Today was an easy drive with 200 km of the Birdsville Track to Mungerannie Hotel broken up 3/4 way by the Cooper Creek, but that’s OK there is a ferry over the water.
We had a look around Marree before heading off but there isn’t a lot to see apart from the old Train locomotives and the Lake Eyre Yacht Club. Fuelled up at $1.77 a litre and we were off on the Birdsville Track.
It was a pretty easy drive to the wet weather diversion of the Birdsville Track with a couple of rough spots. The diversion road was freshly graded but had not been completed. We arrived at the ferry with about 15 cars in the queue (well so we thought), which meant we were going to be in a long wait.
It ended up that most of the cars were there just to take photos and we were 4th in the queue. However, the ferry was on our side of the creek but there were no operators. It turns out that one of the grading road gang had suffered a heart attack and the ferry operator was the 1st Aid Officer.
After an hour they came to the queue and told us that the outcome was not that good and they were waiting for a helicopter with the Police and a Doctor. After another hour the chopper arrived, the 35 year old was pronounced dead and the ferry started up again.
It took around 15 minutes for the ferry to load a car, go to the other side, unload and load again and return. After another 40 minutes and we were on the Ferry and heading to the northern side of the Cooper Creek. The Ferry only took one car at a time, a total of 6 passengers and everyone had to wear a life jacket.
It wasn’t long and we were off the ferry and heading north to Mungerannie Hotel. The northern diversion road was very sandy but smooth, which was in contrast to the Normal Track which was rough in spots. We arrived to the oasis like Mungerannie Hotel and met up with Mungerannie Phil, set up the tents in the Wetlands Area. I went for a walk in the Wetlands to grab a couple of caches, while Jenny and the kids went for a swim in the Hot Pool.
After a spectacular sunset, we headed to the pub for tea, some beverages, 8 ball and then back to bed with some winds starting up.
Caches for the Day:
