Monday 28th June 2021
Last night we met our new neighbours at the Pink Roadhouse Caravan Park at Oodnadatta. You wouldn’t believe where they come from. Picketts Valley.  It is such a small world.

Today we have a big drive ahead from Oodnadatta to Dalhousie Springs via Mt Dare. Overnight David researched the roads to Dalhousie Springs and found that there were a number of roads closed due to the recent heavy rainfall. The road directly  from Oodnadatta  to  Dalhousie Springs has a section closed, an alternate  route also has a section closed, so that solved our dilemma about whether or not to go to Mt Dare for petrol or not. We had no choice we had to go the only way possible and that was 10km short of Mt Dare, so we will get the extra petrol. This will ensure  we have sufficient to get us to  Birdsville.

As it was a long way 250km to Mt Dare  then 70km to Dalhousie Springs, we set off early – just before 8am. It is always difficult to get going early as it is dark until 7am and it is so cold. The temperature  got down to 2.6°C last night. There seems to be more green vegetation today along the roadside. Once we turn on to the road to Mt Dare the road narrowed significantly, really only one lane, it got rockier with many  large boulders and there were many more ruts and corrugations. Sometimes it looks like you are driving on a bed of nails. Fingers crossed our tyres survive. A much slower and trickier drive. It was like you were driving in a trench as each time they grade the road out gets deeper.

Some of today’s highlights:

1 We saw some vibrant desert peas along the side of the track.

2 Fogarty’s Claypan was a unique landform we hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately the road to it was closed so we had to view it from afar.

3 Hamilton Station looked like quite  a new homestead with a lovely creek crossing.

4 Tent hole creek crossing was a substantial size creek and was therefore surrounded by beautiful green vegetation.

5 The stations are so vast here I wondered how they  roundup their cattle – apparently with helicopters

6 Animals have been quite scarce this trip – we have hardly seen any kangaroos at all. We saw one today. David has been disappointed there have been no snakes, lizards or even any geckos. We have really only seen one angry emu.

7 Eringa Creek Stockyard

8 Lindsay Creek was a large mass of water with beautiful trees

9 Eringa Ruins – was just a small building but in the time we stopped here any the creek another four cars joined us.

10 At Mt Dare we filled up the petrol – only $2.27 per litre. And luckily we topped up our provisions at Oodnadatta as they didn’t have much stock there.

We thad some lunch here and then headed to Dalhousie Springs – a 70km drive on a much rougher, more rutted, rocky track with many more boulders, lots of washouts. It then got sandy the further we went along. It was a much slower track than this morning. We arrived at the campground at about 3.30pm. A first for us this trip. We met up with our friends here and the first stop was to enjoy a dip in the thermal springs. A very large spring and very comfortable 39°C. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Then we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon chatting and catching up  on everyone’s travels. It was a lovely end to the day.

Well tomorrow we start our Simpson Desert Adventure. We are  very much looking forward to it.