Day 70: We leave Curtin Springs and cross the SA border (10/08/12)

Last night at dinner I had gleaned some facts about Curtin Springs Station, whose hospitality we had so enjoyed and whose beef I had eaten (that makes you friends for life doesn’t it?). It is 1600 square miles or 4160 square kilometres. The place was named Curtin Springs by its Socialist-leaning owner in the early 1950’s. He had wanted to call it Stalin Springs, but thought that would not go down well with his fellow Australians, so he named it after Australia’s wartime Prime Minister Curtin instead! Sounds nicer, ay? The information about Curtin Springs also mentioned a researcher into the aboriginal tribes of central Australia who had worked in the area (and on the station) from the 1920’s onwards. His name was Norman Tindale and he published his definitive work Aboriginal Tribes of Australia in 1974. However, he must have published some of his findings earlier, because I remember reading a book of his about central Australian aboriginal tribes in the school library at Scotch College in the mid-1960’s. I must look it up when I get home....

Early morning at Curtin Springs - well not so early as almost everybody had already left! Including Russell and Anne who had made an early start for Uluru.

We braved the refreshing showers again – less wind this morning so it was not such an ordeal. Then we drove away eastwards. 

The eastern end of Mt Conner from a different vantage point. Amazing how it and Uluru and Kata Tjuta are such completely different types of mountains.

The road east...

We passed the Mount Conner lookout again, as well as the turn-off to King’s Canyon which, we decided, was going to remain on the agenda for a future trip. We had seen so many wonderful things that we could afford to keep a few wonders in reserve. We passed Mount Ebenezer Roadhouse again: it was a ghost-house, closed down and not a soul in sight. Hopefully there were not too many motorists out there who were counting on getting petrol there, as all the information we had (including the road signs) said it was open. It’s a long walk with a jerry-can out there....

At the junction of the Lasseter Highway and the Stuart Highway we drove straight past the Desert Oaks Petrol Station in the hopes that we could do a better price per litre at the Kulgera Roadhouse on the border of NT/SA. We had already reached a new top price for the trip at Curtin Springs where they charged $2.17 per litre. They had the grace to round it down to the nearest dollar!! I only got 15 litre, but that is like saying you only dropped the hammer on your foot a little bit – it still hurt. Well, Desert Oaks had charged us $1.90 on the way in, so we thought Kulgera Roadhouse might do better. No such luck, when we got to Kulgera, the price was $1.90 as well. Oh well, win some, lose some – mainly lose as far as petrol in the Northern Territory is concerned.

Another thing was that the wind, which somehow had been very kind to us for almost the whole of our trip so far, had blown against us, generally from the north-east, until we got to the Stuart Highway. This showed up in the petrol consumption, pushing us up from our average of 15 litres/100 kms or less to 17.5 litres/100 kms. As we drove into South Australia, the wind tended more northerly, giving us our usual comfortable push along. Another benefit of the generally favourable winds we had had up till now was that they generally came from the passenger side, which meant that the effect of passing road trains going the other way was minimised.

Scouting for a possible free camp, we looked at this stop at Agnes Creek. We were disappointed with this section of the Stuart Highway in South Australia, because the stops were uniformly dirty. In the foreground you can see the toilet paper that signalled the lack of a toilet here...

More flat, bare country.

Our sights had been set on Marla in northern South Australia, but we were coasting along so nicely that we decided to continue to Cadney Park. They had a cheap camp there – sandwiched between the Stuart Highway, an airstrip and the Adelaide – Darwin railway line. Luckily there were no planes or trains that night and the trucks did not bother us too much.

Motel accommodation at Cadney Park. The rusty paint tins are ash trays. Imagine being in one of these in the hot season...

Our campground was next to the airstrip. I had to investigate the sign. Luckily, I could wander around the airstrip without encountering any airoplanes or aeroplanes!!

The Adelaide to Darwin railway line lay beyond the airstrip.

Joke cooking up tea.

Just to show that a South Australian sunset could hold its own with its Queensland or Northern Territory counterpart.