"
You’re not going down there,
are you?”, asked the bemused
mother of two young children
as she waited for her husband
to refuel their Peugeot sedan.
I looked at my partner, Megan,
giving her the look she had become
accustomed too. What’s the big deal?
“Richard, did you hear that?
They’re riding down the Oodnadatta.”
She beamed, her excitement lost on
him as he stared blankly into the dis-
tance.
She mumbled quietly, wishing she
could do something similar. Turning
back towards us, she asked that we be
careful.
Megan, thanked her adding, “al-
though he’ll probably come off again”,
winking at me. I gave her another
look, she knew what it meant. Do not
go there.
We were at Marla, the small roa-
dhouse community at the northern
end of the Oodnadatta Track. A track
that is just one of several iconic desert
tracks that criss-cross the Australian
continent however, the Oodnadatta is
certainly the most historic and cultu-
rally significant for both the indige-
nous and ‘white’ people of Australia.
The track skirts the south-western
end of the Simpson Desert, however
in many ways is considered much
harsher; stony, dry and extremely
arid, not a lot grows out here, yet iro-
nically the track exists due to water.
The Aboriginal people knew this.
They followed a line of mound sprin-
gs that bubbled up from the Great
Artesian Basin, allowing the forma-
tion of a vital trade route through this
inhospitable environment. With this
knowledge, white settlers were able
to follow this ancient route when
laying the first tracks for the rail line
between the south and north of the
Australian continent; the Ghan Rai-
lway, named in honour of the ‘Af-
ghan’ cameleers who helped open
the Australian interior. This was then
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followed by the overland telegraph.
The Oodnadatta Track becoming the
service road for both rail and wire
although, in many ways it didn’t last
long. It remains as a service road for
the small communities that are stag-
gered along its 650-kilometre length
however, both railway and telegraph
moved on with progress and are no
longer in the area.
After our brief encounter with the
Peugeot family it was time for us to
set off, our first destination was the
town that the track was named after,
Oodnadatta. The small township, ori-
ginally utnadata in the Arrernte dia-
lect means “mulga blossom”. The in-
digenous people saw something that
I have clearly missed. It seemed too
arid for anything to blossom.
At only 210km we weren’t expecting
it to take too long despite being war-
ned that depending on conditions it
could take as long as 9 hours. We set
off in the easterly direction and found
the track in good condition. This sec-
tion of the track was maintained qui-
te well, although we soon discovered
that we were more or less following
the grader which, can pose enough of
its own problems. While the track is
often very ‘smooth’ immediately after
the grader has been through, it can
also be very slick. The water used to
settle the dust often sits just below