Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

5/7 From Coopers Creek to Halligan Bay on Lake Eyre

We woke up early as we usually do when camping! After boiling some water for our tea and breakfast we packed up and drove out of the Coopers creek campsite. A very short drive brings you to a hillside on the eastern part of the creek. At the top of that hillside is the "unsinkable" MV Tom Brennan boat. This boat was used to ferry people across the Cooper creek when it was in flood. It's not a big boat as you can see in the photos!

Along the way we crossed the Dulkannina creek, which was the only creek that had any water in it, but at this time it's only a small puddle!

We then stopped at the Clayton campsite to inspect their hot Spa! They have hot geothermal water coming up and use it to create a hot spa. The water was hot, but not as hot as I would have liked!

Along the way we had a few Kangaroos tempting their fate by running across the road out of the blue! Once again their timing was a bit off, so they survived.

After re-fueling in Maree, we headed out to Hergot Springs to have a look at them. From Maree the track changes from the Birdsville track to the Oodnadatta track. This side of the track was quite good as well.

The Oodnadatta track parallels the old Ghan railway line. We did stop at some of the old ruins along the way but we had done some parts of it in a prior trip so we didn't spend as much time.

There are a number of natural springs in this area. This is the underground water that bubbles up in a few places. The most interesting of these is the Bubbler spring and the Blanche cup. These are about 30 meter high hills or mounds that rise out of a very flat landscape. On the top of the mound are these springs where water flows up. The Bubbler is the most scenic as the water simply bubbles up from the bottom of it and this generates sound and interesting bubbles!

Another spring along the track are Coward Springs. We stopped there to see there hot pot! It was only luke warm, thus no rush to jump in. It's so small you can barely fit a few people there. However at the back of the Coward spring hot pot is a nice area with lots of birds and animals. I spotted a brownish hare that was staring at the tourists in the hot pot.

From Coward springs we drove onto the Lake Eyere lookout. It's a nice lookout which provides a good view over lake Eyre. Lake Eyere is a dry salt lake most of the time. It is very large and only gets flooded with water once every 10 years or so. At the lookout was a police vehicle with a flat tire. There was not lack of help as you can see in the photo below!

We then headed on-wards towards William Creek, but turned off just before onto the Halligan bay track. It's a 64km track that takes you to the edge of Lake Eyre where you can walk on the lake! At the lake is a camping site with good facilities. Towards the lake the scenery reminded us of Iceland with black sand, pretty fascinating to see. We arrived late afternoon and camped in the designated camping area. We then went out onto the lake and enjoyed a great sunset over the lake.