After a cup of tea with the guys at the shop, we set off
down the dirt road again, heading north to Marree. First of all we passed through Lyndhurst and
Leigh Creek, which is the site of one of the biggest open cut coal mines in
Australia, so all about mining – Thus the earth mover tyres forming a part of
the city sign !! But not exactly the
most enchanting place to live !! At
Lyndhurst we stopped at the pub for lunch and a bit of wifi for the first time
in a week or so. When I worked on the rigs in Moomba in central Australia 30
years ago I had got to know this area quite well, but have to admit I didn’t
seem to remember much about it when I saw it !!! After Lyndhurst it was all pretty boring
straight dirt road, with just the normal due care required to avoid large rocks
or other uneven spots. We eventually
reached Marree where we decided to stop for the night, and this used to be a
main stopping place for the old narrow gauge Ghan train that went from Adelaide
to Alice Springs. However, since the
1980’s when the new wider gauge track was laid all the way through to Darwin,
and which followed a different (and much
shorter) route north, Marree has rapidly become a quaint by product that is
sadly becoming forgotten. Its main claim
to fame now is the Lake Eyre Yacht Club, which since Lake Eyre fills with water
so infrequently, is not exactly the busiest Yacht Club on earth !! But there was water there while we were
visiting, and the previous weekend lots of people had towed their small cats
and dinghy’s from all over Australia to compete in a regatta – Jut to say they
had sailed in the (normally dry) Lake Eyre !!
This is of course the scene in the past of World Land Speed record
attempts, like that of Donald Campbell in Bluebird, so to sail here when there
is water is a sailor’s dream !! I must
admit, seeing lots of yachts being towed down the road in the middle of
Australia was an incongruous sight, to say the least !!
A Stunning sunset that night over the old Ghan station and
engines was a major highlight, along with large numbers of kites )?) circling
above us as the sun went down. And Janet
decided that a flight over Lake Eyre
would be a good thing to do in the morning, so she could see it with water in
it, so went off and booked herself a flight before we turned in for the night.
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