William Creek and a Flight over Lake Eyre

After refuelling and stocking up at the local supermarket, it was off to William Creek where we planned to do a flight over Lake Eyre.  It was another beautiful day, around 22 degrees, and we were heading into red dust country.  The scenery was amazing - miles and miles of nothingness, followed by plains of red gibber pebbles which looked red/purple from one direction, then as you passed and the sun caught them, they changed to shiny black.  Then big open claypans, followed by long red dunes covered in green shrubs of varying hues and a variety of wildflowers.  You could see 360degrees of totally flat land followed by red or white mountain ranges dotting the landscape. 

We went through Anna Creek Station, a working cattle property, which is bigger than Belgium or half the size of Britain!  We arrived at William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track,  where we had a drink at the hotel, then went across to the airfield to book our flight at 3.30pm.  We booked into the local campground and had lunch. 

We were both quite looking forward to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Lake Eyre in flood.   We were a party of 6 for the flight, and as we were walking across to the plane our pilot asked how I was at travelling in a small plane, to which I replied 'OK, I think'.   Well, that was a big mistake!  She then asked Trev if he'd like to travel up front with her, and he happily agreed.  So, in he got, then Heather (our pilot) seated the other two couples in the next two rows, and I was lucky last and got to sit right in the back of a supposedly 8-seater plane with my knees up around my ears and two tiny windows to peer out of!  Not happy, Jan!  So much for getting good photos - there was no room to move and after only 10 minutes I was feeling decidedly queasy, especially with the sun beating down on me from the two back windows.  And to be honest, it really wasn't that interesting.  I was hoping that at least Trev was getting a good view and I passed my camera up to him so he could get some good shots.  But at the end of the flight, he too said it was very disappointing and his view wasn't that great either. 

It cost us $250 each, and we both thought it was overpriced and a waste of money. I could have bought a really good opal at Coober Pedy for that price!   And I think if they were going to shove someone in the very back tiny seats, then they should offer a discount!  All the other people on the flight were very relieved that they didn't have to sit there.  Anyway, a lesson learned. 

We had a really tasty roast pork dinner in the camp oven when we got back, and sat around our campfire with a couple from Melbourne, Rob and Cynthia.  We also met some of the local desert mice who came to visit.

Next morning we packed up and headed for Coward Springs about 70km down the track.  We'd heard that it was a really good camping area with an artesian 'spa' and old homestead buildings.   There were lots of interesting ruins and homesteads on the way, and we pulled into one, Beresford, to have a look.  As we drove in, one of the workers on the old bore flagged us down to let us know that we had a rear flat tyre.  Well spotted, because if we had gone much further on that particular track we could have shredded our tyre.

So, it was out with the spare (and assorted other gear which was sitting on top of it) so Trev could change it.   We managed to find exactly where the leak was, so Trev decided to try out his new super-duper puncture repair kit instead of putting on the spare.  While he was doing that, I got lunch ready - might as well enjoy the scenery, cos we weren't going anywhere for a while.  Trev was pretty happy with his puncture repair, so we finished lunch then were back on the road, keeping an eye on that back tyre.

We reached Coward Springs, then decided to have a look at Mound Springs about 10km further on, as we'd read interesting reports of it.  It was really quite surprising.  There was a large flat-topped mountain, then a feature called The Blanche Cup - we walked up the top of this big salt-encrusted hill where we found a huge deep pool of water surrounded by bright green reeds.  It was in the middle of a stark landscape of salt pans.  Really odd, like a moonscape.  The next feature was called The Bubbler.  It was at the top of a boardwalk, and again was a huge artesian pool where the water constantly swirled and changed colour as large bubbles of air escaped and burst onto the surface.   The water then flowed into a little bubbling brook and flowed onto the salt pans which were fringed by reeds and small green shrubs.  Just beautiful.

Coward Springs was a well-maintained bush camp, with flushing toilets and hot showers (provided by boiling water in the 'donkey', an old-fashioned water heater fuelled by wood).  We had a quick dip in the warm artesian spa, which was made out of railway sleepers and was smaller than our spa at home.  But the water pressure was really good, and it was very relaxing.  At dinner, the desert mice were most persistent, and tried crawling up Trev's trousers - so we both tucked our pants into our socks to stop them - yes, we looked very 'cool'.  After we finished dinner, half a dozen mice climbed into our frypan to finish off whatever was left.

Next day (Sunday)we planned to stop at Marree for the night, but when we arrived there it didn't look that great - looked like a bit of a dump really, so we continued on to another campsite at Farina Homestead.  What a little gem!  It used to be a town of over 3000 people, and it was intended to be the 'Grain capital' of the area.  It had a hospital, police station, school, post office etc, but once the post office was no longer making money it became a ghost town.  It's now a large collection of very substantial ruins, and camping is available at $5 pp per night.  Again, there are flushing toilets, hot showers fuelled by a 'donkey' and each campsite has a fire ring, some also with wood bbqs.   We watched the sunset with a glass of champagne at the top of one of the hills, then cooked another roast in the camp oven.  It's a tough life.

From Farina we travelled to Leigh Creek for fuel and supplies - this is a large mining town, very modern, with lots of facilities and looked like an estate in the suburbs.  You wouldn't know it's in the middle of the desert.  We got some info from the local tourist info place then headed to Wirraweena in the Flinders Ranges.  We have our own private campsite here, with a drop toilet, campfire ring and table, and if we want flushing toilets and hot showers we head up to the main homestead area.  We're planning to do some 4WD tracks tomorrow.  Should be interesting.