Woohoo – It has taken 5 years but I have finally beaten the weather even if it is probably only by one day. For the last five trips to Darwin for the Supercars, I have been trying to get out to the Painted Desert and each time there has been rain and the road out has been shut. Well not today.

 

Leaving William Creek the skies were looking ominous with the cloud starting to build up. There is some rain on the way but I thought I would be able to get through the Painted Desert before it arrived.

 

The road was in good condition through to Oodnadatta with a few spots with roadworks that were turning it into something better than some bitumen roads. 

 

Even though there were a couple of rattling spots which took one of my Anderson plugs. Looks like some more maintenance required.

 

It has taken a couple of days but I finally realised why there were so many motorbikes on the track. They are all headed to Finke for the Finke Desert Race which is on this weekend. There were even teams camped in William Creek last night.

After filling up at the Pink Roadhouse it was time to head to the Painted Desert . The sky was getting darker but the road was still open to 4WD’s and Heavy Vehicles so I ticked those boxes.

 

The road wasn’t too bad but there were some interesting creek crossings (all dry) and the track even was in a creek bed at times (again dry) and the occasional bull dust hole. Cant wait to see how much bull dust got in the caravan.

 

Soon I was at the Painted Desert and made the couple of kilometre walk to grab all the Geocaches, keeping one eye on the incoming weather. It was worth the venture out here finally with some spectacular rock formations.

 

It was 90 kilometres to the bitumen and you could see some rain in the distance. I made it out just on dusk without a drop of rain. I didn’t feel like driving onto Marla tonight and as I was a day ahead anyway, digs for the night was at the nearby Cadney Park.

 

Diesel was $1.839 at Oodnadatta.