8/03/2004 - Day 20, Page 1 of 4 - Roxby Downs to Warburton River at Kalamurina Station, SA

All went well in Roxby. We hung around for three nights in all - drank too many beers, ate too much and told a whole lot of lies. That essentially signifies a good time had by all.

Speaking of too many beers, on the second night we came up with our post-Roxby game plan. We decided to head to Port Lincoln via Birdsville (do check your map!). Yes, that's right, we decided to go south starting with a 750 km (each way) detour north. 'WHY' I hear you all scream?? Well we we missed the floods at Cooper Creek, so the Diamentina River is clearly the next best thing.

We headed north up the Borefield Road from Roxby Downs to the Oodnadatta Track then turned right (east) and scooted into Marree. Stopped there momentarily to check emails, then turned left (north) onto the Birdsville Track. We were both pretty excited about this having recently read a book called 'Mailman of the Birdsville Track' about Tom Kruse who drove the mail fortnightly up the track for about 20 years in the mid 1900's.

Having received a request from Barney for more scenery shots, we took about snapping! Below is what greeted us when we turned onto the Birdsville track at Marree.


According to the esteemed staff at the Marree pub (we stopped in there for research purposes only! local knowledge is a valuable thing), Mungerannie Roadhouse is the place to find out about flood waters and road conditions in the Birdsville area. Mungerannie is a cattle station/roadhouse/pub/camp ground about 200km up the track (300km south of Birdsville). To get there you have to cross the Cooper Creek which is the place we were originally hoping to find water/fish/birds/fun. The Cooper doesn't fill up often, but back in the mid 1900's the Cooper was full - very full! When this happens the creek is about 20km wide and you have to cross it on a boat in the middle of the desert! The first boat to be permanently stationed at the Cooper Creek/Birdsville Track crossing was the Brennan. This is the boat that the old mailman Tom Kruse used to ship his truck load of cargo over on. He used to do it all by hand out in the desert heat. Unload several tonnes of cargo and mail off one truck, onto a boat, cross the creek, unload the boat and then load everything onto his second truck before heading off north. Bugger that! Now a day, there's a fancy car ferry that operates during periods of flood.

Well the Brennan has been collected out of the desert sands, cleaned up a little and put on display above the Cooper Creek bed. Below is a picture of me sitting up in the Brennan. You will notice the green trees in the background - well that's the dry Cooper Creek bed.



We finally arrived at the Mungerannie Roadhouse. This place is a camping ground, pub, roadhouse and cattle station all in one. Best thing is that it's full of locals that know about road conditions, etc... The road condition sign out on the road said that the last 300km of dirt track leading to Birdsville was open to 4WD vehicles up to 3 tonne only. Our over packed troopie's only 3.1 tonne - close enough! The locals recommended a side trip out to Kalamurina Station about 60km each way to the north west of Mungerannie (off the Birdsville Track). They said the Warburton Creek was flowing out at the station and that it was well worth a look. Apart from that, they said the track to Birdsville would be no problem for us and that there'd be only one water crossing of about 1 ft deep. We were good to go! And go we did! Camped out at Mungerannie that night. There's a permanent water hole there and i carefully counted the birds - 6 million i think. Just about every fly in Australia dropped in for a lick that night. And when they'd finished, the mozzies moseyed by as the last of the 6 million birds finally gave up squawking. Very little sleep had by all! But don't worry, at first light every one of the 6 million birds said good morning to us, the flys resumed their circus and the mozzies buzzed merrily. Needless to say we packed up and took off at record speed! Off to Kalamurina Station where we met Lady Di and Nathan who pointed out where we would find the Warburton Creek flowing. Below are a couple of pictures we took of the creek from on top of a nearby sand dune.