Following last year's excellent trip to Cape York, Jill and I organised a Red Centre trip for this year with family and friends. The idea was to get out as far as Ayres Rock in a big loop from Brisbane/Newcastle/Sydney (3 vehicles) within 4 weeks. The time period was really set by school holiday timing and available annual leave. I'll write it up in a day-by-day fashion similar to the Cape York Trip Report.
Here's a basic map for the trip route. We travelled in an anti-clockwise direction.
The convoy was us in the D4 towing a camper trailer, Jill's sister and husband with 2 kids in a Triton using a large family tent (Peter and Peta) and other friends in a Colorado with small dome tent (Marcel and Anna). So a bit of an odd mix of camping set-ups but it worked really well.
The main highlights of this trip are as follows:
Cameron Corner > Strezlecki Track > Oodnadatta Track Flight over Lake Eyre Mt Dare > Old Ghan Track West MacDonnell Ranges Palm Valley, Finke River NP Kings Canyon, Ayres Rock & The Olgas Rainbow Valley/Owen Springs Trephina Gorge/Arltunga/Ruby Gap Binns Track/Plenty Highway Birdsville & Big Red Innamincka via Cordillo Downs Dig Tree/Cooper Creek Total km: 8,589 Days: 29 Fuel: ~15L/100km (99% towing the CT)
Day 1 - 675km to Walgett via Warwick & Goondiwindi Day 2 - 645km to Wilcannia via Bourke & Cobar Aiming to meet up with Peter & Peta in Wilcannia and the other guys at Oodnadatta few days later, so first two days just driving really. Free camp in Walgett was pretty good but it was very, very cold. It's always a great feeling to get the first night under the belt and start to get into the swing of camping/travelling again.
Day 3 - 350km to Tibooburra We had been worried about getting through to Tibooburra and onwards to Cameron Corner for about a week. There had been lot of rain and many roads remained closed, including our original route directly west from Bourke via Wanaaring. After further checks and talking to a few people we decided to head north via White Cliffs, thus bypassing Broken Hill and most of the Silver City Highway. This turned out to be an excellent decision. White Cliffs was really interesting and the road condition was good until we got to Milparinka. From there to Tibooburra was a little sketchy thanks to some light rain that afternoon but we made it by simply taking it steady. White Cliffs is an opal mining/fossicking area and like a mini Coober Pedy I guess (never been there).
Plenty of old mining equipment lying around in a photogenic type fashion and quite a moonscape out in the field.
A couple who have built their own underground house over the course of a few years had it open for an unofficial tour. We had no idea about this beforehand and just randomly struck the tour as it was starting. The house is much larger than it looks, with a rabbit warren/hobbit house feel to the maze of underground rooms. When you look around and consider how much digging the owner has undertaken, all himself, you'll need to have a lie down.
In short, it was pretty amazing and the sheer effort very impressive.
His wife is an artist and her works are all through the house including the fossil montage shown below.
After leaving White Cliffs we continued north-west and arrived at Milparinka. To be honest, was not that impressed but perhaps it was more to do with the fact that it was raining and we had 40km of greasy road to navigate before getting to Tibooburra. Checked into the Granites Caravan Park in Tibooburra a bit worried about the next day thanks to the rain that night. We wanted to go west via the Sturt NP but would the roads be closed again?
The CP in Tibooburra is linked with the Roadhouse and both are well setup and well run.https://tibooburramotel.com.au/
We were only briefly at the CP but it is nicely situated by some large boulders. This is the exact site we had: (photo from their website)
Day 4 - 445km to Blanchewater Ruins on the Strezlecki Track via Cameron Corner Despite our fears, the roads through Sturt NP to Cameron Corner were in excellent condition. Virtually no mud & very little dust. Everything was green and lots of wild flowers were out, as well as plenty of roos and emus. We'd never seen such big groups of emus but at least they were easy to spot on the vast open plains. Liable to move in any direction at any time & difficult to photograph.
This route to Cameron Corner was recommended to us as the most scenic and we would certainly agree that it is. The scenery actually changed a surprising amount over the approx 150km, from wide plains to desert fringe to pronounced dunes, with jump-up type country along the way that reminded us of around Winton in Central Qld. This is the view from the lookout on the Jump-up Loop Road, which leads on to Middle Road and eventually Cameron Corner Road.
Plenty of wild flowers out. This was to be repeated around all areas of the Simpson that we travelled. Blessed with good soaking rains before we were travelling through but not during the trip.
Cameron Corner was a good lunch stop, so a beer and pie at the pub seemed appropriate. This is one of those iconic outback travelling destinations that you hear a lot about. Actually pretty quiet while we there too.
