Just Deserts - Delights and Diversions

Stage One: To Leigh Creek via Brachina Gorge and Parachilna

To introduce this stage of our journey I've got two maps for you, extrapolated from Google Earth. The first is simply the route drawn on the map:

A great look at the spine of the Flinders Ranges, thanks to the satellites and Google Earth

 A circuitous route, which could have been much more direct had we wanted it to be. (As you will have probably noticed, the roads straighten up considerably once you're on the western side of the Flinders Ranges.) However, this was a very short day as far as distance needed to be covered, so we had opted to drive via the scenic Brachina Gorge. We visited this spot in 2011 and were keen to see it again. The next image shows the elevation profile and distance covered ...

From my point of view what's interesting here is the elevation gain and loss: we started at 564 metres asl, gained 453 metres and lost 875 metres over the 86.9 kilometres traveled, thus dropping to about 142 metres asl. We're dropping into the Lake Ayre basin and approaching the mythical Lake Ayre Yacht Club! That's still a day or two off though and there are some interesting places to visit along the way and great things to see. Before arriving at Brachina Gorge we detoured via a grave site from early days of white settlement and for future reference visited a couple of beautiful campsites off the main road. The drive through Brachina Gorge was great. We stopped for Di to take a few photos, including this one in the bed of the gorge ...

... but generally we just enjoyed the drive through. 

Once back on the Stuart Highway we soon found ourselves at the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna ...

... where we once again enjoyed some of their great fare.

We had plenty of time to travel the remaining distance to Leigh Creek where we planned to stay the night before meeting our friends Graham and Liz the next morning so we decided to take a little detour along the way ...

... and were so glad that we did. The semi-ghost town of Beltana is just steeped in history and prove to be a real find. We had actually been tempted off the main highway by the sign advertising the historic Beltana Station, but the old township itself proved to be the main attraction. Just past the station we passed a bunch of alpacas and a few sheep ...

There are a number of historic buildings still standing, including the Smith of Dunesk Mission ...

... and the magnificent station on the "old" Ghan Railway ...

Situated just beside the railway station is the cemetery. We were interested to see whether we could find the graves of any of the Afghan cameleers, as they played such an important role in opening up this part of Australia. We didn't find the grave of a single cameleer, but this headstone suggests that there was at least some integration of the Afghans into the local community ...

Between the township and the station is a very large well, which was apparently built by the cameleers. Although there doesn't seem to much else of a concrete nature to mark their former presence this well is surely a fitting testimonial of their contribution to the opening up of the territory ... 

Before leaving Beltana behind we stopped in at the station and bought some of their saltbush lamb. We ate the roast a few nights ago with Graham and Liz, and have extracted some chops from the freezer to fry up tomorrow evening.

We then continued on towards Leigh Creek, detouring once again. We wanted to check out a reserve to see if it was suitable for spending the night but a sign specifically banning camping pushed us on to the caravan park at Leigh Creek. Apparently, when burned the coal from the mine at Leigh Creek supplies something like 40% of the energy consumed in South Australia. While the caravan park at Leigh Creek was right near the railway and the road I was glad we ended up there as it gave me the chance to meet a cyclist who was camped next to us. He does some amazing long distance cycling trips, starting from Adelaide and up to Alice Springs via various desert tracks. He was on the third such expedition, and was christening a new "fat-tire" bike this time around. For the bike freaks out there, he was using a Surly Pugsley frame and had all the best bits bolted on. Here's a photo of his touring rig, including a BOB trailer and a small tent ...

He was averaging about 100 kilometres per day, riding on a combination of tarmac, gravel roads and four-wheel drive tracks. Pretty impressive stuff, eh!

Stage Two: Leigh Creek to Coward Springs

A preview of the day's drive:

Google Maps can be very deceptive: there just isn't that much water!

The drive from Leigh Creek to Marree is an unremarkable passage. What did make it a bit remarkable was finally catching up to our cyclist friend from the Leigh Creek Caravan Park. He'd made an early start while we did our shopping and waited for Graham and Liz to arrive from Arkaroola. By the time we passed him he'd covered 95 kilometres, with another 35 or so to go before arriving at Marree and the pub, where he was planning on passing the night and having a beer or two. Here he is, steaming along ....

