The Strezelecki Track

 Monday the 4th of July, we headed south 25 km to Lyndhurst to fuel up. The instructions for the automated fuel station required us to download an app called FuelCharge, and even though my mobile showed 4 bars, it still took nearly 10 minutes to download. Unlocking the bowser was reasonably straightforward after putting our Mastercard details in. The fuel was @$2.59 PL.

I inquired at the pub opposite the fuel outlet as we had been told that the bitumen stretched some considerable distance and was surprised to be told that the first 76 km was sealed.

We stopped at the "Dog Fence" rest area to reduce tyre pressures before continuing onto the dirt.

The track was quite stoney but with few corrugations. We came upon two grader drivers who were working on the track. We've often found that graders tend to bring the stones to the surface on their first pass, and over the next 40 km, the track was quite stoney.

We were initially going to camp at Blanchwater Ruins. 

But after making such good time because of the sealed section, we just stopped in for a photo before continuing onto Montecollina Bore for the evening. The bore has now been capped, and the camping area is quite vast. Two more groups arrived after we arrived to spend the evening.

There were no fires tonight as the wind was quite strong and cold. I put the drone up the following morning to take some sunrise shots even though the wind was starting to pick up. The camping area and surrounding countryside are pretty sandy, and some of the small outcrops of sand remind us of the luna scapes found in Mungo National Park.

We left just at 9 am and soon passed the turnoff to Merty Merty and the road that eventually leads to Cameron Corner and onto Tibooburra. With just 40 km to travel to Moomba, we encountered road crews laying bitumen. The lollipop lady had us stopping while trucks ahead were moving back and forth, laying a white sheet before putting down the tar.

We stopped briefly at the Moomba lookout catching up on emails and making calls as our phones were using the tower at the gas field.

The road for the next 53 km heading east from Moomba was the worst condition we'd experienced since reaching the dirt yesterday. The road would have been at least 60 metres wide, and the corrugations covered all the surface, so it was fun trying to find the best line to take whenever no road trains were approaching.

Once we turned north for the final 49 km, run into Innamincka, the road, while still dirt and recently resurfaced with new dirt, and was like driving on a highway.

We had planned to camp on the Innamincka town common, but because the Cooper was in flood and the causeway was underwater, the camping area was closed. We found a site without a view of the creek or its magnificent river red gums and were camped in the bulldust, which wasn't ideal, so we decided we would leave the following day.

Before leaving home, we'd picked up a tec screw in one of the tyres that we had plugged and then put it back on the van, and when we woke the following day, Ros commented that something wasn't quite right with the van and low and behold the very same tyre was flat again.

Lucky, I had all the necessary items to change the tyre in the bulldust, like the large tarp and the jacking plate, to ensure the jack didn't disappear into the dirt. Luckily we still had 60 litres in jerry cans that I emptied into the Chev and thankfully only needed 41 litres to top up the tank as the fuel was @$2.76  PL.

Also checked and found out from the fuel outlet that the 57 km stretch to the QLD border was now sealed since our last visit here in 2019, so I pumped up the tyres to bitumen road pressures before continuing into Queensland.

We were surprised when we arrived at the Wilson River at Noccundra that there were only a few vans here, although more did come later in the day and even more the following day.

Northern South Australia

Leaving Menindee, we made our way toward Broken Hill along what can be best described as a roller coaster of a road.

We drove through Broken Hill without stopping and stopped for lunch at Manna Hill before continuing onto Peterborough. We had a slight headwind for the day, and I was surprised when I checked my fuel consumption; we'd only used 22 l/100 km.

We are camped at a new RV stop in Peterborough that wasn't here on our last visit. It's on the western end of town, about a 15-minute walk away, allowing a maximum of 5 days. The only facilities are rubbish bins and a bottle collection site with proceeds going to the local youth centre.

It's for fully self-contained vans, but during our stay, we've seen sliders and camper trailers using the site and people flouting the rules by dropping their water on the ground. So I suppose if this continues, this site will end up closing just like so many other sites have because people just can't follow the rules.

We visited all the attractions during our stay and found the steam-train exhibit outstanding. Colin, our tour guide, worked for South Australian railways for 25 years, and he was a hive of knowledge, even having been on some of the exhibits during his career.

We've been experiencing problems adding Adblue to our Chev, and the small amounts we add do not show up on our vehicle's display. We have the necessary device to use at garages that fit over the nozzle but can only add a few litres at a time, so we drove to Jamestown on one of our days to pick up a 15-litre container of Adblue to take with us.

The days here are getting busy, and tonight there will be about thirty vans. The temperatures have also started to drop, with our coldest being -0.3 and daytime temperatures hovering around the 13-degree mark, although the wind chill factor makes the temperature feel about half that.

During our stay, we enjoyed two lunches out at the Junction Hotel after a recommendation from Greg, who owns a Bushtracker and who we met in Menindee. The meals are huge and very well priced. On our first visit, I thoroughly enjoyed my squid schnitzel, and Ros enjoyed her chicken schnitzel. On the second visit, the seafood basket I ordered was immense, and Ros enjoyed her spinach fettuccine.

Tuesday next week is the start of the Big Red Bash at Birdsville, and traffic has increased considerably during our time here.

We are also heading north with the traffic but will only be driving just 160 km to spend the night camped behind the Craddock Hotel. There is a gin distillery at Quorn that makes four different flavours, and we know the pub here does tastings and sells the gin, and we plan to enjoy dinner.

Flinders Gin comes in four flavours: butterfly pea flower, outback lemon-lime, farriers and quandong gin, and if they are to our liking, and they were so, we purchased a lemon-lime and quandong.

We both ordered and enjoyed the chicken schnitzel, which was quite large.

We ventured further north from Cradock, stopping in Hawker to purchase fuel at $2.50 per litre before continuing further north. We usually drive into a headwind, but for the past two days after leaving Peterborough, we've had an ever so slight tail wind which is really nice for a change.

We stopped briefly at Parachilna for a photo and could see that camping is no longer available across from the pub before moving onto Leigh Creek and having a brief drive around town.

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It was then just 25 km north towards Farina, where we stayed for the next two evenings. The bakery was in full swing after being closed for the past week due to COVID. On our way in, we stopped and bought two sausage rolls for lunch and a loaf of bread before making our way to the camping area. Fees are $10 per person nightly, and they have showers and toilets, but as usual, we always prefer to use our own.

Lovely clear days can mean only one thing, and yes, the following morning, it was just 0.8degrees outside and 2.3 inside the van until we cranked up the diesel heater. It was back into bed until the interior was at an acceptable level to get up and change.

We lunched again the next day with chunky meat pies from the bakery and enjoyed a beer with it.

This trip has coincided with the Big Red Bash so we are dodging the masses as they head to and from the Bash