in a warm August up to Mildura , lunching at a riverside RSL , watching the steamboats slowly plod on by . It ’ s an idyllic spot up there at the Murray-Darling , yet already proving maddeningly warm . To counter the heat , I was determined to get away early , rising at dawn and getting a good few hundred kilometres in before the midday sun . Unfortunately , Richie ’ s earlyonset of illness ( colitis ) precluded that entirely , meaning that he really struggled with mornings , so we had to compromise somewhat i . e ., we roasted like bake-potatoes every bloody day .
We discarded our health and Adonis-like bodies at the Melbourne city limits a few hundred kilometres and ten years ago , enjoying pies and country-town grub at wonderful places like Emily ’ s Bistro in Quorn , the self-styled Great Northern Emporium . The ‘ Capital of the Flinders ’ was once an important crossroads for the Trans-Australian Railway from Port Augusta and the Central-Australian Railway running northwards , it ’ s broad streets reminiscent of the goldrush era , with a flurry of film sequences shot here during the 50 ’ s and 60 ’ s . As the daylight drained from the sky , we skirted through Kanyaka and Simmonston , small towns amongst the scrub created on the hope of the iron horse , the latter abandoned before completion when the rail instead went to Gordon in 1880 . A few honey-coloured walls of someone ’ s dreams stood proudly in the sunset .
At last , we reached Beltana ( near Ikara-Flinders ) where we would part ways . Originally Dave was to come with Justin and I , but feeling that Richie deserved some company , he went too . To this day , Dave has regretted it : he bought an adventure bike for this exact reason !
The number of times I ’ ve heard ,
‘ so . . . would you ever do the Oodnadatta again ?’ which elicits in me the same grumbles and flashbacks like a Vietnam War vet , for reasons that will become apparent . However , fortune favoured the brave , and Justin and I met Steve again at a campsite just as a storm broke . We settled in for the night , watched Steve erect ( steady ) his eighteen-man tent , and made hay the next morning into a cobalt blue sky , all in fine fettle , me absolutely none the wiser at the torment that awaited .
It started off wonderfully though , and we made light work on unsealed roads getting to Farina , another ghost town .
Farina ’ s population abandoned the outback in favour of modernity and , well , anyone to talk to within fifty kilometres . Over the years it has developed a romance to it , with visiting volunteers resurrecting the town piece by piece . It was a bustling place of almost six hundred
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