Port Broughton to Marree to Lake Eyre

We Finally Made It!

When we left Port Broughton, we found ourselves on roads we had previously travelled. Once more driving the Outback Hwy north from Port Augusta with the great Flinders Ranges on either side of us. We stopped that night well off the main road, with an old ruin to the East and the Old Ghan railroad to the West. It rained all around us, which made for some pretty impressive skies. This led to an impressive sunset and an even more impressive full moon rising. The colour of the ranges as the moon rose is accurate due to the sun still setting on the western horizon.

The following day we did a quick detour to Aroona Dam. This countryside never ceases to amaze. After yet another bumpy dirt road, we pulled into the parking area to see this.

From there it was an easy drive to Marree, our kick off point for visiting Lake Eyre (or Kati Thanda, the Aboriginal name). We had no expectations of Marree, which was good; that way we weren’t disappointed. Suffice to say, Marree is not a holiday destination in itself. It is however, an excellent, and necessary, southern base camp if you want to explore Lake Eyre, or if you’re travelling the Oodnadatta, Strzelecki, or Birdsville tracks. Without Marree (and William Creek further north-west) there would be no fuel, no supplies and possibly no way to travel these distances through the interior.

We drove past the first caravan park, Drovers Run, Peter thought it looked a bit sketchy and I for one was not going to argue. That left us with the Oasis Caravan Park. But believe me, an Oasis it was not. We were there for three nights, longer than we would have liked, but this did allow us to put our little washing machine to good use, and to plan our next trip.

This is as remote a town as we have visited to date. Marree has a population of around 150, it is dry, dusty and its’ water source is bore water. The bore water is drinkable but is definitely an acquired taste. You can however, buy desalinated, treated water there which is perfectly drinkable. Except for The Roadhouse, which is busy most of the time, Marree is a very sleepy little town.

On our second day in Marree, we took a road trip to the lake. We had left Chunky Bum back at the Oasis, so we could let Big Ears stretch his wheels and really enjoy the dirt/sand roads. I think it’s safe to say that Peter also enjoyed the drive without having to worry about the caravan bumping along behind us.

We stopped at the campground at Muloorina Station and had a look around, I let out a little squeal of delight when I saw my favourite birds, and I heard Peter mumble, “I guess Lake Eyre will have to wait a bit longer.” He was right. 🙂

Oh, and I should warn you, this next section is adults only.

Once Peter could drag me away from my birds we continued on our day trip to the north-eastern part of Lake Eyre (south,) then followed Goyder channel that connects the north and south lakes. This brought us to Madigan Gulf at the south-east end of Lake Eyre (north). So our little outing had us visit both north and south lakes and the channel between. Even so, this is really just a tiny sampling of the Lake Eyre system. This is no small lake, it’s actually the largest lake in Australia. The south lake is 65 by 24 kilometres, and the north is 144 by 65 kilometres.

The Lake Eyre catchment is huge, it covers a truly vast area of flat land. The Warburton River feeds the lake from the Diamantina River, Georgina River and Cooper Creek. Lake Eyre actually takes in water from as far north as Camooweal (west of Mt Isa)!  Check that out on a map of Australia and you’ll see that it’s truly amazing.

For those of you who don’t know; for most of the year, indeed for years at a time, Lake Eyre is nothing more than a dry salt bed. It is rarely full to capacity, only a few times every 100 years, in fact the last time it was full was in 1974. Without continuous rain, it will be completely dry again in about two years. Even though it is far from full, there is a good amount of water in the lake now, that’s why we’ve been so eager to get here to see it.

This link, https://www.lakepedia.com/lake/eyre.html will provide you with a range of stats relating to lake Eyre, if you’re interested.

Our first glimpse of Lake Eyre (south) confirmed that it was already drying up, but it was still a sight to behold. The salty earth was still very damp under foot. The lake stretched as far as we could see, the horizon shimmering with distant mirages promising a hint of water, and the dunes surrounding the lake were awash with wildflowers; beautiful. Once more, the photos do not do this area justice.

From there, we continued to the most southern point of Lake Eyre (north).  I have to say, we were both a bit awestruck at what we saw when we climbed to the top of the little sand dune, and we could only see a small percentage of the lake. We could have been standing on a vast stretch of coastline, wondering who had stolen the sea.

After a bit of exploring and fun in the sun, we settled down to lunch. I had been baking a couple of potatoes in our little oven in the back of Big Ears, so all I had to do was re-heat the chilli concarne I had made the day before and lunch was ready. While I did that, Peter found us a lovely spot to eat. As soon as I had taken the potatoes from the oven, I put our desert in there. Chock chip cookie dough, home-made of course. I know, we really do it tough. 😊

We had a truly wonderful day. Each turn in the road showed us the area from a different perspective, and Lake Eyre (north) was simply mind blowing and has only fuelled our enthusiasm to see more of it, as you could see from the map below, we have only seen the tip of the lake-berg.

We found ourselves driving home at sunset, and as we talked about the day, we decided that Muloorina would be our next destination. Lake Eyre (north) would have to wait for just a few more days.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!