Out on the Track

It was such a lovely spot this morning that there seemed little point in hurrying. The kids were keen for the first damper of the trip, and with a ready supply of desert firewood we took the opportunity.

I often do a quick lottery for the minimum temperature. Everybody guessed 5-7 degrees, but in fact it was the coldest morning so far at –2. The difference came because there was absolutely no breeze, and a big sun in a clear sky by the time anybody got up.

After telling everybody as we crossed the Ghan on the way out that there are probably only two trains a week, a freight train provided us with a little entertainment, and a blast on the horn just for us as we met at the level crossing.

Back at Kulgera, the first and last pub in NT, it was just a short blast down the Stuart Highway to the SA border. On the way though we had one more waypoint. The Johnstone Geodetic Station was marked in 1966 as the prime datum point for all surveys in Australia. It is an isolated cairn on top of a big rock in the back of a cattle property just a kilometre or so off the Stuart Highway. Unlike the Lambert Centre, there was no signage for this one and we were relying on our map for guidance. There was a complete lack of unfriendly signage to tell us to go away, so I was happy to climb, but the others were a bit freaked out by the proximity of the homestead on private property so we tootled down the road to the border for lunch of flies and citrus.

At Marla we left “the track” as Territorians call the Stuart Highway, for the Oodnadatta Track, one of the many outback byways being promoted as touring routes to keep outback areas alive for tourists. This one goes from Marla on the Stuart Highway, 200km to Oodnadatta which was on the old Ghan route and an Overland Telegraph Station, and onward to Maree at the bottom end of the Birdsville Track, a further 400km to the East.

We find ourselves tonight camped on the banks of a creek a little over 100km into the track. Again, lots of desert firewood, a wide open sky, and only one other camper a few hundred metres closer to the road. Truly peaceful again.