The Birdsville Track - 12th-16th April 2009
From the Flinders we headed north to the small town of Marree. We were now in the outback and the scenery had changed to a scrubby desert landscape where we could see for miles. Marree is an important supply point for travellers undertaking the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks, the latter being our next route. We wanted to see Lake Eyre so headed straight up from Marree, where we also got to pass through the dog fence, the longest fence in the world (approx 5400k’s). It is meant to keep out the dingos from sheep country in the south with cattle country being north. After a fairly rough 100k drive, we arrived at the dry salt lake of Lake Eyre to be greeted by a gazillion flies. From the floods in Queensland, water is now filling Lake Eyre which has only happened a handful of times in the last 150 years. We would have loved to have seen the water, however it hasn’t flowed down to the south of the lake yet where the only access tracks are, the only way to see it being by air.
We were greeted with a vast expanse of salt (and plenty of flies), which was just as an amazing site for us. It is also the largest salt lake in Australia, the lowest point on the mainland at 15m below sea level and the site of Sir Donald Campbell’s land speed world record in the bluebird in the 1960’s. Did I also mention the amount of flies? After a few piccies we headed back to Marree where we could see a few rain showers on the horizon. I’m sure we had just read this was the driest place in Australia! They looked a fair way off but we were eager to get off of the dirt track just in case. As we drove into Marree we were under a thick black cloud and it had started spitting. We pulled up at camp and made our way to the camp kitchen as the first rumble of thunder sounded. Subsequently followed the most amazing storm we have ever seen, made all the more amazing as the sun was going down and we could just see for what seemed like 1000’s of K’s. At one point there were 3 storms going on around us, all with fork lightening. We were both quite excited until we realised that the Birdsville track could be impassable from heavy rain. This is something Carl has wanted to do since we talked about travelling so he was feeling a little disappointed. Not much rain fell in Marree but we would have to wait until the morning to find out if any part of the track was closed. We spent the night in the bunk house after the friendly campsite owners offered it to us due to the storm. With the prospect of sleeping in the roof top and practically being the tallest thing on the campsite we gladly accepted.
The next morning we were pleased to see the track hadn’t been closed, so we fuelled up and started the Birdsville track, heading for Mungarannie. The track was very good for a dirt track and hardly any wet spots apart from a couple of sections, one with a small flowing river and another with about 1/2k of standing water about knee deep. All negotiated without any problems. We pulled in to Mungarannie, which consists of just the pub offering camping and fuel and decided to stop the night here.
We spent the evening in the pub, our first outback pub experience, and even treated ourselves to fish and chips. We had a great evening talking to the owners and one of the locals (from 200 odd k’s away) who was travelling through to muster his cattle. We watched a video and learnt about the origins of the track. Originally it was a stock route for cattle to Adelaide before becoming a mail route where Tom Kruse did the mail run in the 1930’s to 1950’s in his Leyland Badger 2wd truck. There wasn’t a dirt track in those days just a set of wheel ruts through the desert and it took approx 2 weeks to deliver mail & supplies on the 514k run. The hardest mail run in the world. Even now they only get mail once a week by air, and to think we laughed about no mail on Saturdays when we moved to Brissy!
The camping area was just to the right of the pub and they even had a hot bore pool. Unfortunately in the day it was too hot to get in, it was like a hot bath, so we gave it a miss. We also got to watch another storm roll on by. We really enjoyed staying here and there was something so nice about being in the middle of nowhere, it was just so peaceful and open. Kind of perfect apart from the flies and the ants which were so hell bent on crawling and landing all over you. H spent most of her time outside hoping from one foot to the other to avoid the ants and Carl spent his time trying to kill the flies.
