For the past few weeks we have been watching the weather and asking people for condition reports as to the state of the Oodnadatta track. While there had been rain the reports were all coming through that the track was being graded and the conditions were getting better and better.
This was good news because our next destination the town of Marree was the end of the bitumen road and the beginning of the dirt tracks of Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks. It really did have a frontier town feeling to it and was small consisting of a pub, a campground, a smattering of houses and a petrol station come store.
Outside the back of the pub was a small compound where for a donation to the flying doctors you could camp…so we did.
The place soon filled up with other travellers and the atmosphere was really fun and positive as everyone was chatting about their upcoming trips. There were a few people who were finishing from the other end but not many as the road had only been open for a matter of days. It was great to meet people doing or attempting to do the same thing as us and we both started feeling a lot more confident. We had bought our camper trailer with these kind of trips in mind and were now more confident in the set up.
Marree pub has probably hosted thousands upon thousands of the same excited conversations we were all having. It has been the centre point of these tracks for over 100 years and even though the route is mostly dominated by travellers now it was once a far more prominent trade route and the Ghan railway passed through on its way from Port Augusta up to Alice Springs. There are still road trains passing through delivering goods to all along the way but they are certainly in the minority.
The beers certainly flowed and the chat and the atmosphere was excellent. We met people who were riding bicycles from the South to the North of Australia, people who had been across the Simpson desert on motorbikes, people who were out grading the roads and a lot of people like us towing caravans and hoping that the roads weren’t too rough.
I did meet 2 other guys in the pub who were out fixing up the internet connection for the town. We had a great chat and at the end of the night they kindly have me the password for the local wifi and so we quickly uploaded all our blogs and photos before shooting off on our adventure down the Oodnadatta track!! T
