Days 10 to 15 (Ryan)

Day Ten

Distance travelled: 157km

The day was sunny, not a cloud to be seen. A quick stop at the information centre and the information was good. The road to Innamincka was open! So we packed up and left Tib on schedule for our next stop, which was going to be Fort Grey. But after some discussion, we decided to go straight on to Cameron Corner. We stopped off at Waka Mud Pan – a dried out lake. The sun was shining, no clouds were in the sky and everyone but Nick and dad in the car. But Dad wasn’t driving. Nick was at the wheel. For a while we stayed there, but eventually moved on to Fort Grey. We went for a walk there to look for a stockade that that the explorer Sturt had built, but the lake there had flooded, so we couldn’t get very far.

On our way to Cameron Corner, we had to go through the Dingo Fence. The dingo fence is at the border of NSW and QLD and also NSW and SA. It is the longest man-made structure in the world!

We got to Cameron Corner, had lunch at the pub and then set up camp. We all then walked over to where the three borders meet. I brought the footy so I could kick the footy through three states!

Day 11:

Distance travelled: 240km

We packed up and headed out for Innamincka. There wasn’t much there, just a well kept pub and a general store. We had lunch at the pub before setting up camp at the town common. We camped by the Cooper Creek!

I decided to go fishing, to pass the time before dinner and, to my delight a Copper Creak Turtle’s shell got stuck on my hook! It was amazing!

We all had dinner and went to bed while a few barking owls barked overhead.

Day 12:

Distance travelled: 167km

After a couple of days of getting up early and getting in the car asap, we finally got to sleep in!

This day we planned to go out to the Dig Tree. This tree was where Burke & Wills found that their support party, who were told to wait while Burke, Wills, Gray and King made the ‘dash for the gulf’, had left there that morning. A tree that was engraved “DIG” on it had a note and some food. Three of the four men never made it back. The engraving is no longer there, but the tree is still historic.

We then moved on to have lunch at Cullyamurra waterhole. It was nice, but couldn’t swim there.

On our way back to the camp we also stopped off at Burke’s grave, where he was first buried. It was great! Not the dead person bit, but there was a mini sand dune that ran down into water. Again, we didn’t swim but we did run down the dune!

We arrived back at the campsite to find some people, locals, fishing just outside our campsite! They caught us three Yellow Bellied Perch with which we made a fish curry for dinner.

Day 13

Distance travelled: 502km

‘Day 13’ was a pretty uneventful one. We packed up and left Innamincka to go to Birdsville, a 502km drive.

Us kids sat in the backseat and watch movies, until we stopped for lunch, and continued after lunch But what happened at lunch?

We pulled over by the side of the road, to get out bread and some meat to make our lunch, when mum pointed out our flat tyre! So, after a delayed rest, and changing the tyre, we hit the road again, until we got to Birdsville.

It was twilight when we got to Birdsville, so we headed straight for the caravan park and set up. We didn’t have time to cook dinner, so we went to the iconic Birdsville Hotel, where we ate.

Day 14

Distance travelled: 104km

Nick and I woke. Mum, Dad and Jackson were gone, so we made the most of it, and slept some more! But while we were sleeping, they had decided to eat breakfast at the bakery, which was a great bakery, with pies like the best-selling Curried Camel!

We took advantage of the facilities, and washed our clothes and showered (for the first time in a week!!!).

After lunch at the bakery, we headed out for Big Red, the biggest sand dune in the Simpson Desert. Because our family goes camping to where the biggest sand dune in Victoria is located, it wasn’t very impressive. But Dad decided to drive up and down it. Me, being the safe one, got out of the car and lay down on the sand while everyone else drove. It took Dad a while, and some helpful advice from some other men to get up the dune. The drive to, and from the dune was impressive though, with a load of water covering the road, forming a temporary lake. It was covered in red algae, with all different types of birds and animals making the most of it. It was great!

We had dinner very quickly and headed slightly out of town. A woman named Sandra had an 11 inch telescope for us all to look at the sky with. She informed us of different stars and galaxies, and set up the telescope so we could see different stars and planets. It was phenomenal! The highlight was seeing Saturn. It was like she had slipped a picture into the telescope. It seemed so close! We could see the rings and lots of its moons!

Day 15

Distance travelled: 512km

Again, a pretty uneventful day. We drove the whole Birdsville track, about 500km. So again, us kids watched movies and mum and dad, well, drove. We did stop twice though. At Mungeranni, a roadside stop with a pub, we ate lunch. Our second stop was a little more dramatic though. Dad, who had been constantly blaming the road because the car was sliding, eventually stopped and found that had had completely shredded and burnt the tyre! So, another tyre change, two in three days! We made it to Marree, where we again set up camp, dropped the tyre off to get a new one and got ready for the night.