We left home on Monday the 29th August. Me, my three kids plus my oldest sons mate. A Patrol, a camper trailer, three swags and four kids under 15. This could be interesting!
Plan was to meet some friends at Cooper Creek on Monday afternoon. They had left the week before and had been touring around the Oodnadatta Track and Lake Eyre. We were unable to leave on Saturday as number two son had to play in his under 12s footy grand final on Sunday. Happily they won so it was worth hanging around for.
After an uneventful run up past the Flinders we had lunch at Leigh Creek, topped up the fuel at Lyndhurst, let down the tyres (30psi front, 33psi rear and 26psi on the trailer) and hit the dirt.
Past Farina, Marree and Clayton we arrived at the detour track at Etadunna at about 4pm. The bypass road was in good condition and we soon arrived at the Cooper. Andrew & Julie had already set up their Adventure Camper on the Southside of the Cooper about 500m upstream of the ferry and Andrew came over to meet us and show us the way. He then told us that the long line up was due to a motorhome getting stuck while leaving the ferry and it had taken about three hours to get it off. This would cause us, and many others, big issues the next day.
We set up our camper near theirs, gathered some wood for a fire and then cooked dinner. Surprisingly there were no flies or mozzies around but the long-tailed short haired guinea pigs were everywhere. My nine year old daughter wasn’t falling for that description – “Oh dad, I know what rats look like” followed by a look of disgust.
A few sunset pics were taken then it was time to have a few beers around the fire.
In the morning we noticed two things – Firstly all of our footprints around the camper and under the awning had been obliterated by a complete canvas of little rat footprints. Good thing we had taken the precaution of putting EVERYTHING away in the camper or car. We also left both car bonnets open overnight. Apparently the little buggers like the dark warm space and will chew on anything under there. One of the nearby campers had his bottom radiator hose chewed through which is more than inconvenient, it could have been worse if it had only chewed part way through and the hose burst under pressure somewhere down the road. Second thing we noticed was that the ferry queue had rapidly grown before dawn. Apparently the message had got down to Marree that the ferry would have big queues so the big number of travellers for the Birdsville Races rushed up to get in line. We had breakfast, packed up and then joined the line at about 9am. With a large number of motorhomes ahead of us the queue moved very slowly. The ferry can only move 3 or 4 motorhomes per hour versus 7 or 8 cars/4WDs as they are slow to load and unload.
Story in Saturdays Adelaide Advertiser
We ended up spending most of the day in the line and only got across the creek at about 5:00pm. We were still luckier than a lot of other who were looking at waiting there for another day or two to get across! For those that have been there, we joined the line on the downhill section heading towards the ferry. Late in the day the line was all the way to the top of the hill, past the roadgang camp and about 100m down the other side.
Despite it being an inconvenience it ended up being a really good social day chatting to lots of other travellers, swimming in the Cooper, and playing Bocce and footy with the kids. We kept them amused and kept us sane.
Our plan for the day had been Mungerannie for lunch and a swim and on to Birdsville for two nights. We ended up doing a quick drive up the Track and staying the night at Mungerannie. Pam & Phil were great hosts, as always, and we had dinner at the pub before a quiet night around the campfire interspersed with a few swims in the thermal pool.
Photos from around the Mungerannie Wetlands
To be continued….
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