We were finally going to be putting the camper trailer through its paces as we were leaving Marree to embark on the Oodnadatta track. 615 kms of unsealed roads through some of the most outback of Australia. We were taking a slight detour to Coober Pedy and only doing 400kms or so. We were a little scared prior to hitting Maree but after seeing what others were doing the trip in, our camper trailer was made for this!
We lowered our tyre pressures as the road was going to have a fair amount of corrugations and off we went. We soon found the ideal driving speed of about 60-70kms an hour which meant we sat on top of the corrugations. It sounds counter intuitive but going a bit faster actually made the ride smoother. Other than a few little wash outs the track was in reasonable condition. We took it pretty slow and even got to see a few sculptures along the way.
Our stop over for the night was going to be Lake Eyre South but we were unsure if we were going to see the edge of the lake or just salty dirt. Lucky for us as we drove along the track the lake came into view and was only a few hundred metres from the road! The campsite was literally right on the lakes edge but there was no shelter or shade but the views were awesome. So we decided to stop for the day and sit back and enjoy the fact that we got to look upon Lake Eyre with water in it! We were the only ones there and it was so peaceful.
We went for a walk to the edge and all put our feet in. The closer you got the muddier it got and by the end of it we were all ankle deep. But nothing was stopping Griff from getting wet and we were just in awe that we were standing in water in Lake Eyre.
Back at camp we set up a fire and sat back and watched an amazing sunset. The colours were sensational. We did manage to get two other campers as neighbours but they were a fair way away and we felt so secluded. Unfortunately around this time the wind picked up and as we were exposed it was pretty brutal. We ended up putting our fire out and taking shelter in the camper. We had fortunately parked so our backside was against the wind but during the night it got worse and we were getting battered around.
The next day we decided that one night was enough for us and that we would move on. Before we did we went back down to the lake for another walk and were amazed as to how far the water had come in. The guys from the pub at Marree had said that as the lake is so shallow the wind can move the water around but until we saw it we didn’t realise how much. It would have come in over 100 metres since the afternoon before and was still tracking. Fortunately for us the wind had died down and we got to play around with some photos with perfect reflections on the water.
Content and happy we packed up and continued on our way along the Oodnadatta track. S
