Innamincka

One of our number was expecting more from Innamincka. I'm not sure just how much more one can wring out of a town with a population hovering around fifteen, and riding the rich oil and gas boom.


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The Cooper

Even though there was plenty of water in the river, the flats give some sort of indication that the floods bring plenty more.

The view from the back of our tent at Cullymurra.


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Cullymurra Waterhole

Just another one of those tiresome views from our tent.

Cullymurra Waterhole is on the Cooper, about 15 kilometres from Innamincka, and within a stone's throw of the place where explorer's Burke and Wills shuffled off their respective mortal coils. To be more accurate, it's a stone's throw from Burke's final resting spot, Wills made it another twenty or so kilometres.


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Colours

The desert colours provide an endless fascination for us, with the flat bits sometimes contrasting with the dunes, sometimes blending perfectly in different shades.

Who thought this stuff up?


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Moomba

Gas is just one reason why it's not that easy to find solitude in the desert any more. Oil is another. Gold exploration teams, and Japanese cyclists vie for third.

The Moomba gas structures loom like some sort of alien machine in the middle of the Strzelecki Desert, which is exactly what they are when you think about it.


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Montecollina

The water from the bore arrives at around fifty degrees celcius which is just about perfect for filling a billy to do the washing up in.

Not bad for a shower either, but a bit sulphorous to make a nice cup of tea with.


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Breakfast at Montecollina Bore

Once again the sight of waterbirds in the middle of the desert fascinated us, and for that matter everyone else we met. It's not as though it's one lost soul with a defective satnav either.

I've taken a photo similar to this one from our back steps, so I'm not sure why we needed to drive 10,000 k's just to get another!


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Alone

We were completely alone and isolated at the bore, except of course for the crew of mineral exploration blokes, their drilling team, their generator and their flood lights.

Sunset was nice though.


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Camping on the North Shore

It was a very bizarre experience, finding Montecollina Bore half way up the Strzelecki Track amid the dunes. It felt so much like camping on Fraser Island that it was uncanny.

Although the dingoes weren't quite so silent.


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Back in the red

Back in the desert our Suzuki starts to look quite small, but there again so do road trains.

It's hard to imagine how comfortable one can feel when enveloped in nothingness, but in reality one can feel very comfortable indeed.


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Guard of honour

Leaving Arkaroola, three of the ten identified pairs of Wedgetail eagles in the Flinders Ranges, watch to make sure we aren't taking anything that doesn't belong to us.

This bloke was completely unfazed as I drove slowly to within eight or ten metres of him (OK, well you tip toe towards a wedgetail and tell me how you get on), although his mates were a little more conservative.


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Re-leaving Arkaroola

Definitely too miserable for walking, and with the prospect of rain on the southern part of the Strzelecki Track we sadly decide to move on once more. It's not long before the desert flat land returns and we look over our shoulder and bid the mountains farewell.


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This isn't Kansas anymore, Toto

Of course it's still in the Flinders, but the mind numbing changes in topography and vegetation leave one wondering if one isn't in the centre of some vast landscaped garden. One moment we are walking happily in a sandy creek bed among three hundred year old red gums, then we look up and there's nothing but native pine. The slate grey sky didn't help orient us either.


A few minutes later, we'll be in a lunarscape, devoid of all but what at first glance appears to be lawn, but turns out to be a peculiar green gravel.


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Carrying On Regardless

It was cold, damp, and there wasn't a mountain in sight above the clouds, so we did the only thing we could.

We carried on along the ridgetops, stopping only for the odd gasp.

The Flinders Ranges are expecting us to return.


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Back to the Flinders

We figured that surely after a week, the rain would have left Wilpena, and we'd have a week of clear sunny skies.

We didn't figure correctly, but we also couldn't believe how much the landscape reminded us of a certain school of naive painters. Perhaps they were realists after all?


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Interpreting Road Signs in the Northern Territory - 2

"Congratulations, you've successfully negotiated the dangerous bit."


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Interpreting Road Signs in the Northern Territory - 1

"We strongly advise you take care, as there is a corner approaching over this blind crest."


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Winery

Not all wine is produced romantically in large vats hidden in dark cellars, but there is always a rolling hill in the background.


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Grapes

Do they really come in all those colours Mum?


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The Clare Valley

Then we stayed for a few days in the Clare Valley, one of South Australia's noted wine making regions, famous for its Rieslings but awfully chillly.

Grape vines can look quite splendid too.

Apparently.


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It can't be real!

We headed south into the rain and cold, relieved to be free of the beauty we had been immersed in, comforted by the site of the odd man made structure, we'd even seen a cake behind a counter at the petrol stop, then we came on this.

It wasn't enough to have bright red soil, the freshly shooting grass crop was fluorescing in the drizzle, and the autumn leaves were not a sight to which we have been accustomed.

Aaaarrgh, find me something that doesn't look like a chocolate box top... please!!


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The View Deteriorates

By the time we made it to the southern Flinders, the weather had started to close in, the views were merely breathtaking and we were really starting to lose our voices from proclaiming the "wowness" of it all at every new turn.

So we rolled further south, to return in a week or two when with just a little luck, the visibility will have improved, and we will have had time to recover from the shock of weeks of endless natural beauty.


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Arthur was right

Arthur said the Arkaroola ridgetop tour was worth doing from a number of perspectives.

He was right.


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Postcard from Arkaroola

The colours are impossibly fake, the composition like a cheap oil painting, the only trouble is, I haven't adjusted the colour and I didn't compose anything, I just held the camera at my waist and clicked.

There is some artistic genius in those cheap oil paintings after all.

Arkaroola is in the northern end of the Flinders Ranges, laden with uranium, and slack jawed tourists!


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Our first mountain sunrise

The day after leaving the desert, desperate for a break from endless beauty, it begins again. The first rays of the rising sun illuminate the peak beyond our camp as though it is translucent, and someone has just switched on the light within.

We had long since run out of superlatives, now we just mumble "wow".


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Desert's Edge

We always feel a little sorry as the road starts to improve and first hint of the end of the desert appears on the horizon. It's a wonderful place, full of contrast and subtlety, and we console ourselves with the thought that our senses will have time to recover, but we are never right in that regard either.

Towards the southern end of the Oodnadatta Track, a mountain appears on the horizon.


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Alberry Creek

The desert is full of mysteries, the Alberry Creek siding on the old Ghan line provides one of them.


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Breakfast

One of the good things about travelling light is that everything is where we need it to be when we need it.

Breakfast after sunrise at Uluru.


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Lake Eyre South

If Lake Eyre was eerie, its Southern sister didn't do a bad job in the strange department either. A lot easier to access as there is a viewing platform on the side of the Oodnadatta Track, the dunes and black tufty grass make for a fair impression of some sort of alien beach scene. All the birds are roosting on an island in the middle, some thirty kilometres from here, well over the horizon.


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Lake Eyre

just as one begins to think one's senses have had enough stimulation for one journey, one turns a corner in a sea of black desert, crests a dune, a few kilometres past the cairn erected to the memory of an Austrian tourist who perished after being bogged there just a few years ago, and there it is.

Halligan's Bay, a vast expanse of nothing, or that's what it seems.

It would normally be a mirage, but it's not, it's water in the lake, but it's very eerie. There is a breeze blowing, maybe five knots or more, yet as far as the horizon the water is so still that the sky reflects perfectly, there is no distinction between sky and water.

The horizon one presumes lies somewhere between the clouds and their mirrored twins.

There are seagulls. Seagulls for crying out loud, and the lake is so shallow they seem to be walking for kilometres.

I'm glad we saw it.

I'm really glad we didn't perish in the attempt.


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