Oodnadatta Track

On the Road to Nowhere

We headed out of the Flinders Rangers and continued north up through Leigh Creek and Marree and onto the Oodnadatta Track. There was not a lot to see for the majority of this journey except flat desolate plains. In fact at one stage as far as we could see in all directions there was nothing but flat ground with low grass or shrubs. You wouldn’t want to be stranded out here and we really didn’t know how anything could live here.

Somewhere along the Oodnadatta Track

One of the great things about going along the Oodnadatta Track is that you come right alongside the southern part of Lake Eyre. Lake Eyre is an incredible place with some pretty amazing facts. The facts that impressed us were: Lake Eyre is part of the Lake Eyre Basin which is one of the largest draining systems in the world, covering 22% of the Australian Continent. Lake Eyre is at the heart of this basin and is approximately 10,000 sq kms in size. While standing at Lake Eyre we were 15m below sea level and therefore, not surprisingly, is the lowest point in Australia.

Southern Lake Eyre

The Lake Eyre Basin lies above the Great Artisan Basin which is the largest and deepest underground reservoir in the world. The Artisan Basin is 130,000 times the size of Sydney Harbour and it is believed that it takes 2 million years for the water which falls in Queensland and goes underground into the Basin to come out at the other end in springs at the bottom of SA.

We could obviously only see a very small portion of Lake Eyre and the part we could see has now dried up again to be a salt lake, we heard there is still water up in the very northern part of Lake Eyre but it is drying up also.

We finished our days drive at William Creek which is at the turn off to Coober Pedy on the Oodnadatta Track. William Creek was also interesting as it is situated on Anna Creek Station which is the largest cattle station in the world. Anna Creek was one of the many properties owned by Sydney Kidman and is now owned by the Kidman Company and is 5,873,000 acres which is about the size of Wales or Israel!