An interesting day

Just before getting to Thargomindah we lost sight of the Wild Dog Fence that we had seen intermittently since St George. It looked like substantial work had been done on this fence recently. A lot of this area is sheep country and without this fence the dingoes would create havoc with the sheep. I think there are around 2,500 kilometres of this fence in Queensland alone.

Getting ready to leave Thargamindah

Thargomindah turned out to be a friendly little town. We had a drink at the pub which was just across the road from our motel. It was then back to the motel for dinner. We both ordered pork chops and when the meal came I swear there must have been half a pig on my plate. The meal was enormous. A local sitting at a table near us saw my bemused look at the pork chops and said “Yep you never go hungry when eating here”.

This town is one of many that rely on the Flying Doctor for medical services. With a nurse as the local health provider the Flying Doctor visits once a week to conduct a clinic and can be on sight within thirty minutes for an emergency. It is easy to see why this service is held in so high a regard in the outback.

Got up Saturday morning to – rain! Whilst the pastoralists and towns people welcomed this rain, as there is a two year drought in this area, we did not. After breakfast with drizzling rain and an ominous sky we set off for Innaminka.

From Thargomindah the sealed section of the road was mainly only one car wide and it wasn’t long before we had to get completely off the road to let a three trailer road train loaded with cattle pass us.

Another road train

The desert was responding to the rain before our eyes. Grass turning green and flowers in bloom. This is a stoney desert unlike the sandy deserts encountered further west. Unfortunately the further west we headed the heavier the rain became until it was continuous heavy rain. 

Rain clouds over the desert

With only a hundred kilometres to go to Innaminka disaster struck. I pulled off the road onto what looked to be a hard shoulder. It wasn’t hard and down we sank into orange coloured mud with the consistency of blamange. No amount of manoeuvring could get us back on the road and of course where was our recovery gear – in the bloody shed at home! Luckily it wasn’t too long until a couple came along who had a snatch strap with them and we were soon free and back on the road. The ute, Vicki and I all covered in glutinous orange mud. And no we didn’t get any photos of this, I think that was the last thing on our mind. Pity as there was a couple of good photos we missed. 

After this somewhat ingnomious episode we set of once more for Innaminka. It was still raining heavily and some of the floodways had reached a quarter of a metre depth. We pulled up in one of these floodways and attempted to wash some of the mud of both us and the ute. The mud had set rock hard by now so it was with some difficultly that we removed the worst of it.

We cross into South Australia

The rain now started to ease and by the time we crossed into South Australia at Nappa Marrie the rain had stopped and there was even some blue sky. As we came to the Lyndhurst/Innaminka road junction we saw a big three trailer road train in the middle of the road. The driver was out talking to people in a ute. I waited and the ute drove down to us. They told us they were road workers who had just come out to inspect the road. The road train was bogged and wouldn’t move until a grader was sent from Innaminka to retrieve it. The road was now officially closed but they told us to drive on in to Innaminka. So with four wheel drive and the rear diff locked we manoeuvred passed this huge road train. Once again I was to busy to take photos.

Innaminka was now just down the road!