Those fat tires must really roll well!

Although fairly uninteresting in itself, Marree is the point at which the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks diverge, therefore getting lots of through traffic. It's after that things really start to get interesting and the history of the place starts to manifest itself.

Talc Alf

Our route took us northwest on the Oodnadatta, but first we had to make a short detour up the Birdsville to visit the iconic outback personality of Cornelius Johan Alferink, better known as "Talc Alf". What a treat! Here's us entering Talc Alf's domain ...

... and a panorama of the property ...

In case you didn't visit the link I inserted above about Talc Alf, he's a self-taught talc sculptor and has created some very distinctive and impressive pieces. Here's a couple of images to give you a taste ...

We had a great chat with Talc Alf and discovered that he's been living out on his patch of desert for 40 years. Our visit was so engaging it was only after we left that I realised I hadn't actually taken a photo of Alf himself, which I am ashamed to admit. In way of recompense, here is a YouTube video I found that will help preview for you what the course a chat with Talc Alf will be like should you visit ...

Other Points of Interest

Back on the road and it wasn't long before we found ourselves at Farina, another must stop along the route, especially at this time of year when a restoration group is beavering away. Farina was an important town along the old Ghan Railway, and is now a ghost town, save for May when the restoration group is doing its thing.

We had planned to stop to poke around and have some lunch. Di took a photo of the remains of one of the more significant buildings ...

... another of the baker in the underground bakehouse ...

... and of one of the signs that show the work that was needed to clear the train tracks of sand from time to time ...

We were glad that we hadn't packed our lunch, as it gave us an excellent excuse to partake of fare on offer at the shop selling the products from the bakery.

After lunch we pressed on northward, passing a collection of quirky, large scale art installations alongside the road, basically in the middle of nowhere. Here are a couple of them ...

The next stop was Lake Eyre South ...

We had lengthy discussions about whether that was actually water that we could see in the distance. Some of us concluded that it was, others remained equally convinced that it was just salt.

As we'd moved north from the Flinders Ranges we'd noticed that the flies were getting to be more of a nuisance. Here's the standard solution ...

... which Di and I resolved to adopt as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Graham and Liz had already geared themselves up; this was another trick that, in our greenness, we were catching up on.

As we were about to push on, a fellow arrived with a bit of a problem ...

It appeared that he'd been driving on the tire for a fair distance, as it was pretty much fried. Before pushing on we decided that we'd ease of on the throttle a bit and adjust tire pressures ...

Graham takes the pressure down a bit

Next stop was Coward Springs, but before we arrive we needed to make the customary stop for firewood. As the Oodnadatta Track follows the Old Ghan Railway line, most people find a spot where they can pull of the road and scavenge a bit of timber from the old railway sleepers. Of course, along with all the old sleepers there are heaps of railway spikes lying around. I souvenired this one as a memento of our trip up the Oodnadatta Track ...

After making quick work of gathering just enough for a modest fire we headed off and were soon at the entrance to the Coward Springs campsite ...

Iconic Oodnadatta imagery: camels and telegraph poles, complete with insulators

Buy a sleeper or better still, bring your own

Coward Springs was one of many spots along the railway where the steam engines could be resupplied with water. It's now a classic camping stopover. The camp sites are tucked in amongst trees. Here's where Graham and Liz and Di and I found ourselves ...

... which was perfect from our point of view, as we were adjacent to the spa ...

We had a lovely evening around the fire, meeting some other Ultimateers who also making their way eventually to our rendezvous at Chambers Pillar.

In the morning before we left Di took some photos of the amenities, including the shower block with its Old Ghan sleeper-fired boiler ...

... the equally rustic but charming toilet blocks ...

... two gorgeous pieces of art featuring local birdlife inside the women's toilets ...

... and another in the men's ...

... and so it was with light hearts that we rolled out on to the road, looking forward to more delights along the way.