We spent that night at Leigh Creek in a very respectable rest area. The boys caught two geckos- the first we'd seen - and promptly lost one in the car.

The next day was spent driving on our first stretch of dirt- 110 kms to Maree.

No probs here so onward to the much dreaded ( on my part) Oodanatta Track.

200 odd kms of stony off road track with a caravan that was blatantly not designed for such adventures? Foolish one might think. I will avert the suspense by telling you now that we have gone through two wheel rims and one tyre. Not from the roughness of the track however- although the start of the saga was due to a cracked rim which may or may not have been to undue pressures on rough roads. No the two blowouts were from me edging too close to the side of the tarmac and losing a tyre to the evil serrations where the sand has eroded away.

Anyway, we had two stops on the track. The first was at Plane Henge, an unexpected area that housed a collection of scrap metal sculptures. The land belonged to the Arubunna people who had set it aside for an annual dance festival- sort of like the Burning Man festival in Arizona- hence the art. On this occasion, it was base camp for a protest movement against the uranium mine at Roxby Downs, however all the participants had already headed down there which made for a wonderful, peaceful night. The sunset was extraordinary, fading to a deep apricot from tangerine and the wind stilled as the desert cooled.

The next morning we took a short detour to look at Lake Eyre South, the most accessible part of the massive feature. It had water - only a couple of inches at the shore, but enough to make me feel that we'd seen something iconic. We collected some salt as well....
Our stop for the night was Coward Springs, a literal oasis left over from the Ghan railway years. They have built a little spa around the original bore which pumps out 29 deg water day and night. On the way, we checked out another natural spring at the Bubbler and managed to lose all of our drinking water en route. Fortunately, the recent rains had topped up the tanks at Coward, so we were saved from having to drink bore water for the next two days.