Birdsville track to Birdsville

On 16 August we had to say our good byes. As we headed north east out of Marree they went north west for Coober Pedy. Our track now was for Birdsville. The Birdsville Track of course is the subject of much conversation because many city folk and others set off for the Birdsville Races that are coming up in the first week of September. The track is not difficult but the remoteness means you should not go out there unprepared, but they do. There is a memorial (that cannot be reached) to the Page family, who, in 1963, perished having broken down about 100kms south of Birdsville. They had left their car and gone in search of water (they were found over a month later in different places), breaking one of the cardinal rules. Surprisingly they were local people from Marree and would have surely known the risks they were taking, in December. They are buried out there, all five of them. Whilst in a morbid frame of mind, and in a similar vein, we were told in Innamincka of a family of four who two or three years ago got into trouble. A pilot spotted the square white patch that was all that was visible of the roof of their Land Cruiser, many kilometres off the main track, in the dunes where the wind had covered them for over eighteen months. All were there.

As you start north from Marree, and travel just 27 kms, you come to Lake Harry. The old station there had a long history with the cameleers, but became big news when a date palm plantation was set out in the 1890’s. A bold experiment that perhaps ought to have worked, but there’s not a sign of the 2622 trees they planted. A lot more money was allocated in 1910 by the SA Government and a bore was sunk that provides piping hot water at a well head that serves the cattle that are still occasionally watered on this old stock route. All has come to nothing however, and the place is a sad ruin today. What is special though, is the solitary hot shower head that stands proudly over its tilted old concrete base. We leapt at the opportunity, stripped off and enjoyed a grand wet down regardless of passing traffic. There are several bores along the route. At the half way point we stopped for a night at Mungerannie Hotel. A well equipped pub with good facilities and excellent camping along the wetlands which are created by an artesian outflow, it is an essential stopover on the Track.

We were told a sad tale at the Mirra Mitta bore, that rushes out of its pipe at 98C and creates a wetland that goes for over a kilometre. The tour buses stop here. Last year a touring toy dog was being given some relief when it slipped in and boiled on the spot. Oh dear.

Northwards again, we kept working away at the 515kms of the Birdsville, passing through the dog fence again, along the route taken for many years by Tom Kruse, who carried the Royal Mail up from Marree. In the bad flood years, and there were several in the early fifties, the Cooper Creek spreads 5 kms wide and closed off the country for months at a time. Kruse had a truck on both sides and a steel punt named the MV Tom Brennan (12 feet long) was used to carry everything across the swirling creek. Stock included. For Helen her new passion for things botanical continues and grows. She was grumpy when we sailed past a fenced area containing rare Mt Glason Acacia that she read about several kilometres past. Her diary is full of lists of plant species and birds spotted.

The open gibber plain turns redder and the sand dunes appear. Here the Tirari, Strzelecki, and Sturt Stony deserts meet. Old Mulka Homestead and Mulka Store, again in ruins now, appears on the left. Here George Aiston ran a general store that served the country around. He did well selling water that he leased from the government who had sunk a bore. Drought finished him, but he managed to trade for several decades before dying in the 1940’s. He corresponded with scientists and others on a wide range of topics, all over the world. The interior photographs showing his living room and his rare collection of armoury, swords and pistols, are extraordinary as you stand amongst the rubble now and consider how lives have changed. Finally the dunes scale down a little and the water tower of Birdsville appears on the horizon amongst welcome trees. We have arrived...where are Max and Linda?