Another great night by the creek and some Turtle come to say hello as we packup.
The lockable canopy on George’s ute won’t unlock with the remote, and he’s not sure where the key is. After some faffing about he’s able to get the rear tray down and open it from the inside.
After we’re ready we drive back into town. On the way I hear this awful rattle from the roof, “Crap not the roof rack again”, I think, it was fine last night. We inspect it only to find the platform must have shifted and the awning bracket is tapping on the roof rails. That’s a relief. It only takes a few minutes to reposition the platform.
South from here you’d normally take the Strzelecki track, only that a bit misleading now. With all the gas fields up here the Strzelecki “track” is more like a 4 lane dirt highway now….. Not sure how much longer it will be dirt either. Our plan is to take the Old Strzelecki Track, then onto the Merty road into Cameron Corner, then onto Tibooburra. We’ve asked, and the “Old Strz” is apparently in good condition, but they suggested the Merty was a real problem with a lot of wash outs on the crests of the clay capped dunes. We looked at other ways, but if we want to get to Cameron Corner the Merty is really the only option. We figure we’ll just drive to the conditions.
One issue. Yesterday I thought our route would take out me past Wills’ Grave, so we didn’t push to visit it yesterday. Overnight I realised that was on a side track and would be a 40+ km diversion, we’ve got a lot of K’s to do, so while unfortunate, I have to give it a miss.
We exit town on the Old Strz, and we’re surprised to see the tracks pretty well signposted. The first section of track is about 40ks and drops us at the new Strzelecki. The track starts off great, much better than I feared and we make great time. At some places it’s not much more than the 2 tyre tracks, but the condition of the track is fantastic.
We meet the new Strz and it’s pretty wide and well maintained, we’re on it for less than 1k when we see the turn off for the Old Strz again, the road is flash, and for the next 10ks it’s like a highway. We must reach the main gas well on this road as it quickly turns back into a track, but like the earlier sections its pretty good all round.
This section is over 60ks and towards the end I’m surprised to see Oil Drills, I knew there was gas here, I didn’t realise Oil too (although find one, the other is usually around).
We reach the end and say goodbye to the Old Strzelecki Track. It was great, I’m so glad we came this way. We meet up with the Merty Merty Road (although all our GPSs have it as Riecks road, but nobody here calls it that!). We’re all on edge as the reports of this road are bad, and I’ve seen some old videos suggesting the wash outs can be a surprise as you crest the dunes.
The first 4-5 crests are fine, the road is perfect. “Don’t fall into a false sense of security” I tell myself. We then come across a section where there are red flags and “warning” signs. As we crest, there is a big old boggy washed out section, but it’s easy to drive around. That ends up being the story of the road, perfect, with warning signs on the few bad sections. Not sure what all the fear mongering was about.
George is in the lead and I hear him call over the UHF, “Tractors ahead!” We’ve caught up with the old tractor convoy from Innamincka. We slow down and we’re all waving as we drive by. So glad to have seen them on the road.
Finally, after 100ks of the Merty we pull into Cameron Corner.
Up the store and we order some lunch. There are a few day trippers in the pub so we go to the undercover area to eat. We’re chatting away and we taking about stuff then the subject of the Wild Dog (dingo) Fence comes up.
Some old bloke in Hi-Vis, sitting by himself in the corner pipes up with a giggle. “I work on the fence” he says. Well that unusual and we ask him a few questions, genuinely interested. It all starts out fine, but then it’s clear the bloke is on for a chat. His stories of working on the fence quickly morphs onto how he used to trap and get paid for dingo kills, then onto his dogs and how they loved the hunt. It all started to get pretty weird. Finished eating, we politely try and find a way to exit the conversation, I try to suggest it’s time to visit the corner post, but this bloke just does not stop for breath! All the time the stories are getting more bizarre. Now we know why he was sitting by himself, no one else will talk to him. We basically get up and walk out as politely as we can, but I swear this guy was still talking as we closed the door.
Over to the corner, I’ve decided this is my favourite corner. Some more photos then we hit the road. We’ve still got over 160ks to get to Tibooburra, we could take the short road, but I think we’ll take Middle road as the views are much better.
Back into NSW and here is the “wild desert” project. They’re trying to re-introduce bilbies, and other small native marsupials into the wild. All accounts suggest they are have quite some success. To promote the project there are a few sculptures of the animals in the Sturt National Park, so I have to stop for some photos. I wish they where here when we came though with the kids a few years back.
On Middle road, which ends up being longer than I remember. We do stop at the lookout at the top of Jump Up Loop road and the view is still impressive.
Back onto the Silver City Highway, only to be surprised to find it been sealed in the last few years. That was unexpected.
A quick stop at the town Entrance sign, Tibooburra has some of the best signs of any town.
Into town, we’re planning on staying at the Aboriginal Land Council Camp, just outside of town. We take a look and it seems fine. While George and Nick setup, we go into town to pay. We pull up at the council office, Greg goes to check. While waiting, some guy walks by and says my front tyre is flat. “What the”? Sure enough, while not completely flat it very low. I look and can see a puncture, it must have just happened in the last few minutes, so at least I haven’t been driving on it long. Over to the Servo, “oh, we can’t fix a puncture today”, they make no offer when this might be done. It was like pulling teeth to get an answer. The guys make a couple of calls and without any enthusiasm says “Grumpy can do it tomorrow around 9am”, I’m then advised not to call him “Grumpy” when I see him tomorrow. Go figure….
We pay for camping, go back to the campsite and I can see the puncture clear in the tread near the sidewall. We pull the tyre off and I pull out a tyre plug kit I bought for the Oz trip, but have never used, “Do these things go off?” I’m thinking to myself.
Anyway, after a false start the 2nd plug seems to take. We reinflate the tyre and it seems to be holding. We check the pressure and it looks OK, tyre back on, and I hope for the best.
An hour later, tyre still OK we drive into town and have dinner at the Family Hotel. They where super busy and probably as a result the service and food wasn’t as good as I remember from last time.
Feed and watered, we go back to the campsite and have a small fire to end the night.