We headed off early the next morning and caught up with Peter (the local cattle owner) about 100ks up the road. He invited us into his caravan for a coffee as they had punctured another tyre (this was his 4th with still about 250k’s to go). We were pretty amazed as we watched the guys repair the tube and refit the tyre all on the side of the road, made us feel a bit unskilled! We enjoyed listening to them as they told us about living and working out here and how they drive over 500ks to their cattle and carry all supplies with them. They were so very friendly, something we have noticed a lot away from the coast. True outback hospitality.
The scenery through the Sturt Desert is very flat with lots and lots of red gibber stones, which are pretty unforgiving on tyres. Although it sounds boring, we never seemed to get bored of the scenery. I’m still trying to work out what the cattle eat out here, I never did seem to get that one answered and I’m sure it isn’t the red stones like I was told! As we travelled on, the scenery was subtly changing, from red stone to sand and then we hit Queensland. To our complete amazement it was GREEN, a real lush green, like English county side. We then found out that Birdsville had been completely cut off due to the Diamantina River flooding and had only reopened 3 weeks ago.
We saw some pictures of the flooding later on that evening at the pub and due to the flatness the water had travelled for about 10k around the town. As we drove into the town we passed the race track, home of the famous Birdsville races, where for one weekend in September the town swells to a population of 5000, from approx 150 normally.
Birdsville is the gateway to the Simpson Desert from the east, a major 4wd experience that we would not undertake on our own and it was closed anyway. But the highest sand dune on the Simpson (Big Red) is easily accessible from Birdsville, 35ks down a decent gravel track. Carl would love to do the Simpson crossing in the future, but this is as close as we were getting for now. As we came up to the dune another 4wd was already there, so after a quick chat we watched him go up Big Red, all seemed easy enough, so we lowered our tyre pressures and off we went. Giving it plenty of grunt we made it up quite easily, but let off the gas as we hit the top and weren’t able to fully make it up to the highest point. It was pretty awesome at the top and the red sand just stood out against the surrounding scrub. We watched the other car go off down the other side and attempt to come back up, but after a couple of attempts he couldn’t make it and had to come up what they call the Chicken track!! We were not game enough to even try it with our fully laden car knowing it was notoriously difficult to get up the dune from the western side.
As we drove back through Birdsville down the main street, it was very strange to see the airport next to the pub. That evening we had a couple of drinks in the famous Birdsville Hotel, taking to the bar tender about the recent rains and viewing the pictures he had taken. It must be quite amazing to see a dry river flood with water and he had some fascinating pictures of Warburton River flowing in to Lake Eyre.
We were told we had to see the working museum and just made it there the next morning for the 9 o’clock show. The guy was a bit of a character and he had masses of old collectables and memorabilia, some very interesting like the old washing machines and the first fridges, but we thought it was a bit over rated and felt we wouldn’t have missed that much really.
After a quick stop to pick up some tomatoes for the guys at Mungerannie we said good bye to Birdsville & QLD and headed on back down the track, again stopping at Mungerannie Hotel for the night. I’ve never seen anyone so happy to see tomatoes as we dropped them off, but they hadn’t had any supplies for 3 weeks due to Easter. That night we caught up with some others that we had briefly met in the Birdsville pub and spent the evening chatting around the campfire with their group. Helen & Les from Yatala, not far down the road from us in Brisbane, and Donna and Trev from out whoop whoop in NSW somewhere!! We had a great night with maybe one or two too many drinks consumed.
Next morning we got a reasonably early start after saying goodbye and swapping details with the guys, and headed on down to Port Augusta. It was with mixed feelings we entered Port Augusta, sad to leave the open expanse and tranquillity of the outback but glad to be back on the coast. It is true what they say, there is something magical about the outback and the way it makes you feel. We look forward to more outback adventures in WA. We didn’t do much in Port Augusta other than use it as a stop to get some housework and washing done. We found that the back door seal is not doing its job and we had dust over absolutely everything from the dirt tracks of the last couple of days. We proceeded to empty out the car and clean everything and re-pack. After stocking up on supplies, we made our way to Coffin Bay.
Lake Eyre & Marree
Birdsville Track
