Day 13 red centre trip to Peake Creek

2nd August

Day 13 -289km

Just outside Marla to Peake Creek (between Oodnadatta and William Creek)

We drove across a new road today (for us) between Marla and Oodnadatta. We had done the very last stretch of it previously on the way home from the Simpson desert, and Trev had done a tiny bit of the first stretch, when he headed out to the Lambina Opal field years ago with Pat McGuire.

The road varied between the red sand road, the gibber rocks and the paler road rubble dug from the ground near here. We had a few off road trips (for caches), and also stopped at Angle Pole where the Telegraph line used to take a turn to the north. (We were looking for an excuse to stop).

You always need to stop at the pink roadhouse at Oodnadatta, and we did our bit to support the locals by buying ridiculously expensive fuel from them along with an ice cream.

As we pulled in to a high point to take in the views Trevor spotted a poetry box fixed to the back of the pink roadhouse sign. Evelyn and I both sat down and penned a few lines to add to the collection. We had a quick read of others. A terrific fun activity to break up the journey.

We detoured a little further down the road in to the Mt Dutton ruins, where we checked out the old fettlers cottages (3 conjoined cottages of 3 rooms each) and the lonely grave on the hillside nearby and an old wreck as well.

We checked out the Algebuckina waterhole (on the other side from the bridge), passing through the gate into the PAR to reach the waterhole, where there was stacks of water and lots of bird life. Many kites circled overhead and a huge community of pelicans flew around also. We found the old pumping tower here too. There are some fantastic campsites along here, and we will probably stop here on a future trip. Today it was just a bit too early.

A little further on we stopped at the only patch of Sturt Peas thar we have seen along the trackand had a field day with the camera. Such extraordinary plants!

We opted to travel on just a little longer, to the Peake Creek to camp and tried a few different tracks , before we finally found a way to the creek itself , and the old railway bridge about 600m in from the road . Evelyn managed to get caught by the extremely sticky mud, which is solid on the surface, but breaks through to a sticky mass. She sunk into the mud up to ankle height.

We have quite a breeze at the moment, but are hoping that, like last night, it will calm down to a still and peaceful night. For the moment we have a lovely fire, something to drink and nibble on and some excellent company.