Blog 7 – Birdsville to Farina, The Birdsville Track!

The track opened Monday morning and after a big cheer we hit the road.  I was driving, Fred decided that it would be a good road to practice on and he was right.  With all the muddy and water sections I racked up hundreds of gear changes.

Our first night was spent beside Blood Creek on the Warburton Crossing Road.  We camped behind a sand dune to try to protect us from the wind, set up the boombox and enjoyed the open spaces.  The stars were amazing!

The road was pretty good considering, but there were plenty of sections still under water, rutted out and towards the end, corrugated.  I got to lead our party of 3 vehicles, being the big vehicle, smaller vehicles coming the other way have to give way.  It was moot really as we only saw 3 other vehicles on day 1.  

We have been considering whether we should wrap our truck and if so what pattern would we use?  Today allowed us to try the mud splattered camo look lol!

Day 2 we continued on to Coopers Creek and camped in the creek bed.  If we thought it was windy last night, tonight was a whole new level.  We did our best to keep out of the worst of it and huddled behind the truck for protection.

Along the way we stopped at the Mirra Mitta Bore.  The water comes out of the ground here at 100 degrees.  Apart from finding this amazing in it’s self, I had another reason for stopping.  Last year when we travelled past here, I dropped my sunglasses and I was convinced that I knew where they would be and that I’d find them.  I was wrong, over the year there has been a dozer through I reckon, not to mention the weather events, and after a good look about, they were nowhere to be seen.

Day 3 we were headed for Clayton’s Station to camp.  Along the way we had to pass through Mungeranie and of course, support the local pub.  Fred’s liking me driving now as he was able to have a beer or two.  We stopped at the MV Tom Brennan.  This is the original barge built in 1949 that was used as a ferry at the Cooper Creek Crossing on the Track.

Clayton’s Station has an artesian bore as well and is set up with an old tank that fills with the hot water and allows a soak.  Of course we had a dip, the hot water was a shock at first but beautiful once we got in.  After a hot shower, using the same water, we prepared for a night of watching the State of Origin decider on the big screen, aka the side of our truck.  Fred cleaned the mud off our viewing area and we set up around the fire.  Even though we were disappointed (to say the least) that Queensland didn’t win, we still had a great night watching it under the stars around a campfire.

Our final day on the 517km long track and we stopped at Lake Harry Ruins before reaching Marree.  A quick bevvie at the Marree Pub and a look around town before heading to and camping at Farina.

 Lake Harry Ruins is what remains of a date palm plantation planted in 1895.  Yep, back then there were around 2500 date palms growing, quite successfully apparently but the project failed due to the lack of bees to pollinate them and was abandoned in the 1940’s after a series of long droughts.  You would never know that there had ever been any palms with no evidence remaining, the natural country taking its land back.

To see the country in all its glory is amazing.  It is green, sprouting amazing growth and flowers.  We haven’t seen much wildlife, apart from birds, only spotting emus and kangaroos just before reaching Maree.  I’m guessing that there is enough feed and water everywhere at the moment so they don’t need to be close to the road.

Stay tuned as our adventure continues………..