Just Deserts - Oodnadatta and Over the Rainbow

Our route for the next stage of our journey looks like this ...

Day One: on to the Painted Desert

Not long after we left Coward Springs we spotted a couple of dingos crossing the road ahead of us and shuffling off into the scrub. Di managed to get a quick photo of one before it disappeared along with its sidekick. Although not a great photo, we were still excited because these were the first two live dingos that we've seen in our travels around the country ...

All along the Oodnadatta Track there are signs of the Old Ghan Railway. Here’s a picture of one of the many bridges that span mostly dry - but in this case wet - watercourses ...

There are many ruins of various service buildings but this is the only one we saw with a vehicle parked beside it ...

The township of William Creek is situated at a T junction with the William Creek Road, which traverses west across to Coober Pedy on the Stuart Highway. Here you can get a clear idea of how far it is to your next destination ...

A great little park with mementos from times past is situated across from the pub. There was an old steam engine with these two Galahs perched on the top of its funnel ...

... an old bullock cart built to last ...

It’s not just ruins from early pioneering days that grace this little park. This plaque ...

... explains the story of these two discarded rocket sections ...

The pub at William Creek is well know for its great coffee so we sauntered across the road for a sample - which was top notch, so don’t forget to stop if you’re going past. While we were there we bought some insect nettings to go over our hats and keep the ubiquitous flies off our faces. These were sanity-savers for us Southerners for the next few days. At this point our traveling companions Graham and Liz were detouring out to Coober Pedy for a quick look around and to get some supplies for the remote area camping that lay ahead for the next four or five days. We expected to catch up with them the day after at Arckaringa Station in the Painted Desert, as we thought to stop for the night at the iconic outback outpost of Oodnadatta.

Back on the road north Di had me stop so she could take this photo of our first clear look at a real red centre sand dune ...

A little further along we crossed Edward Creek, one of the major watercourses along the Oodnadatta Track ...

... and not long before reaching Oodnadatta is the iconic Algebuchina Bridge spanning the Neales River ...

As this sign indicates ...

 ... it is the longest bridge in South Australia and is made up of nineteen  30.9 metre spans. A pretty impressive feat of engineering this far from civilisation, it took four years to complete and was officially opened in January 1892.

Anyone who knows anything about the town of Oodnadatta will have heard of the famous Pink Roadhouse (not to be confused with the famous blue raincoat) ...

We soon realised there was no good reason for stopping the night and plenty of good reasons to keep going: it was early afternoon; only a short distance through to the Painted Desert; it was baking hot outside; and there wasn’t anywhere very appealing to set up for the night. To make the most of our brief foray into Oodnadatta we dropped into the Pink Roadhouse for an ice cream before continuing our journey. 

Although we’d technically been traveling through desert for the past couple of days, up to this point it didn’t really feel like it because the large amount of recent rainfall had greened everything up so much. But now we started to see more of what we expected the desert to look like, notwithstanding patches of grass scattered here and there ...

Wide vistas ...

... and beautiful formations ...

...  led us through to the Arckaringa homestead. We arrived around mid-afternoon, where a friendly fella by the name of Bill came over to see if we wanted a hand setting up the camper ...

Our friends Graham and Liz arrived a couple of hours later after a long day in the saddle. They were very happy to settle in for the night. Later on, after a confab we decided to stay only one night rather than the two that Graham had previously allocated. Had we not made this adjustment the next day of travel would have been pretty grueling at over 600 kilometres, most of which would have been on dirt roads. This way we could have two relatively short days, take our time more and relax into the evenings.

Day Two: we arrive in the Northern Territory

The next morning we were awoken by a large flock of Corellas roosting on the station’s communication tower. Before they had all dispersed Di managed to record their presence ...

While I was doing the departure check that good travellers should always do I spotted this guy looking to hitch-hike a lift ...

We continued to be amazed at just how green the desert had become after recent rainfall. Unfortunately these two photos don’t really do justice to the beautiful softness of the colours, but they are the best we could do ...

We had about 80 kilometres on dirt before reaching tarmac once again. The first half of that was quite interesting driving, through lots of small dry creek beds and hills; the second half was an easy cruise on pretty well-maintained gravel.

Once we reached the Stuart Highway we meandered north stopping at various spots to re-inflate tires, refuel both ourselves and our vehicles and to catch up on some important correspondence (including a birthday card to our soon-to-be seven year old granddaughter) and some email at a rare mobile access point on the highway). By late afternoon we’d reached the large overnight rest area at the South Australia - Northern Territory border and decided that was a suitable place to stop for the night ...

Di used our camp oven in the fire to cook up a great little roast of saltbush lamb that we'd bought back at Beltana station. Some root veggies in  the pot along with the roast accompanied by a good bottle of red made for a very pleasant evening with Graham and Liz, who appreciated not having to cook after their very long drive the day before.

Day Three: to Rainbow Valley

The next day promised to be a great, short drive finishing at a classic outback location so we made a leisurely start.  A cruise up the Stuart Highway took us to Stuart’s Well, the last outpost before leaving the tarmac. We made a mental note of it as it looked like a good place to stop overnight on another trip up this way. For those interested in exotic species there is the diversion of a camel ride ...

.

.. on, amongst others, this fine fellow ...

While we were enjoying our lunch a  road train full of Northern Territory cattle heading south pulled in. In the photo below you can just make out the tail end of Graham and Liz’s camper and ours in profile a little further back, which gives a sense of the scale of these massive units of transport ...

Our destination for the night was Rainbow Valley, traditionally an important meeting place for Aboriginal people - perhaps because of its beauty but perhaps more critically the presence of water ...

Arriving just after midday we had plenty of time to explore this gorgeous compact park. This is what the James Range looked like shortly after we arrived ...

We took a walk past this outcrop ...

... and on to a feature known as Mushroom Rock ...

... where a small colony of Swallows had built their nests ...

The sandy ground underfoot was dotted with animal tracks, including one from some type of lizard ...

... and we saw many of these interesting rings of dirt with a little hole in the middle where, according to Liz, the resident Lion Ant is hiding ...

There were lots of low shrubs in flower, including these lovely delicate things ...

Graham, equipped with his super duper camera; and Liz, equipped with her super duper sun shade were well prepared for our little trek ...

As the evening drew in Graham and I headed out to try to capture the light on the rock. Graham made a bunch of beautiful photos; I did my best with my simple little point-and-shoot. The next photo has been resized and compressed and I hope to have a better version up on SmugMug shortly after we get home, but in the meantime this should give you an idea why it’s worth spending the better part of a day at Rainbow Valley (not a bad photo to click on for a larger image) ...

And that’s it for this post. Look for the next update in a day or two or maybe a week ...

All the best

Doug and Di