappearing. Raising my eyebrows a fraction, I stopped to read the information sign. It told of tiny crustaceans and snails living on the water’s edge, and how swimming was not permitted…
Oops.
I walked up the rest of the hill to see the walkway stop over a small pool of water. No Darren; just his clothes. I went to the edge of the walkway and looked down into a pool that was only about 3 meters diameter (10ft ish), containing Darren who is about 1.85m (diameter?!). Talk about a large fish in a small pond! He looked so delighted I felt pretty mean telling him he wasn’t allowed to be in there. Beneath him it was very shallow, and he could push himself along with his hands on the bottom. It was sandy on the bottom and was bubbling up sand and water beneath him. He didn’t like going to near these areas of moving sand, and got particularly freaked out when he thought something had grabbed him from under the water! This really made him get out quicker, though he later realised as he left the water, the ‘thing’ was actually the root of a plant; we were almost disappointed.
I could see the road from where I was, and the 2 cars coming our way. Darren dressed at lightening speed and scurrying to our car, but feeling a bit guilty, we made our getaway.
So – complete success at those Springs. Still feeling buoyant from that excitement, we drove the 10 Ks or so to Coward Springs. This is another natural spring and old homestead that had been renovated by the new owner. My (old) guidebook said you could have a dip in the springs for a nominal fee, or camp there. When we arrived we were disappointed to find that we had to pay to get in to the area at all, and money being tight (even $5 a head is a lot to us), we drove away again.
Darren had driven nearly 350Km (215 miles), and we knew it was time to stop. We have a book camp sites in Australia, called CAMPS 5, this lists all the free sites, and ones under $20 a night. Our copy has pictures of most of the sites. The next nearest sites both looked grim, no shade and right by the road. We headed for the first and I said that hopefully it will be better than the picture. Rather upbeat of me, don’t you think?
Beresford Siding was decided upon, all we knew was that the old Ghan train used to stop there. We arrived, and it was clear that whoever had taken the photo for the book, had taken it from the road and kept on driving. There was a track running into some trees, past the open area of the photograph. To our disbelief the track ran past a big dam of water and opened out into a dusty area next to the dam with trees around it. Hoorah! Nirvana! The track then dipped down over a ridge out of sight. After we had uncoupled the caravan and set up, we went for a further explore.
We followed the track down and up the dip and came to an old railway building- Beresford Siding. There was a sign in it, explaining that the property belongs to Anna Creek Station, a mere 70 Km (43 miles) away, and believed to be the world’s largest cattle property. Behind it was an unfenced field and the track went past the building. All the sleepers of the railway were missing nearest to the house where hundreds of campers before us had used the building, and the sleepers for firewood. This is not vandalism, it is an accepted use of the wood all the way to Alice Springs. Near the house there was a big pipe coming out of the ground, which we followed to find it was a constantly flowing artesian bore directed into a cattle trough.
Darren got excited again, and really, I had to agree this was too good a photo opportunity to miss. Off came the clothes (again!), and in true Wild Western style he leapt into the trough. It felt freezing! Meanwhile I tried to get into a good spot to take a photo, and started being bitten by mosquitoes, which completely deranged me. Poor Darren had to sit in the trough, waiting for me to take a photo, while I hopped about, slapping my back, and squealing that I had been bitten. I completely spoilt his moment. Still, I took the photo, Darren hopped out pretty smartish, got dressed and we continued on our exploration.
There was also a massive water softener drum which prepared the bore water for the steam engines of the trains which of course Darren immediately climbed up. He said from that height you could see the railway track for miles – but I still wasn’t tempted to climb.
All that in one day! Because we had clean flowing water – a real treat - we decided to stay for at least a couple of days.
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