#oodnadatta

Roadside camp with the HJ Holden station-wagon. Next stop, Ayers Rock.

Australia

The Roadhouse sign gradually grows put of the horizon until all of a sudden you’re there – and it is PINK. A welcome relief for some like us on an earlier trip when we needed a tyre repaired. The ‘caravan park’ is to be experienced but it had ‘amenities’.

Of course we went in – spend a bit here and there along the road; I even had a pink drink! Everything is pink, everywhere. Kitsch with all its signs and pinkness but an oasis in a service-refreshment desert.

The next morning, we considered driving the 70 odd Km out to Halligan Bay, a large bay in the north-western corner of Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) but the pilots who run flights from William Creek said we wouldn’t see any water at all from there. So given we had a bit of a deadline, we decided against it - but one day I’d like to take a flight out over the Lake, it is a pretty special area. Maybe for my 77 or 80th?

Back on the road we headed to Oodnadatta

All that remains of the Algebuckina siding. Some of it looked like it was hanging on by a thread in places. The land here is privately owner but the site in managed by the Arabana people. As arid and rocky as this place appeared I saw quite a few plants: Rock fuchsia bushes with their delicate purple flowers (Eremophila freelingii), Buttercup pigface (Portulaca), Yellow Rattlepod, wattles and daisies.

The Neales (Nuppamurra) River at Algebuckina is huge and floods regularly hence the height of the railway bridge which of course is long longer used. A few years ago, we walked partway out onto the bridge; it’s an amazing piece of engineering. So much water, it was a bird haven but was also teaming with mozzies so we didn’t linger too long. There’s a huge floodway over the river back out on the Track and the water was almost lapping at its edges.