Red Centre trip Day 14 to Strangways Bore.

3rd August

Day 14

Peake Creek to Strangways bore (including Lake Eyre North) -304km

We had intended to go further today, but interrupted the travel miles by taking the rather sizeable detour in to the shores of Lake Eyre.

We stopped for a while at "Old Woman Creek" for morning tea beside a sandy creek with some lovely gum trees (would make a reasonable camp site) , before heading on towards William Creek. We were hoping to find Duff Creek , and to check out the camping there for a future visit, but we couldn't even identify the correct creek!

We were a bit interested in flights over Lake Eyre (it's something we wish we had done in 2000 when the Lake was full when we came through here) , but the timing (and price) wasn't right ($420 for a 2 hour flight, and better early morning or late afternoon). We opted for a drive out to Lake Eyre North. The 70 km or so track out there goes through varied countryside, including sandhill country, black moon like plains, pale sand and red tracks. In some areas there was deeply rutted road where there is obviously lots of great mud when wet. Many cattle were hanging around near the dam/mound spring, including some cute calves.

Makeshift warning on a trouble spot

Moon landscape on the way in to Lake Eyre

Salty surface on the lake edges

Water or mirage? It is hard to tell here.

Old branding fence at the cattle yards along the track

At ABC Bay we could hardly even see any water, but at Halligan Bay it seemed a bit closer. We were surprised to see toilets and shelters out at the tip of land. We went for a bit of a walk, and could see where cars had driven out on the lake surface and sunk through into the sticky mud. The memorial along the track to a German tourist who perished out here is a stark reminder of the need to be prepared and to stay with your vehicle if you get into trouble.

By the time we had finally made it back to the Oodnadatta Track it was about 4 pm, so we only made it another 30 km or so to Strangways Bore, before we again took a nice side track, and found ourselves a group of trees to hide in behind, about 500m or more in off of the road. Here a friendly (?) hawk was waiting to pose for us as we set up camp and settled down to build a fire for some nice coals to cook on.