Our place of departure was Springton, in the Barossa region of South Australia. The intended route would take us north through the Clare Valley, then across the RM Williams Way to Hawker. From there we would skirt the western side of the northern Flingers Ranges until they disappeared from view around the coal mining town of Leigh Creek. Still heading north we would take on some fuel at Marree and then hit the Birdsville Track for then next 515Km to Birdsville, skirting the Simpson, Stony and Strzelecki Deserts .
Our journey progressed nicely, with no sign of problems with the engine as small towns came and went. We had pretty much already travelled on all of the roads until we got just north of Hawker, so we didn't stop often to look at different points of view. By evening we had made it to a campground about 15 Km to the west of Hawker. As is often the case in these more remote areas, we were the only folks at the site. Being March, the weather was still quite warm and we parked in the shade of a couple of large River Red Gums.
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| The campsite just west of Hawker |
We enjoyed a pleasant evening, once the Sun had set and the flies finally disappeared, and were asleep by about 9:30. The following morning the flies were up before we were and breakfast was enjoyed inside the van so that we didn't have to share. A quick check of the map, distances calculated, fuel reserves estimated and we were on our way northward to Leigh Creek. I reasoned that if we got fuel at Leigh Creek, we would need less at the more expensive stop at Marree. What we didn't know then, but have found out subsequently, is that fuel is actually significantly cheaper at the small town of Lyndhurst, which is between the two aforementioned towns.
Anyway, we refuelled at Leigh Creek. What can I say about Leigh Creek? Well, there isn't much to say really. It is a small mining town with a supermarket, pub, Post Office and servo and not a lot else. It is neat and tidy and has a medical practice, which was to become our local Practice later in the year. The fuel wasn't cheap, but there isn't much point worrying about these things.
We refuelled and headed north yet again, unwittingly driving past the cheaper fuel at Lyndhurst. Lyndhurst is the start of the southern end of the Strzelecki Track, another of the iconic tracks for the off-roaders among us. Lyndhurst is just one of the locations for railway sidings on the original Ghan railway line, which has long-since been relocated further west. Other towns (still populated) that were a part of the old railway include Parachilna, Copley, Farina and Marree. After Marree the railway line veered to the left (northwest) through Oodnadatta. We were heading to the right and would part company with the old line there.
We arrived at Marree to find the main road into town barricaded. A young fella in a beat up old Toyota work ute strolled over and told us that the road was blocked while some action scenes were being shot for a movie. Apparently Guy Pearce was somewhere inside those barricades. A detour had been set up and we took the rather corrugated bypass to the only servo in town. As it happens, the fuel was only a couple of cents dearer at Marree than it was at Leigh Creek, so the previous stop was probably unnecessary. We didn't get to see any of the film shooting, nor did we have a brush with fame. By the time we had fuelled up and got on our way again it was just after midday.
The Birdsville Track has its southern end at Marree and finished 515 Km later at Birdsville. There is no bitumen along the way and the only fuel stop is at Mungerannie, which is less than hallway from the southern end. The track itself was dry and relatively smooth to start with, although there was evidence of recent rain and some small ponds of water to the sides of the road. About 50 Km short of Mungerannie things changed for the worse. It was clear that a large truck had been through before the track had dried sufficiently and had created some very deep, water-filled ruts in the surface. The ruts weren't in nice straight lines either. Clearly the road was slippery when the truck traversed it and the vehicle had wandered (or slid) over much of its width.
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| The Birdsville Track |
Our job was to basically straddle these ruts and steer along their crooked path, hoping to avoid falling in to them. It was a difficult job and it slowed us down considerably. The plan was always to take two days to drive the length of the Birdsville Track, but the slowness of the pace meant that we stopped a long way short of where we hoped to be by nightfall. Mungerannie was as far as we got.
Mungarannie is a servo, pub and campground. It is owned and run by Phil (last name unknown). Phil is a very interesting character, to say the least. We pulled in and Sue got out to pay the $10 campground fee. She got into the pub and Phil cheerfully told her to "put your money away and come over for a beer later on." We did just that. After setting the van up we wandered over to the pub. It was quite hot outside and marginally cooler inside. Apparently Phil doesn't crank the air conditioner up unless he's got several patrons.
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| Mungerannie Phil |
I put our money on the bar and ordered our drinks. We had a pleasant conversation with Phil, during which we mentioned that we were going to Birdsville to work at the pub. That changed things completely. we were "pub people" just like Phil. He became very animated and when it was time for the next round of drinks, he shouted us. We had a third round, and then a fourth. Sue went and got ice from our van to have with her scotch, because Phil hadn't turned his ice freezer on yet (not enough tourists this early in the season.) All this time, Phil had not taken any of our money. Evening closed in on us and we ordered fish and chips for dinner (I think that it was all that Phil felt like cooking.) The meals were actually very good - and Phil still didn't take any money from us.
