Day 323 | Ongeva Creek: Yay, finally made the Plenty Highway
73 km | zzOz total: 7981 km
Day 6 since I left Alice for the second time and I finally feel I’m getting into the swing of this style of travelling.
Two issues, the easy one is to start to look for a campsite after 4pm, more urgency after 4 30. It’s pitch black at 6 30 so it’s sensible to whack the tent up early and prepare some delicious grub cooked before dark.
Since I left The Bluff campsite at Trephina each night has been in a creek bed, a small creek on the old overgrown road night 1, a bigger creek lined with mature River red gums, and a perfect sandy bed to strike up a tent, and tonight on the grassy bank of an even bigger creek, well away from the highway.
Black cockatoos flapping around, screeching as only they know how to do.
There’s no water flowing in any of the creeks despite the rain a week ago.
Which brings us to the second issue: water.
The first two bores I came across had large, decommissioned windmills, replaced by diesel pumps but no way to access water, it was pumped to a tank some distance away, unseen, the pipe buried to escape fires.
Couldn’t find the tanks but today it was third time lucky. A big tank, 100,000 litres, full, with a slide open lid, I scored 8 litres, enough to get me to the Hartz Range settlement tomorrow.
Some fauna spotted today, 2 Euro, (a graceful roo), 2 yellow faced whip snakes, know what they look like since I saw that one in Ellery Big Hole campground, and another black whip snake, a cat/kitten at the camp tonight, mucho birds, big squadrons of budgies, ring necked parrots in pairs, zebra finches, plenty of those pretty birds about, and those black cockatoos.
All quiet at 7 pm, pitch dark, almost time for lights out. 16ºC.