Distance Travelled: 352kms
Weather: Blazing blue sky
Today's Biggest Challenges: The Oodnadatta track (remember what it means (see last blog)? Yep. It’s aptly named).
What I've learned from today: Sand is sill scary! Having a swap-out rider was DEFINITELY a good idea. Great to have people experienced with dirt riding to work with. More grippy tires would be helpful. And gosh, Australia is OLD!
Highlights of today: We woke up to a crystal clear day with our tents covered in ice from a chilly night in the gorge. I got up a bit earlier as I really wanted to climb the nearby hill and see the sun rise over Wilpena Pound 30kms away. It was certainly worth it! Easily one of the biggest highlights of this trip for me, the cliffs were blazing red directly facing East into the sunrise. I wish we could spend more time here but it’s time to move on.
Stuart and I hopped on the bikes for the first section of the day as Stuart was keen for some time in the Flinders. We started riding and were promptly surrounded by a mob of emus! We slowed to 20kmph and they ran with us along the road for some time before they regrouped by darting in front of us and disappearing into the scrub. It was amazing to see them up so close with their funny backward knees and their bouncing ball of feathers. We rode on through the gorge with rock strata either side of us, hundreds of millions of years old… it’s so difficult to fathom just how old they are… they were old when the dinosaurs roamed the earth! A truly awesome experience.
We finally popped out the other side and the first sight of the plains came into view - bare nothingness that will be our experience for the next week. One last 20km lot of dirt and we hit the Outback Highway. 
Soon after I stopped along the way to take some pictures in one of the ruins on the plains. They are quite something - a fireplace in almost every room, very square rooms, fitting together like jigsaws; very simple and elegant and they speak of a time gone by on the wind-swept plains. Again I had many similar thoughts on our way to Orroroo - who lived here? What was it like? It’s quite something to experience. 
We watched the ranges disappear behind us and the plains stretch out in front as we headed in to Leigh Creek for a refuel before heading to Farina to the underground bakery. Farina is an old town in the middle of nowhere surrounded by yellow/white dust in all directions. The town was abandoned many decades ago and they recently started rebuilding it in the last ten years as a historical project. Part of the restorations include the reopening of the underground bakery where we had an early lunch. The area is only an active town of volunteers for eight weeks of the year during the peak tourist season before it becomes a ghost town once more, the only remaining people being the nearby station owner. A fascinating town to look through and I’d love to come again after learning about more of the history. Unfortunately I tripped over running to catch up with the others and severely bruised my elbow somersaulting on the ground (I know I’m so talented, right!) so I couldn’t ride for the rest of the day and Stuart and Kristal took over while I caught up on some much-needed sleep.
We headed off to Marree to the famous Marree hotel where the Tom Kruse museum is (a different Tom Kruse… don’t ask me which movie he was in but ahh well) and had a short break in the heat. It is so dry here that, looking at the leaves on the gum trees, they were so covered in wax in its attempt to maintain water that they looked about as fake as MSG. We spent some time looking at the old railway before heading off to start the Oodnadatta Track. 
The way was easy-going enough and was just bumpy dirt with some gravel and corrugations to start with. It was quite hot and there really was nothing out there. After about an hour and a half of travelling past hills and a field of random sculptures we arrived at Lake Eyre South for sunset. Wow, it is really something! The last half an hour I’d been watching the DeLorme tracker slowly register our sea level height drop slowly to below zero and start into the negatives, and now we ran down the hill to the salt flat to measure it again. It finally registered at -16 meters below sea level (I think a bit out but still close - you can just see it in the picture) and we just stood and drank in the view till sunset. You can just see the curve of the earth where the salt flat meets the horizon as the sun began to sink below the rim. The flat itself it composed of some sort of soft clay (which would just stick to your shoes really easily) with the crusted layer of white salt on top. It felt much like the beach and even the air itself tasted just like the seaside. A beautiful place to be and it was awesome to experience the silence and lack of light-pollution, as it is in the whole outback. We snapped some photos together and headed off for the last 37kms to Coward Springs.
Well! It turned out to be much more adventurous than we had originally planned! As it got dark our attention had turned to the potential for greater numbers of animals on the road, however, even from there an even greater problem was the inability to see anything. With the sunset light in our faces the ruts, corrugations and sand patches were impossible to see and the bikes began fishtailing everywhere. Luckily, our more talented dirt riders were on the bikes at the time to deal with it while I sat in the car looking after my arm. It was a really rough patch and was quite a nerve-wrecking 40 minutes however we made it out alright and arrived at Coward Springs safe and sound. We set up camp under a million stars while the riders went to chill out at the natural spa/mineral spring. We stayed up for some time just enjoying the night sky without any light pollution… I’ve never seen so many shooting starts as out here! Just another amazing night in this beautiful country. A hard road but so worth it.
Tomorrow we are off to the famous Oodnadatta hotel. Hopefully the road will be better than today and that I can learn quickly! Till then, take care, MMG
No comments:
Post a Comment