Day 15 – September 15 2012

The dozens of birds at Farina campsite woke us as dawn was breaking, it was great listening to them & seeing them flying in & around the trees we were camped next to, watching them fly into hollows to feed the chicks (a surprisingly lovely place being so close to the sad little ruins of Farina).   We were packed & away by 8am, such a shame to leave such a nice spot, for the 55km drive into Marree to meet John & Helen.  The road interspersed between dirt & a couple of lengthy stretches of bitumen that was nice, but mostly flat country with a few cattle wandering across the road, plus the odd emu.

Marree is a small place, the intersection of the Birdsville Track & the Oodnadatta Track, with the old stone pub being the most prominent building in town.  There is a collection of old diesel locomotives that were stranded in Marree when the rail line was closed down after the track to Alice Springs was moved a long way further west to avoid issues when Lake Eyre flooded, as well as the old Blitz truck that Tom Kruse used on the Birdsville mail run for many years.

Not too far north of Marree the road had been freshly graded so it was a very pleasant drive for a while as the landscape changed from rocky red gibber plains & started to be scattered with salt marshes & salt flats.  Unfortunately we caught up with the graders at the Woomera Road turnoff, so the road started to deteriorate again after that.  We then spotted to the north a massive expanse of water, Lake Eyre South.  It is so amazing to see so much water out in the desert, it is an absolutely immense expanse of water, surround on the edges by salt flats.  Lake Eyre is the biggest inland draining river system, it covers 22 percent of Australia.

The Oodnadatta Track continued to follow the old rail line with the old rail bridges still standing crossing over dry creek beds, the odd water tank standing lonely waiting for non-existent steam trains & the old railway siding stone buildings, fallen into ruin.  We crossed the dog-fence, an extremely long wire fence stretching across a vast stretch of Australia, designed to keep the dingoes out of sheep country.  We passed a sculpture park, were the owner does crazy things, such as plant the tails of two planes in the ground & call it art.  The landscape then changed to low sand hills, interspersed with salt plains between them before we came to a lookout for viewing Lake Eyre South.  This lookout is at around the closest point that the lake gets to the road & it is unbelievable that the lake is 15.7 metres below sea level.  We read all the interesting information on the display boards, then kept on going to Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs.

The springs are around 4km off the Oodnadatta Track & are an amazing sight.  The flowing springs are in the middle of a mound that has built up over thousands of years & the mound is around 10 meters high.  The boardwalk to the top of the springs is only recent, with the workmen still completing the last section.  The life in the springs is also amazing, some of the water creature species are only known to exist at the one mound spring, having evolved there over countless years.

Our next stop was Coward Springs, another mound spring that had been used as a watering point for a railway siding.  Two of the old stone railway buildings are still in use, one as a residence & the other as a museum of the area.  We decided to set up camp & have a late lunch so we could explore the area a little further.  John & Helen left after lunch to stay in a hotel. The campsite is another great place, tucked away in a grove of trees with birdlife everywhere.  The spring has had a bathing area built on top of it & both Tereza & Mike had a few dips in the bubbling spring.  We had a beautiful warm spring fed shower & sat down to a great pasta dinner with Rose & Mike, again looking up at countless stars in the clear skies.  206km for the day. It is amazing that in the desert we could find such a beautiful little oasis. The flies & mosquitos loved the place too.