We had another round of drinks and were making moves to leave. Phil shouted us another round (obviously to keep us there) and that was followed by yet another round. After that we had to go. We had the rest of the Birdsville Track to finish the next day, as well as set the van up when we arrived at Birdsville. Phil tried to keep us there but we had to go. In the end I pointed to our money and asked Phil "How much do you want for all of that?" He scratched his chin and picked up a $50.00 note. "That should cover it" he said. I was floored. A meal and six drinks each for a total of $50.00! I did a quick mental calculation and concluded that he'd charged us less than half of what we'd expect to pay anywhere else. It was certainly a different way to do business.
Besides the pub, there is a considerable wetland at Mungerannie. It came about as the result of a free-flowing artesian bore that was sunk in the first decade of the 1900's. The wetland evolved slowly until it reached the stage that it has now, a showcase of nature in the desert that is important both ecologically and as a social attraction for locals and tourists alike. It is well worth a look, but wear the insect repellent. Which brings me to the next point. If you leave your van to go to the pub at night, don't leave any lights on. We got back to a van full of bities, due to not securing the screens in the bathroom of the van.
The next morning we got away bright and early, before Phil could collar us. One of his staff told us that Phil had been known to keep people captive at Mungerannie for days. The track to the north of Mungerannie became progressively less chopped up and by about Cooper Creek it was dry and smooth again. We were making good time until we reached the south western side of the Stony Desert. They don't call it the Stony Desert for nothing - even the road base that they used on the track was made up just of stones. It was very rough and I was very worried about tyre damage.
After about 50 Km of this we saw two graders coming toward us. "Bewdy" I thought, but was dismayed to see that all that the graders had managed to achieve was to turn the rocks over so that their sharpest sides were facing upward. We had to slow down even more! It was another 50 Km before we finally cleared those rocks. I breathed a sigh of relief. We hadn't damaged any tyres....or so I thought. The final section of track into Birdsville was amazing. It was 4 lanes wide, smooth as a billiard ball and made of a compacted clay. We even got up to about 80 KPH.
We knew that we were close to Birdsville when the phone came alive and text messages started pouring into it. Soon enough we had crossed the Qld - SA border and could see the water tanks of the town. We took the huge curve around the famous racetrack and finally put wheels on bitumen again at the crossing over the Diamantina River. From there it was just a few minutes and we'd reached our destination.
I honestly don't know what I was expecting, but the first impressions of Birdsville were of a neat little town with wide streets and few buildings. There were few plants and even less grass, with the exception of the town sportsground, which was a vivid green after the recent rains.We found the caravan park easily and before long had been shown to our site. Our home for the Winter tourist season.
The caravan park was a large, dirt covered, sprawled affair. It had a man-made lake, or billabong, at its southern end. The power for our van was so far away that we had to join two power leads together (a real no-no) and the water was equally as far, requiring two hoses to be connected together. We had to rake the rocks from where we chose to locate our annexe. (I knew I had been carrying that rake all of these years for a reason.) By mid-afternoon we were set up enough to think about going over and introducing ourselves at the Pub, our next place of employment.
The walk to the Birdsville Hotel took just a couple of minutes, confirming to us that we wouldn't need the vehicle to get to and from work. We walked into the public bar which was all but deserted, with just one customer in there. After a few moments a young lady came to serve us. We introduced ourselves and she gave us a complementary round of drinks (which was the tradition for all new-starters, we later found out.)
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| Birdsville Hotel |
We felt obliged to buy a round of drinks with our own money, which we consumed a tad too quickly in an effort to get the hell out of there. We felt quite uncomfortable. I guess that this encounter set the tone somewhat for the rest of our time at Birdsville. Don't get me wrong, the majority of people there were lovely, but we never felt really at home. However, I jump ahead of myself....
We had a couple of days before we were to start work so we had a look around the town and spent some more time making ourselves comfortable at the caravan park. This is when I made the shock discovery that two of the original van tyres (that had been the unused spare tyres for nearly five years), had split where the sidewall joined the tread. The steel belts were exposed and it was only good luck that had seen us get to Birdsville before they exploded. The combination of old tyres and the stones on the worst part of the Birdsville Track had taken their toll. I had some new tyres fitted by Barry at the Post Office come General Store come Tyre Service and the price was surprisingly competitive. The remaining two tyres that I had fitted at Geraldton a couple of months earlier, were fine.
I guess everyone who visits Birdsville will take a trip out to the famous sand dune called "Big Red". We were no different. We went for a drive to the dune the morning after we arrived. What we didn't know, and there are no signs to let you know, is that there are two crossing places on the same sand dune - one is "Big Red" and, logically, the other is "Little Red". We went to Little Red and were quite disappointed in it, thinking that it was Big Red. We found out about the two crossings when we were discussing the dunes with others later.
We commenced work the following day and soon settled into life at Birdsville. Sue was working in Housekeeping, Bar and Kitchen and I was doing mainly Bar with a bit of Kitchen. Sue was mainly working days and I was doing the closing shift which sometimes saw me getting home as late as four in the morning.
