Goodbye Oodnadata track.

Betty presented us with a bit of a disaster last evening, the door handle on the rear door broke, so we couldn't get in to get our food or our washing gear, so everything inside had to come out by the rear passenger doors while I took some of the woodwork to bits to get at the inside handle and our boxes. To make it worse it was extremely hot, around 40 deg c, ( 105f) and I was getting more frustrated by the minute. Eventually I got it open, and fixed up a jury rig to open the door from the inside by a wire. It will have to do until we get to Alice, we won't get a new part before then.
It continued to be very hot all night, we turned off the aircon because of the noise, ( we've given up camping at the moment as it is so hot), so we just stripped off and lay on top of the bed. Not a lot of sleep, and no sign of a let up.

Oodnadata is a a one street town whose shop and hotel serves quite a large area, (and not a lot there either!), but there is a small museum in the old railway station buildings.

We borrowed the key and went for a look, but were a little disappointed to find it quite neglected inside.
There were however some interesting pictures of the old town, and the Old Ghan as it passed through in those days, there were considerably more people in the town in the first half of the last century.
The Ghan closed here in the fifties when they rerouted it further east, and it was a very big blow to the town.






The 'cinema' consists of a few seats in the open air facing a screen. They show films here maybe once a week, after dark of course, and it is free. I doubt they have the latest!

 



So - our last day on the track, after all the dire warnings we have had it has proved to be a bit of an anti climax. Most of the road has been  well graded, mostly good gravel, so far it has been easy.





Today however the track is not as good.We have quite a lot of sand, rutted in places, so the front wheels tend to follow the ruts. I had to stop at a couple of places to check the tyres, but they are all ok this time. Maybe that's due to reducing the pressure. There are mixed reviews about that.

The terrain changes regularly, from bare desert to lush forest around the creeks, but very little wildlife other than the occasional kangaroo. Plenty of cattle though, we have to watch out for them running across the road.  Apart from that and wrestling with the steering it is quite boring on this section, we have left the Old Ghan, which continued north as we turned more westerly

Reaching the road we spotted this eagle feeding on roadkill, now that's something we would be unlikely to see on the track as there is virtually no traffic!
In over 600 kms we have seen just three cars and a motorbike, except in the two towns of course, so it is certainly the loneliest road we have travelled in almost 3000 miles of outback off road travel.