Was the first person awake today morning. No surprise at 6 o'clock in
the morning. Me and tents/sleeping bags just don't seem to get along.
I had a restful night, but I can't seem to sleep in (yet). That'll
probably change after I have slept in it for a while.
Anyway, after packing
up my gear and marking a few camp points in the GPS, I said my
goodbyes and left to go shopping again. Talking to the others
yesterday and seeing what they had I found I was lacking in certain
things (tea for example). So first stop was the cheap two dollar shop
to get things like an extra bucket to do the washing, cutlery, etc.
After that I fuelled up completely and went to Woolworths to do all
my grocery shopping for the long trip into expensive terrain.
Then I
was of into the Flinders Range. Not a lot to say about a lot of
travelling. Hot weather and mountains left and right with shrubs and
gumtrees in the creeks. Until to a town called Quorn the road was
rather busy, with trucks and vehicles. Lots of twists and curves
between the mountains and a railway line criss crossing the road now
and again. After Quorn the road got empty, only a vehicle every five
minutes or longer. Lots of animal body's lying beside the road, from
kangaroos, to wombats and wedge tails. Some fresh body's where
covered in wedge tails which took of as soon as you come along.
Basically a massive bird of prey (2m wingspan) and if they don't take
of fast enough when a truck comes they go splat.
Reached a town called
Hawker after a lot of straight driving and got on to the B83 road,
also known as the Outback Highway. Drove for a few hours, with the
mountains more to the right and Lake Torrens somewhere in the
distance. Only way I really saw the lake was because distant hills
looked like UFOs floating of the ground due to the heat on the lake. Reached Leigh Creek after another period of driving and went to the
fuel station to fuel up. Only used a third of a tank, but I wanted to
check that the Oodnadatta Track was still accessible. I don't want to
travel 400 km up just to turn round, drive all the way back down to
Port Augusta and then take the Stuart Highway up to Alice Springs.
The internet page of the government proclaimed it to be all right,
but a local person would know a lot better how things are. As all was
well and the next time it was supposed to rain was on Tuesday I
carried on. When it rains the track becomes pretty much impassable,
even for serious 4WD. I read a blog of a 6WD Land Cruiser getting
stuck.
After Leigh Creek the
road turned in to a gravel road, which it will most likely remain
most of the time. Passed a few other Outback travellers and ended up
at a place called Farina, where they have a camp site with
facilities. A nice thing out here after a day of sweating, even with
AC on. After a shower the flies has disappeared as well for the night
and after cooking some dinner I just sat back and did some star
gazing. No light pollution what so ever. I nearly fell asleep in the
chair due to a warm breeze passing through, the flies gone and the
birds all asleep.
Track of the day at
GPSies.
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