Way out West 2025. 23rd of July.  Day six.  

Eringa Waterhole to Ooraminna Station Homestead.

Way out West 2025. 23rd of July.  Day six.
Eringa waterhole to Ooraminna homestead.

We headed off along the track through stations towards Finke.

Into Finke at 11:30. Called Ooraminna homestead to see if we could book in tonight. It’s only 30 kms from Alice Springs where we are meeting the others – Steve, Ann and Brian.

The track today seems to be running along the Old Ghan Line. There are railway Dog Spikes dotted all over the track. It also runs alongside the Finke Desert Race Track.

We lunched today alongside the Finke Desert race track again. Actually made our lunch for the first time, it was quite a nice change and the flies weren’t too bad thankfully.

Then turned off to Chambers Pillar for a look, a 44km out and as we went through Tjikala we had service and heard back from Craig at Oorahbinna Homestead and we can camp there tonight.

The track across to Tjikala was a bit rough and the road out to the Pillar took us up and over quite a steep jump up or mesa. Stef wasn’t sure we would make it up towing the campers. Low range was enlisted and we made it up and down (twice with no issue.)

After a good walk to the Pillar and views of Castle Rock and lots of wildflowers we returned to the main road back towards Alice Springs it was a little over 100kms to our stop for the night.

The sunset was amazing, no time to stop. We had golden colours to the west and beautiful pinks and mauves to the east and behind us.

We arrived at the homestead gate, put in the code at the gate and Craig met us in the camping are and showed us to an area for camping.

Phil and Stef were fiddling with the brake controller issue again. Tonight we put Phil and Mary’s car on my trailer plug and their controller worked, so we now know they don’t need to purchase a new controller. The issue is with the camper wiring somewhere.

I had a loose driving light which I started to tighten and Stef came and helped sort it out.

Then we removed the rear seats again to put the now dry carpet back in place and repacked the car. Huge thanks again to Stef and Phil for the know how and muscles. To Mary for once again cooking while we were phaffing. I now feel back in control of the inside of the car at least and things are back in place.

An easy tea tonight, as it’s been a tiring day – pasta and sauce. Yummo.

The sky is great once again, but we were busy or inside the camper so unable to look up. A clear cool night.

We were looking forward to showers and bed when Stef broke the news that the water was lukewarm when he went to get hot water for dishes. So we decided we were ready to go straight to bed.

I went up to clean my teeth and on the way checked the hot water service (it wasn’t solar AND one of the pipes was HOT) so I ran the four basin hot taps for a bit. The water was hot. So back I came to get shower gear and let the others know.
Now snug in bed with hot water bottle. Ready for sorting photos ready to go. No decent service tonight and none last night either. It is so easy to get behind.