The Birdsville Track is "Open."

Hooray – The Birdsville Track is “Open”.

We arrived in Marree, about 700klms north of Adelaide on Tuesday. That night a major thunderstorm swept across a large proportion of the State of South Australia causing some minor but widespread flooding in this area and subsequently all roads out of Marree to be closed. Marree is only accessible by an unmade road from Lyndhurst in the south and two famous outback tracks (legendary stock routes) that lead into the far north of the state – The Birdsville Track and The Oodnadatta Track. These rough gravel Tracks are crisscrossed by dozens of creeks – some only narrow with slow flowing water and others like the famous Cooper’s Creek can be as wide as 5 klms and 10ft deep when a major floor occurs. We came to Marree especially to travel on part of these tracks.

The weather we experienced did not cause major flooding but a large area around Marree had enough rain to flood paddocks, fill lakes and to turn sections of the tracks into slippery, muddy, bog holes and subsequently cause the tracks to be closed.



It is now Friday and the big sign showing the road conditions at the start of The Birdsville Track is stating that “The Road is Open”. So we are off on our adventure - we are going to travel 205klms up the track to the Mungerannie Hotel and Wetlands. This is approximately 2/5ths of the way to Birdsville. Not far but it will give us a good look at the country and let us experience part of this famous track.



Many puddles filled with mud along the track as a result of the recent thunderstorms.



The country we passed through.

The one fantastic thing about our big advantage - as a result of the rain - is that all the area we are passing through is starting to show signs of green, the dust has been washed away and some wildflower are already starting to appear. This is desert area and except for small areas along dry creek beds - where there is stunted green vegetation - it is usually extremely dry- red or yellow in colour and very dusty. We are seeing something special.



Purple coloured flowers on the side of the track and in the fields.

As we venture up the track, we are surprised at how good the road conditions actually are. We do come across some really boggy areas - some with water over the road and we do have to avoid where other travellers have churned up the road – but all in all it is pretty good. The rain has washed out areas and there is plenty of mud all the way to Mungerannie. I don’t think our car will ever be really clean ever again.



Swift Flowing Water across the Track.

The landscape is generally fairly boring. We stop and explore the old ruins of the Lake Harry Homestead and we are amazed to see that Lake Harry actually has a lot of water in it. We then cross the dingo fence. Sheep graze on the south side of the fence and the cattle stations are on the north of the fence. It is considered that the cattle can fend off attacks from wild dingos.



The Lake Harry Homestead Ruins.



There are many rusted out old cars along the truck. Cars that have broken down and been left.

The stone work in the old houses is very beautiful.- fantastic craftsmanship.

At Clayton Homestead we check out the bush camping facilities and the warm spa. It looks pretty good for bush camping and only $10 a night. We drive as far as we can into their wetland area and to our delight we come across 2 majestic Brolgas. They are such big beautiful birds.

We saw two Brolgas - we were just so lucky to see them.

We come to the Cooper Creek area, but thank goodness there is no large amount of water here. When this area really floods a ferry is put into operation to ferry people and goods across the large expanse of water.

As we get closer to the Mungerannie Hotel the track goes through an area known as Naterannie Sandhills. The Tirari Desert on our left and the Strzelecki Desert on our right meet in this 10klm stretch of long and narrow sand dunes.



The Emus are walking on the small red rocks of The Gibber Plains.

The Sand Dunes and water. This is a haven for birds and wildlife.



The Wetlands and Dunes of Mungerannie. The only water here comes from the artesian basin and it is pumped to the surface by a bore.



Hot Spring Bore Water Spa. Very refreshing we were told.

Mungerannie is a small oasis where the two deserts we have been travelling through meet the southern reaches of the Simpson Desert. An artesian bore provides water for the Derwent Wetlands and this is a very popular camping area and bird watching area. We spend sometime in the pub before commencing our return journey. This pub is typical of most outback hotels – it is full of memorabilia that past visitors have left as a mark of being there and I am sure that there have been many a tall tale told in this character filled place.



The Mungerannie Pub - the hotel we have driven all this way to see.

There are other people in the camping area, but we are the only two in the pub. This is a photo of the owner Phil and his friend. He told us that 150,000 people go through the pub in a year. Somehow I find this hard to believe.



People who visit this pub just want to leave something of their own in this isolated pub- - there are hats, tee shirts, money, business cards etc. hung all over the ceiling and the walls.



Rusty Old Mail Trucks are a reminder of the hard times that were experienced getting the mail through. Note: as a joke the Mac Donald sign says ""Opening Soon". Imagine all the excited then very disappointed kids. 

We saw very few animals on this journey. We did however see a few large eagles and on our way home we saw many emus and chicks. We had a very full day and it was extremely enjoyable.