Day12,13,14. Mount Dare to Alice

Left Oodnadatta heading for Dalhousie , the road not too bad stopped at Pedirka ruins and the wind had picked up . The road started to get very stoney and corrugated which slowed us down considerably. Arrived at Dalhousie ruins and looked around, what a hard life trying to run cattle and live off the land out here. They also tried their hand at growing date palms and Lucerne , but failed, a lot of their water came from the mound springs .
We pushed on to Dalhousie Springs and on arrival at the camp ground we were in a bit of a sand storm , with the wind blowing we went and looked at the spring and the water hole was a lot bigger than we thought and was hot. We decided to push on as the sand would have made camping impossible. Mount Dare was our next stop, well the road got worse and it took us 2 hours to travel 65k's .When we arrived at the Mount Dare Hotel we had enough corrugations for today so we went in and had a drink and organised our campsite.
Mount Dare is a Hotel in the middle of nowhere with fuel, showers , toilets, campground and a repair shed it is on the edge of the Simpson Desert and is the last stop before crossing. They sell on average $60,000 of fuel every 3 weeks at $2.45 a litre.
From Mount Dare we followed the old Ghan line through finke , where they run the desert races , all the way up to Chambers Pillar where we camped for the night. The road was hard going being sand most of the way so the landcruiser had to work hard. We set up camp and campfire we walked out to view the pillar at sunset.
After a pleasant camp and a walk out to view the pillar at sunrise we pushed on to Alice Springs where we stayed at the Big 4 van park to catch up on washing and to clean a bit of dust and dirt off the car and camper.

Fueling up at Mount Dare

Old Ghan Road from Finke

Old Ghan Line Engoordina Siding

The Castle at Chambers Pillar Reserve

Chambers Pillar

Day 10, 11 to Oodnadatta

Arrived at William Creek, very small town population about 12 people but today they had bronco branding on so it was very busy. This is where horse and rider have to cut out and lassoe a calf for branding. Not a lot in town , the pub, caravan park , oh and they do have a parking meter!
 Fueled  up at $2 per litre and headed off we saw more railway sidings and the last before Oodnadatta was the Algebuckina Bridge which is the longest railway bridge in S.A. At the bottom lays the wreck of an EJ Holden of which tried to cross the bridge when the road was flooded and with luck not on his side met a train half way, he had to jump.
Spent the night camped at the "Pink Roadhouse"

Beresford railway siding

old car on Oodnadatta Track

William Creek Hotel

 Bronco Branding at William Creek

Algebuckina Bridge

The Pink Roadhouse

Day 7,8,9 Farina to coward springs

Left willow springs headed toward Farina which is about 50ks before Marree, it is the ruins of an old town on the Ghan railway, found a great campsite next to a couple of blokes from Vic who where HFRadio buffs and got chatting with them , they were really interesting .
We then went exploring the ruins , very interesting in what hapened to the town and how so much was just left.
The next day we travelled to Marree where we went to the Maree Hotel and looked through the Tom Kruze museum , he was the out back mailman, delivered mail and all sorts of supplies from Marree to Birdsville. the publican suggested that we go to Muloorina and from there go to lake eyre , which we ended up travelling with the two guys from farina. We had a great time, and lake eyre was amazing. We could walk down to the lakes edge which was crusty with salt out as far as you could see.
Now on the Oodnadatta Track the road was not in too bad condition , followed the old Ghan railway stopping off at the sidings to visit the ruins, which were old abandon fettlers accomodation.
Called in to what is known as "the Bubbler" this is a mound spring which is artisan water under pressure forced up through cracks in the rock to the surface depositing minerals and over the years to form mounds.
Finally found camp at Coward Springs, what a lovely place, nestled in a group of some form of oak trees with toilets(long drop) and showers ( donkey heater) which is wood fire heated . Had camp fire with old railway sleepers for fire wood.

Plane Henge

old car on the Oodnadatta Track

Ruins at Farina

Marree Hotel

Camp at Muloorina

Sunset at Coward Springs

Camp at Coward Springs

The Bubbler

Lake Eyre

Day4,5,6 to Willow Springs

Arrived in Hawker , which is the start of the Flinders Ranges,set up camp and talked to a few of the travellers near us. The next morning we drove around hawker familiarising our selves with the town and getting fuel. We then decided to try to catch up with a friend from when I was young and we got invited around to her place for a cuppa.
We spent a couple of days in hawker looking around, we drove out to ruins at willow waters and walked to the lookout at Castle rock.
We headed to willow springs in the flinders Rangers where we went on a 4x4 trek which was named Skytrek, it was a 80k round trip which was to take 6 hours, so we packed lunch and set off at 10.30am. It took you through gorges, along creek beds, up and down hills and along ridges in some of the most spectacular scenery the flinders has to offer, just fabulous, we stayed 2 nights and had a really good campsite .
Nights were cold, but the days have been quite warm . So we have been having a great time.

Barrier Highway to South Australia

Willow waters at Hawker

Skytrek

Skytrek

Peterborough countryside

skytrek 4 x 4 track

camping at Hawker

Pichi Richi railway

Day 2 and Day 3 Hillston to Broken Hill,Broken Hill to Hawker

Said goodbye to Tony and Colleen at the butchers shop and headed towards Broken Hill Via Ivanhoe and the cobb highway. The road to Ivanhoe wasn't too bad and the cobb highway was worse considering it was a highway , we still managed 90k's per hour. We found a spot off the road for lunch and as we drove in you wouldn't want to know, a wrecked HJ holden, ha ha.
Then on to Broken Hill , got in to camp at about 4pm and set up just in time to drive out to the desert sculptures at sunset.

The next morning we set off for South Australia not sure of where we will end up . drove through Mt Remarkable which was very green, they must have had a lot of rain recently, then to Quorn and up through the pichi richi pass to Hawker.

Day 1

We got away at about 4am, it was cold and windy and the prediction was for black ice on the mountains , we were lucky and had a good run with no ice or snow . Had breakfast at Bathurst and then on to the"Utes in the paddock. Stopped for lunch at Lake Cargelligo. We decided to stay at Hillston for the night, but before we set up camp at the van park we called in and visited some friends of my sister Sue's and had a chat and a cuppa, then it was on to set up camp.
  Once set up we went for a walk around the park then showers before walking to the club for dinner and a meet up again with Tony and Coleen for a drink.