Oodnadatta Track to William Creek

After leaving Brachina Gorge & the Flinders Ranges we headed up the main highway to Parchilna, Lyndhurst, Leigh Creek and then onto the Oodnadatta Track..Our Plan was to try and make it to Coober Pedy that evening which in hindsight was such an over enthusiastic idea, we ended up having lunch at the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna which is a must stop location on this road. The food and the hotel itself is such a surprise for this isolated outback location.
We drove through Lyndhurst & Leigh Creek as we contemplated staying the night here before we hit the track as once you’re on the track it’s almost 400kms of dirt road.  After a closer look at both those towns (no disrespect) but we preferred to continue driving even though it was 40+ degrees (quite hot!)

It was 5.00pm when we actually hit the dirt on the Oodnadatta track and after about 10 km into it – of course the Aircond decided to stop working! Ok plan B, windows down on the dirt in the heat, very old school..takes me back to when we were kids and we used to travel with my parents and uncles we would always take “the back roads” in the stinking heat with windows down and the whole car full of red dirt by the end of the day! The only difference is back then is that I also remember the KB steel cans flying out the window at every 50km intervals from my dad & uncle keeping themselves hydrated in the blistering heat! But they were different days and we are more responsible now with a car load of children, (well at least I think we are). We choose Coopers Clear Ale low carb beer as we also watching our waistlines…(ha ha, just kidding)
It is hard not to get overwhelmed by the isolation out here, knowing that the nearest bit of life is over 200km away at William Creek it does play with your mind at first, as the track is very bare and just miles and miles of straight dirt road and yellow plains either side no trees no nothing!
Well after almost 180km of this road and feeling very confident of how well we are travelling , life – the universe who ever is up there has a way of bringing you straight back down to reality.. After crossing one of the many cattle grids both rear tyres decided they had enough and blew at the same time…OK time to click into gear and work this out, we had one spare with the one tyre completely gone the other was just hissing away..the kids thought this was quite amusing that we might be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere..
I managed to patch up the one tyre before we replaced the other one with the spare, we ended rolling into the William Creek roadhouse at about 9.00pm..  The roadhouse also has cabins which after our hot afternoon adventure we decided it was probably best to sleep in a bed for the night and rest up as we’re all exhausted. The guys at the hotel fixed our bung tyre to at least get us mobile again for the trip to Coober Pedy in the morning.

Being so late we also missed dinner at the pub however the girl there was lovely enough to heat up some meat pies and sausage rolls for us, and as Harry put it afterwards – “dad that was the best sausage roll I have ever eaten” ….