The first night was uneventful, with the exception of the dinner being left in the freezer at home. Having successfully struck and broken camp for the first time of the trip it was time to head into Port Augusta to stock up on enough supplies to last us for the next week. Having stocked up and scratched our heads as to where to fit all that food in our fridges and food storage areas we set off for the Flinders Proper, a station stay called Willow Springs.
On checking in at Willow Springs the host Carmel was excited at some radar artefacts on the rain radar. Rain was forecast and the last time she had seen such an artefact there was a really good rain. I paid no heed, as one knows it never rains in the flinders. The next morning looked nothing like
rain as we set out on the 80km 6hr Skytrek 4WD experience. But sure enough by the time we were at the really steep, rocky, hairy part of the 4WD track a steady rain was starting to fall. I was sure it would be gone by morning.
We had planned to leave Willow Springs the next day, but we had been busy and everyone was feeling a bit rushed and the rain had continued so we decided to stay on and gather ourselves a bit. There were still multiple bags of random items which had been thrown in at the last minute which needed to find their special unique place in the camper. And we needed to dry out. But unfortunately the rain continued, and our day trip to the Prairie Hotel at Parachilna turned into some wet and muddy 4WD action.
During a break in the rain, Hugo found this guy under a rock:
The next day we set off for Arkaroola, again over muddy and boggy roads. Along the way we saw many panicked emus, plenty of wedge tailed eagles and an echidna on the side of the road. We were looking forward to getting to the Gammons, where it never rains, and doing some washing and drying out the tent.
Zoe and Hugo interrogate an echidna
The camper had some serious mud on it. My washing never got dry, it continued to rain. We set off from Arkaroola planning to head towards somewhere between there and Coober Pedy. On the way we stopped to wash the camper.
As we drove north from Lyndhurst, there were some impressive storm clouds around.
We decided to set up camp at Farina Ruins, an abandoned settlement along the old Ghan line which used to be quite sizeable and is now in ruins. There is a very pleasant campsite here and after the rocky baron Gammons a bit of grass was nice. We were joined after dinner by 10 or so friendly frogs who came to eat the bugs. More rain, thunder and lightning. Washing still wet.
The plan for the next day was to get to Coober Pedy, via the Oodnadatta Track. We optimistically set off from Farina but as we got to Maree, it suddenly dawned on us that we would be impacted by the rainy weather in an unanticipated way- the Oodnadatta track was shut!
After much deliberation we decided to wait it out until the road was opened again. Whilst we were waiting I made use of the sunny conditions and dried my washing on a nearby fence, to the amusement of a mob of middle aged 4WDing men who were also held up by the road closure. A type of comraderie developed between the 20 odd people who had rocked up to Maree that morning planning to use the road as most people had nothing better to do than go to the pub. The road opened to 4WD at around 2 in the afternoon. We headed up the sometimes slippery and very muddy road and camped at a place called Coward Springs- a little place with a camp site and an little swimming pool fed by a natural spring. A beautiful sunset that evening.
The next morning we awoke to a threatening skies. We were worried that any more rain would turn the ok- just road into impassable slop. So we packed up and bugged out as fast as possible, and the road was indeed muddy slop but we made it through.
Arriving in Coober Pedy we booked into an underground hotel for the experience, but after the last couple of days the average 3.5 star motel seems like total luxury! Hot showers! No insects! TV! Wifi! Kids may be difficult to extract!
Notable wildlife sightings for the week- smooth knob tailed gecko, yellow footed rock wallaby, billions of wallabies and kangaroos, echidna, dingo, hundreds of emus, all on the road. Many birds including wedge tailed eagles, sacred king fishers, ring neck parrots.
Injuries for the week- Aeroguard in the eye, a mysterious painful wrist, multiple mozzie bites, thumb vs tent peg hammer.
