What 50mm of rain looks like…..in the outback

Day 1

Our first day of adventuring was uneventful and we had perfect weather for driving, about 625km in total. After lunch and a diesel top up at Pt Augusta we headed out with Simon & Em to our first campsite at our usual place hidden off the side of the road, about 17km past Glendambo.

The kids had great fun collecting firewood and setting up their new mattresses and sleeping bags. They’ve grown since the last trip so we had to leave behind the Barbie and Bob the Builder sleeping bags for some new Black Wolf ones that go to -6 degrees - very handy for our first night. Also replaced the thin self inflating mattresses with small swag mattresses which the kid said are much better and actually pack down much smaller than we thought.

It was really cold but a roaring fire kept us warm while we waited for Tim and Mimi to join us in ‘The Reverend’. Had to start using up some of the meat we brought with us so it was standard camping fare for tea – sausages and bread followed by toasted marshmallows!

Day 2

In the morning we left the Sturt Highway and hit the dirt for the first time heading for campsite number two, about 485 km away, at Duff Creek on the Oodnadatta Track about 50 km up the road from William Creek.

Duff Creek made for a very pretty campsite. The creek was empty but there was a lovely old bridge nearby that used to be part of the old Ghan line. We had Pasta and bolognaise sauce for tea and went to bed fairly early.

It was not as cold as the first night but then the storm hit! Got about 4 hours sleep that night and not all at once. The rain was sooooo loud and pelting at the tent sideways! Had to get up once to go to the toilet (not much fun in the rain) and twice to put our tent annex poles back up (think we’ll use two guy ropes each one next time).

In the morning the campsite wasn’t flooded but the road was. We spent the morning driving in and out of floodways full of water and along some very long muddy tracks – a 4WDriver’s dream road. At Oodnadatta we filled up and caught up on all the news. We’d had about 50mm of rain during the night. The road we wanted to Mt Dare was closed and so was the way back to William Creek so the only option was head to Marla for the night then straight up to Alice Springs via the highway.