I had a XXXX because Queenslander.
The dingo fence marching off into the distance.
Pretty soon we pushed on westwards towards the Strezlecki Track and enjoyed driving over the dunes on the road towards Merty Merty. It was like being on a giant roller coaster, lot's of fun. And it also really brought home the sense of being properly in the desert.
These days the Strezlecki Track is really a highway with significant sections in bitumen and the dirt sections were hard and smooth, although things would be different in the wet I think. We had no trouble averaging 100km/h. And there's a lot of nothing out there. For example this is somewhere along the Strez near the Mt Hopeless turn-off.
We made it as far as Blanchewater Ruins for a free camp, which from memory is about 40km past the turnoff to the Gammon Ranges. Out under the stars with no one else there was a great experience, felt like the trip was now properly started.
Blanchewater is close to the track but is not signed and not obvious from the road, so best to use a GPS coordinate to navigate when getting close.
Also the first of many places that we encountered all along this trip in the middle of nowhere that people had tried to create something in very marginal country.
Day 5 - 361km to Coward Springs Set off down to Lyndhurst ("population 37, most days" according to the sign), where we fueled up and then continued on to Maree. Kept going and parked up beside the Old Ghan for lunch up on a small hill beside a bridge over a salt pan. There is some interesting things to see at Farina before you get to Maree but sadly on our schedule some things had to be bypassed.
Some photogenic old sleepers still around and a couple of rusty sections of rail in the salt pan.
We stopped in to the Lake Eyre South lookout in the afternoon. Water visible but no where near full. We enjoyed the trip synergy of this lookout because the next day we had a fbooking to fly over Lake Eyre, so seeing it from below and above.
The part is distinct and separate from the main body of Lake Eyre.
Not much further on and we arrived to Coward Springs.
This is a really well set up campground that doesn't cost too much. The sites are quite private so it didn't feel crowded. Plenty of shade from the trees too, which the two kids enjoyed climbing into and playing house. Better than Minecraft on the iPad. We were getting better at doing a joint camp setup.
The facilities at Coward Springs are good, with a wood-fired boiler to heat water for the showers. Plus a friendly little local overlooking things.
But the best thing about that night and the following morning was the sunset and sunrise thanks to the cloud cover. Just amazing but as always difficult to capture with a basic camera and iPhone. All unfiltered images.
Oh and Coward Spring itself? It's ok but a bit underwhelming. More of a tepid bath made out of old sleepers. And I won't inflict people with any images of us having a dip, someone might be eating while reading this report.
Day 6 - 269km to Oodnadatta Early start to get up north to William Creek for the Lake Eyre flight with Wrightsair. https://www.wrightsair.com.au
This is somewhat of a once-in-a-lifetime type experience especially with the lake having a significant amount of water in it (July 2016)
We found Wrightsair to be well organised and professional, would recommend. Especially good considering the remoteness of William Creek. Here is Check-in and Business Class Lounge (and pub) combined:
The flight really was excellent but the whole thing is difficult to capture with an iPhone. Due to the cloud cover we got an amazing effect of the horizon disappearing completely at time, something like a snow white-out. At other times there was nice reflections and wind ripple patterns. The water is so shallow that there was also patterns from the lake bed visible. We didn't get right up to the northern section and this is where you'd expect to see big flocks of birds because the water is less saline and therefore more fish to feed on.
After that bucket-list experience we continued north and stopped for lunch at the iconic Algebuckina Bridge, which was pretty impressive. It was one of the biggest structures on the original Ghan railway that we had been following pretty closely the last two days.
We had originally considered free-camping here for the night but decided to push on to Oodnadatta and hopefully meet up with our other travelling companions who were coming up from Mildura after having mechanical issues with their Colorado.
Algebuckina has a nice waterhole to camp beside but as we were leaving a big group turned up so we were not too unhappy to be moving on anyway. Obviously the main highlight of Oodnadatta is the Pink Roadhouse and as promised, it is pink.
And as it turns out, that's the only highlight. The campsite is behind the roadhouse and very average with pretty poor facilities and outlook. Ironically a free-camp out of town would have been easy and much better but being in town allowed communication with the other guys and a fixed meet-up point that was simple to communicate. So everything worked out and it was only one night but my advice would be to free-camp beside the track maybe 20km out of town. No shortage of flat areas to make a camp. This was another road section that had us concerned in the lead up to the trip and during the first few days due to recent roads closures and reports of difficult conditions. However we found The Oodnadatta in good condition with just a couple of mud holes right near Oodnadatta itself.
Go to Week 2 for continuation of this trip report.