During the first few weeks we were able to get a couple of days off each week, but as the season got busier it soon dropped back to one day per week. On our days off we had a bit of a look around, but in all honesty, there isn't much to see around Birdsville. We did, however, finally get out to the real "Big Red" and did the mandatory drive up and over it in both directions. The west side was the more difficult and it took two attempts to get up the dune. Shovels were not required. When there has been significant rainfall at Birdsville (as there had been for the previous two years) a lake forms on the east side of Big Red. Lake Nappanerica is not insignificant and prior to us arriving had caused visitors to take a 20 Km detour in order to get to or from Big Red. There was still plenty of water in it when we were there.
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| Sue and I atop "Big Red" |
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| The three approaches to Big Red on the west side |
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| Lake Nappanerica from Big Red |
Having gotten Big Red out of our system we visited places like the "Dingo Caves" which were completely underwhelming, a stand of ancient Acacia Peuce trees, similar to the stand we saw on Old Andado a few years earlier, Bedourie (unfortunately, also forgettable) and Haddons Corner. Haddons Corner is the top right hand corner of South Australia, where it pokes into Queensland. The drive to it was scenic in places, especially at a place called Dion's Lookout. This lookout was the favourite place of Dion Brook, the Son of David Brook, a wealthy pastoralist in the area. Deon was a helicopter pilot and when he was mustering in the area and had a chance to take a break, he would land on top of the ridge and take in the 360 degree views it afforded. Unfortunately, Dion was killed when his chopper crashed about 20 kilometres from the hill. After that, the lookout was named after him. The drive to Haddons Corner also affords one the opportunity to look at the ruins of the historic hotel at Betoota.
As the weeks and months went by we met many, many travellers who had crossed the Simpson Desert. Some had incident-free crossings and others got themselves into a bit of trouble. There were a couple of rescues during our time there. We oscillated between wanting to do the crossing and not wanting to do it after each story that we heard. By about two months into our stay we were pretty much over the idea. We did, during the same period, catch up with many fellow members of the Kedron Owner's Group. These folks were going through Birdsville on their way to or from Queensland and South Australia and took the time out to call in and say hi. It was great to meet them all and I have to say that I could not believe how many of them were named Peter!
On my days off, especially in the earlier weeks I tried, pretty unsuccessfully, to catch Yellowbelly in the river. As most of you know, I am a bit of a Tragic when it comes to fishing and I wouldn't have committed to going to Birdsville if I wasn't going to be able to fish. I was starting to get the irrits about not catching fish, especially after following the advice the locals were passing on to me (advice about everything except where the fish were), so I grabbed a couple of beers, a couple of prawns and some fishing gear and went down to a nearby waterhole to sulk. Guess what? Prawns were the go. All of the nonsense the locals were going on about was just that - nonsense! I caught nine Yellowbelly in the time it took me to drink two beers. Six went back into the water and I kept one for myself and one for each of our neighbours. As an eating fish it was just average.
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| Diamantina Yellowbelly are not the same rich gold colour of their Murray River cousins |
Three weeks later, a local, sober, girl came in to report that she had seen a croc in the river. This girl was a reliable source and her photos were very conclusive. This started a stampede to the waterhole and sure enough, there was a pretty sizeable freshwater croc there! All sorts of theories were developed around how it got to be there but the most widely accepted was that someone living on a property considerably further north had probably caught a young croc and kept it in a dam on their place. When the huge floods of the previous year happened, the dam would have, for a short while, been a part of the river floodplain and the croc would have made good his/her escape. A year later and here it was, at Birdsville.
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| What the Hell is this doing here? |
Once the croc's presence became common knowledge, the Rednecks started coming out of the woodwork. There were those arguing that the croc will attack children as they swam in the river. Who were they kidding? The river was so cold that I hadn't seen anyone swimming in it since we arrived at Birdsville. Other locals were sooking that the croc would eat all of the Yellowbelly. Two things about that: 1) Yellowbelly are hardly worth eating (from a human-consumption point-of-view) and 2) During these cold months the croc's metabolism would be so slow that it was unlikely to be feeding at all. Let's face it, it was nearly a 1000 Km south of its comfort zone.
The local Ranger erected signs warning of the presence of the animal and eventually it was captured and relocated, for its own safety (read: Before it was shot by one of the local hillbillies), to a crocodile farm on the coast. No-one saw the potential for the croc to be a tourist attraction at Birdsville, which was odd when you consider how many tourists were lining the waterhole, trying to get a look at it.
At around about the same time, I was starting to feel the effects of many late nights at work combined with the inability to get much sleep at the noisy caravan park. Because the caravan park was a staging point for travellers setting out to cross the Simpson Desert, or those just arrived from the crossing, it was a hive of activity - mostly mechanical activity, which is inevitably noisy. From inflating or deflating tyres to banging frames and panels back into shape, to grinding or cutting or even welding, it was all going on while I was trying to get some sleep. It was killing me. I mentioned it to the Boss and she organised me a week where I had at least a couple of day shifts, but after that it was back to the same old, same old.
I spoke to Sue about it and we decided that we would be better off moving on - for the sake of my health. We got on the Internet and found work at Arkaroola and then gave our notice at the Birdsville Pub. We didn't have to start at Arkaroola for a few weeks, so we decided to do that Simpson Desert crossing after all. And that folks, is the subject of the next blog....
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