Hawker - Coward Springs 06 August 2013

Well today's the day - finally going to justify the outlay on the totaly go any where camper. Yep that's right Oodnadatta Track here we come!
More beautiful landscapes through the Flinders ranges dotted with more and more ruins lining the path of the old Ghan railway.

Dick's Knob (I kid you not!)

Spotted a couple of trots of emus (what is the right collective noun here - flight just doesn't cut it) off to the side of the road. Stopped for fuel in Leigh Creek which is the biggest place around, you know, supermarket, cafe, school fer Christ sakes (complete with flashing lights on the school crossing), but the servo was closed, so we had to go down the road a little to a one and a half horse place called Copley to fill up the incredibly thirsty beast at the princely charge of $1.89 a liter! Worse was to come as when we got to Maree, which is at the start of the Oodnadatta track it was even dearer (by a whole 10c!!!!!).
First mechanical failure discovered at Maree - the Anderson plug on the camper (it plugs into the back of the Patrol to supply the camper with 12v while traveling to run the fridge and recharge the batteries) decided to dedicate it's existence to Vibratum, the God of Bumpy Roads, and fell out of it's designated socket and dragged along the ground until it self destructed. Fortunately I had a trusty spare and was able to replace it without too much swearing... (note to self - buy more Anderson plugs in Alice)

Mosque built for Afghan camel drivers

Maree Pub

Lake Eyre Yacht Club Maree

The track begins

The drive north from Lyndhurst is strange with long stretches of good dirt road interspersed with sections of bitumen which just appear for no apparent good reason. Anyway, once you go past Maree it is all dirt (well rocks with a little bit of dirt between the rocks), but happily recently graded so not too rough. Surprisingly, there is a lot to look at on the track. Emus, lizards, dead lizards, dead roos etc, but also lots of man made stuff from graffiti (DIP signs which have been changed to "Skinny Dip", "Corn Dip", "Get a Grip", "RIP", DIB DIB DIB etc etc), old railway water tanks which wouldn't hold a drop these days with all the rust holes in them, and even a sculpture park where two old Beechcraft aeroplanes have been stuck tail first in the ground and painted like American Indian Thunder Chief effigy's and a selection of old drive train parts have been turned into a mechanical person holding a baby. Only in Oz. Probably the most amazing sight was an extremely dedicated individual on a bicycle!!!!!!!! WTF!

Views of Lake Eyre South off to the right were pretty cool with water visible in the distance but lots of salt flats between us and the wet bits. Apparently there is some surface water over 40% - 50% of the southern lake from recent rain and creek run off, but the northern lake only has about 5% from direct rain fall.

Stopped for the night in Coward Springs which used to be a siding on the old Ghan where the camel trains would meet the steam trains. There was a pub and hot spring baths.Sadly only the "hot" spring survives.

Mildura - Hawker South Australia

Well, now we realy are on holidays. Decided to take a lay day on Sunday and have a gentle look around Mildura after a late breakfast.... So much for seven months planning ;-)

Had a butchers at WB Chaffey's house, Rio Vista. WB was one of the two Canadian brothers who came to Mildura in the 1850's to set up an irrigation project. The house is beautiful, but unfortunately only the main dining room has been fully refitted with the original furnishings and the rest of the rooms are either just bad guess work, or empty. The name of the house translates to River View, but rather like our caravan park, the river would need to be in flood to actually be able to see water from any part of the house other than the roof top.

Also walked around Lock Island where there is a lock (no, realy!) to allow boats to pass up and downstream past the weir. As luck would have it we were in time to see a smelly deisel powered paddle wheeler pass through with a load of tourists on board.

After all that excitement it was back to camp for a well earned bottle of bubbly and dinner.

Hazel Made me do it!

Up well past sparrows the next day for what was supposed to be the last long drive before we get to the start of the Oodnadatta track. The late start, and a bit of geographical discombobulation in Renmark due to an intense period of "Spot the Prado" (more later, but suffice to say at the end of day three, the scores are Len 22, Hazel 20), we wound up cutting the trip a little short of Leigh Creek and pulled in to Hawker instead. Got to say the drive was beautiful - all the grape vines though the Renmark area where even single blocks between houses are covered in vines was an eye opener, and the drive through the through the Flinders ranges is stunning. It is truly amazing how many ruins of old stone homesteads, houses and sheds there are along the side of the road, sometimes not even a kilometer apart. Must have been a tough decision to walk away after all the effort of building so far from civilization.

Couldn't help thinking of Rhys today as we traveled from Orooroo (if it wasn't Australia, you would swear I made that name up) to Hawker on the RM Williams Way. Saw several signs to Quorn, and though the desire was there to turn left, there was that ever present felling that the price on our heads might still be active. If you don't understand the last sentence, you are probably not meant to - what happens on the central oz trip, stays on the central oz trip :-)

Would have loved to have spent more time in some of the towns along the way (Burra is especially pretty, despite the stupid woman on the motorbike at the servo who had to finish her phone call before she filled the tank, paid, put her purse back in her bag, tried to do up her leather jacket then gave up, put on her helmet, put on her gloves, tried three times before successfully putting her bag over her shoulder - the helmet kept getting in the way, before finally straddling her awe inspiring 250cc's of power, fumbling with the keys, double checking the stand was up, and finally firing it up and getting out of the way so we could get to the deisel pump, only to be blocked in for five minutes by a cattle truck while the driver picked up his newspaper and gossip fix before we could get back on the road....... Maybe that bit about being on holidays was a tad optimistic, still a little way to go in the relaxation stakes -oh well, tomorrow is another day.

After taking all out fruit and veg off us, this is the welcome sign to SA at Renmark - Vroom Vroom!

Oh, Prado Spotto: A fun exercise to help pass the time. 2 points for spotting a Prado, 5 points if it is towing a Jayco of any description -

just don't play when spotting sign posts should be your primary goal.

We're Off! Devon Meadows - Mildura (well sort of)

Well, after two years preparation, seven months planning and five days packing, we finally set off on on the J's second outback adventure. The first one being some time ago now and much less adventurous - the billy lids were still in school and we were restricted to bitumen in the old 'red rattler' falcon.

This time it's different!!!

Hooked up the Aussie Swag and headed out the driveway at 08:30 this morning, which was not a bad effort considering the target was 08:00. Oh well, the best of time lines always seem to slide to the right (little project manager joke there). The trip was uneventful and not very exciting other than for the fact that we had started out holiday. Pretty much a been there got the the t-shirt kind of day since 99% of it was territory we have been over many times before. The most interesting sight on the way was Big Lizzy at Red Hills, which is virtually on the outskirts of Mildura. She is one amazing machine. 45 tons of iron with an 8 ton oil burning engine that towed two huge (I'm talking over 10 foot tall) trailers on weird flappy paddle wheels you have to see to understand, at the neck snapping pace of 3kph with a turning circle of 65 meters. Took some photo's, but with typical Jarvis genius, these are trapped in the internal memory of the camera & I left the requisite (not very universal) USB cable at home and can't suck them off the camera - DOH!
At least I have now figured out why the camera wasn't seeing the memory card so future photos will be available to assist in the task of increasing your levels of envy ;-)

Hazel found us a nice sounding caravan park for our first night - river views, grassy sites etc. Turned out to be in Gol Gol NSW (not Mildura) and there are a grand total of two sites from which the mighty Murray can be seen if you climb on top of your fourby and stare off to the south. Up side is that our trip should now see us visit every state except Tassie & Queensland.