Mud on our last off road day!!

 

Wednesday 10 August – Mud on our last off road day!!

We had noticed the clouds rolling in as wesat around the fire last night so had packed everything up before we went to bed (as we also wanted to make an early start).  We heard the rain drops start in the early morning and a steady, but light, rain fell as we packed up and left.  Enough rain had fallen that the top layer of dirt became muddy and happily flicked itself up and under both cars and caravans.

We stopped at Lake Eyre (south) lookout for another vista over the lake and this time it certainly looked like there was water out there albeit quite a long way away.  We also noted that one of the Andersen plugs connecting our car to the van to charge batteries etc had disappeared on the road somewhere and all we were left with was dangling wires.  Not to worry, as this is the third time in the years we have been driving offroad this has occurred. Hendrik supplied a new Anderson plug as our spares are buried in the front boot of the van and soon had it all fixed and things humming away happily again.

Before too long we were turning right and south off the Oodnadatta Track and onto the Borefields road to Roxby Downs.  The Oodnadatta track has been interesting and we are certainly glad we have done it but L & I agree that it’s probably on the list of boxes that have now been ticked and don’t need to be repeated.

Not much to see along the Borefields road either except, you guessed it, for a few bores that service the Olympic Dam mine just north of Roxby Downs.  L has been driving on the same tank of fuel since Cadney Park and it was along the borefields road the low fuel light came on. We kept driving knowing that we still had a jerry can of diesel if we started to lose power but we made it to the Olympic Dam Village with the gauge pointing to empty so decided to fill up there even though Roxby Downs was only another 9km down the road.  In the end we would have made it easily as we only put in 114l in and our capacity is 138l so another thing learnt about the car. Still, the fuel price was only a couple of cents more expensive so not much difference.

We stopped a couple of k’s out of Roxby Downs to scrape all the mud off the front of the vans and from around the wheel arches of both cars and vans as we didn’t think the caravan park would appreciate us dropping it all over their sites. We did leave quite sizeable piles of mud on the side of the road and the cars now have serious street cred of dust and mud all over them.

We checked in to the sites and found it interesting that you are given a six digit code for the boom gate which you need to use to get both in and OUT of the park.  First time for everything.  The park itself is huge with a lot of donger type accommodation so a lot of the mine workers must stay here also.  There are not many caravans and our two are in an area all by themselves and hence we have an amenities block pretty much all to ourselves as well.  The nice lady in reception had pointed us to the laundry block that was free so once we had set up we took two bags worth of laundry including sheets and towels and, because we didn’t have to spend $4 a way,  threw them into two separate machines and used their free detergent  so that my container will now last the entire trip (figuring that we might do one last load in Streaky Bay).

Whilst they were swooshing away, L&I did the 5 minute drive into town looking for some lunch.  Roxby Downs is a BHP company town so it is very neat and tidy and well laid out with the recreation centre and primary school on one side of the street and the Woolies and shops on the other.  Very convenient for parents to do their shop after drop off!  We also wondered that if, because it is a company town, that that is the reason the only ‘fast food’ in town is a Subway which is a healthier option for mining folk and their families than, say, a Macca’s.  We grabbed some toasted subway sandwiches and headed back to the van and by the time we had finished them, so had our washing.  We transferred it into two free dryers and then headed back into town for a quick grocery shop to top up our supplies of consumables for the last few days of being in SA.  After the border we will probably have to make do with frozen veg etc.

With impeccable timing we made it back to the caravan park just as the dryers finished doing their thing and so drove back to the van with a back seat filled with clean clothes and groceries.  Like a well oiled machine Jenny packed away groceries whilst L folded laundry so that we soon had chores out of the way and were ready for another adventure.

Because we had only done a little side trip yesterday whilst H had done the big trip out to the big lake we all hopped in the Cruiser again and headed out to Andamooka.  Well the only word I could think of to describe that town is random.  It’s an opal mining town so it is surrounded by random piles of dug up dirt and then there is this large sprawling town of roads randomly going in all directions and filled with a random collection of houses, buildings, derelict cars, shanties, vintage caravans, old buses and semi-dug into the ground old historic houses.   There’s a random bottle motel/museum/opal shop which we checked out and H&M bought some lovely earrings for their daughter Laura’s birthday which is a couple of days after we get home.

We then wandered across the road to some of the old dugouts which people lived in early last century (well actually not even that early last century) and marvelled at what people lived in.  Then, when you thought about it, the dug outs were better than the tents most people would have been in and weren’t much smaller than the caravans we have been living in for the past few weeks so they probably weren’t that bad after all.

We drove around the streets and it was pretty obvious a town planner has never and would never make a living here.  Anything goes in terms of where people put stuff, what they put where and what materials it’s made of.  I joked that if there was a planning process you wouldn’t stamp a plan ‘Approved’, you’d just stamp it ‘Why the hell not?’!!

Having had our fill of randomness we headed back to the incredibly planned and ordered townsite of Roxby Downs and to our caravans where Jenny indulged in a long, hot shower and washed her hair whilst L got some updating of the blog with photos done and hence published.  As it has been cold and blustery all day it wasn’t conducive to eating outside the vans as per usual so Jenny went and commandeered the camp kitchen in our own personal amenity block which had a full kitchen, dining table for four and a couch and TV area.  Everything we could possibly need for an evening out of the cold!

It was soon toasty warm in there as the oven was used to heat up duck fat potatoes, the stove was used to cook garlicky steaks and we ate dinner while watching the news which was a bit of change from normal.

We washed up everything there as the kitchen was so well equipped it had tea towels etc and watched a bit of Horrible Histories on the telly before heading back to the vans for a bit of a tidy and pack up as we have another early start planned so we can spend lots of time looking at rockets at Woomera.