Innamincka

Every now and then we all are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to experience something special. A few months ago heavy rain fell in the Strzelecki desert which closed the Strzelecki Track for more than 3 months. The rains caused the plants to grow and eventually to flower, and today we were fortunate to drive though the Strzelecki Desert at a time when it was in full bloom! A month from now the wildflowers will be gone, so we were in the right place at the right time.
As we drove through the desert along the track, for more than 50km on either side of the road there was flowers as far as the eye could see. Mainly yellow flowers that at times were like a carpet flowing over the ground, but also white, pink, purple flowers intermingled with masses of other green plants. It was truly a massive garden that flowed on and on. At first Carolina excitedly started snapping lots of photos, but after 50km all we could do was wonder at how lucky we were to see such a garden in what should be the brown Strzelecki desert.
The Strzelecki Track held another surprise for us. Known for its gravel roughness and corrugations, these days the famous Track is slowly being bitumised. The first 70km of the track was bitumen yesterday followed by about 100km of corrugations where we averaged 40-60 kph but at times were so rough that they brought our speed down to 20kph. Then every so often there would be a 7km stretch of sealed road before the gravel road started again. Today we had about 150km of rough gravel and at times quite bad corrugations, and then suddenly the bitumen started again and this time continued all the way to the Moomba gas and oil fields. A smooth road after the rough gravel road was a nice bonus for us, however we could not help but think that sealing these famous outback tracks takes away much of the adventure of outback travel.
We stopped for lunch at the lookout overlooking the main processing plant at the Moomba gas and oil fields. These are the largest onshore oil and gas fields in Australia with more than 1000 wells under production.
Then we headed out on the last leg of the 480km long Strzelecki Track to Innamincka. Peter flew into Innamincka nearly 50 years ago in a charter flight. Today the pub and general store are still there and still form the main part of this small town.
Carolina was pleased to see some civilisation again even if it was a small town, and we were both pleased to have completed the famous Strzelecki Track.Read more