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18 June, 2010
6:13 PM | 
Posted by
Touring Steve |
Maree to Oodnadatta,
The morning was crystal clear , the air was frosty and the sun struggled to provide a little warmth. Extra clothing was the order of the day and we got away not long after sunrise.
The road was dirt (it's the Oodnadatta Track) but it's in fairly good condition for the first few kilometres. The road follows the old Ghan train line and we stopped for photos of relics as well as the lookout at Lake Eyre (which of course has plenty of water in it). Further along we came across a nunber of sculptures not far from the turnoff to Woomera.
The road was gradually deteriorating by the time we hit William Creek. While we were filling up several people heading for the Finke desert race came over for a chat usually enquiring if we were heading up to watch the race.
The Finke is THE big race of the offroad racing world and it was natural to think that was where we were heading.
We were slow to move out after we filled so we had to eat our Finke friends dust.
We managed to pass them in time to find a seriously deterioting and very rough going.
A couple of misjudged corners and dips had both of us thankful we had a little luck to get us through.
The road now had a b it of everything, ruts, potholes, potholes with water, dips, floodways. hard packed corners with a light dusting of sand and worst of all - fast corners with deep sand.
The terrain was slightly undulating and I approached a corner at about 90kph only to realise it was deep soft sand.
The front of the bike washed out heavily which took off most of the speed but this also resulted in me having to slam my leg down to stop the bike falling. I mumbled to myself I was too old for that sort of rubbish as my leg continued to pain for a few minutes.
Caught up with friends in Oodnadatta - we were going to head for the Simpson. They had decided the deep sand was not to their liking and their bikes (same as ours) were not suited to the conditions. They said they had already tried some sandy areas near Finke which they found extremely
difficult.
We later crossed these areas without problem but more on that later.
Had a late lunch - an Oodnaburger with the lot, booked a cabin and had a comfortable night.
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