Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

2/7 From Haddons Corner to Birdsville

As we arrived late afternoon at Haddons corner we didn't go and see the border corner. So in the morning after having packed up we went to inspect the border. The state of SA cuts into the state of Queensland, so it's a corner that is formed.
Kylie was very keen to sit on that corner and have two legs in Queensland while her tail was in Southern Australia.
We then left the Haddons corner to join the main road again. From there it's a 41km drive up to the Birdsville Developmental road that goes to Birdsville, which is another 215km drive.
Shortly after making the turn onto the Birdsville developmental road, we got our first oncoming road train. These are pretty long trucks and they have the right of way, so it's best to give way or go off road as quickly as possible!
We also encountered a herd of cattle being mustered by a guy on a motorbike. I suppose he couldn't afford any horses!
We also drove through a small wet patch. This was the only one we did encounter on this road and when we got back later in the month it was completely gone.
The road originally passed through Betoota, which is a small Aboriginal community. All the maps show this, but as we found out, this had very recently changed. Our Garmin GPS nearly had a heart attack when we approached Betoota and the road completely bypassed it.
We also stopped at a very scenic lookout along the way called Deon's lookout. From there the view is pretty impressive, especially towards the east.
On this road there are some small sections of bitumen. One in particular is interesting as it doubles as an emergency air strip. Thus, no parking allowed along the way. I can just imagine seeing a Boeing 747 oncoming as you approach!
Birdsville is a small place with less than 100 residents, so it doesn't cover off a big area. On the way into Birdsville we passed the race track. This is where the world famous Camel races occur in September every year. Australia is currently the only place in the world where Camels breed in the wild, thus they are captured and sold to other Arabian countries. Camels are thus popular for races as well.
We headed for the caravan park and booked couple of nights as we wanted to spend a day in Birdsville to relax and also take in the local scenery.