Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

9/7 Hamilton Station to Mt Dare

We headed out of the camp site, just to bump into Kristy from Hamilton station leading a pack of dogs and a motherless calf from the campsite to the Homestead. It had gone astray!
Oddly the calf seem to think it was one of the dogs and simply walked along with them. We stopped and were going to return the book, when she told us we could take it with us and just post it later back to the station. We were quite happy to do that. It's great when you meet such friendly and interesting people who take kindly to total strangers, let alone dangerous Vikings!
As we spoke for a while the calf gave up and headed by itself back to the station. It must have given up waiting for Kristy and the dogs as we could see it amble all the way back to where we were and somehow managed to indicate it wouldn't stand for this lingering anymore! We said goodbye to Kristy, the dogs and the calf and then headed towards the Eringa ruins.

Once again this section of the road was quite good with little corrugations. We stopped and inspected the Eringa ruins. The ruins are on the bank of a large waterhole and it's a very nice camping area. The road crosses the waterhole at the end, but there was hardly any water on the road so it was an easy crossing.

Further on is an intersection whereby you can go to Mt. Dare or continue on to the Abminga Ghan railway ruins. The Abminga ruins are well worth seeing as they are far larger than the others. It's clear they had some coal loading facilities and switch tracks associated with that. There are also still some of the rails left. The drive to the ruins was quite easy although it's mostly a single track with a few small dry creeks and holes to cross. There is also a large cattle yard next to the ruins with water tanks and automated pumps. We were walking along when suddenly the petrol pump started and generated some noise. It's an area you could camp in as well.

Once we had inspected the ruins, we looked at the map to determine the best way to get to Mt. Dare. According to the map there is a 31km track back to Blood Creek, so we decided to take that track to Mt. Dare. We used our Hema maps and GPS to follow the track as it was quite easy to see. There is no signage for the track so we simply drove all the way through. The track is rough and not recommended if your a towing anything. More to the point as we found out when we got to the other end it's closed! Thus if you find yourself in Abminga, your only option is to go back. We also noted later that the track at Charlotte Waters seemed to be marked as private.

Once we joined the Mt. Dare road at Blood Creek it was an easy road again. Except when you get close to Mt. Dare. Due to flooding and the road having been cut up, there are several tracks and bypasses that you need to traverse. Some of the sections have bad corrugations.

When we arrived in Mt. Dare we noticed a sign on the Diesel fuel pump "No Diesel Fuel available, due today PM". It was school holidays and lots of cars about, so they had run out of Diesel! We camped in the campsite and noted that it was quite busy, plus there were a number of cars parked at the Mt. Dare hotel waiting for the Diesel to arrive.

The campsite is located beyond the Mt Dare Hotel and is on the other side of the levy which surrounds Mt Dare. Just as well as when it floods it becomes an island! They have solar heated showers, so it's a nice place to freshen up!