Day 12 - Arkaroola to Coward Springs

We stocked up at Leigh Creek, posted a birthday present to Elspeth. Leigh Creek has only flourished due to a coal mine further up the road.

 

We stopped off to view the coal mine, which they expect to be 200 metres deep by 2025. Justin took the youngsters for a drive of the walking crane, thankfully the walking function was disabled.

 

We took a left turn at Marree onto the Oodnadatta Track. Marree is reasonably basic, the old Ghan railway station is still intact, and a cliched, but no less charming, two storey pub with a verandah.

 

As we were hurtling along a good dirt section of the Oodnadatta Track, in the middle of nowhere, we came across Plane-henge.

 

There were people and tents in evidence. As I was taking photos of the sculptures a bloke wandered over and threw some light on what the people were all doing in such a windswept, treeless place. We had heard there was a protest against Uranium mining at nearby Roxby Downs, and according to our source, "They'd all come up to celebrate their recent success".

 

As we were pushing to set up camp before dark we didn't stay for a longer chat, just took one more photo of the dog below, which uses an old water tank from the steam engined Ghan and a car as the muzzle.

 

A couple we sat next to on the Ridgetop Tour told us Coward Springs had a spa that was worth visiting, so that was our goal for the night. We arrived just before dusk, found a lovely spot nestled amongst the Casurinas

 

For once we could see what we were doing whilst setting up, but the mozzies had a field day on my ankles. Sweet chilli tuna salad was gobbled up by all. I also boiled up a ham hock ready for soup tomorrow night. There were were plenty of campers around which made for a nice atmosphere as we were in the middle of an arid large plane. It felt like there was a curfew at Coward Springs as suddenly at 9.30, we were the only people still with lights on. We found the showers, but you had to light a fire to heat the water, we hadn't bought any wood with us and the tank was too cool to risk it. We will have to wait until Coober Pedy to shower.There are a lot of places I will go, but under semi temperate water, into a zero to five degree night with wet hair isn't one of them. Another day of gritty hair just means we look like everyone else we meet!

 

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