Crossroads Camp in amongst some trees to Rawlinna Campground.
A record breaking day – all out of the barriers and on the road before 7:30 (7:28) there is rain forecast and these roads may not be fun… or even passable when wet.
Being up early and cloudy made for brilliant colours across the sky at sunrise.
Staying clean out here is impossible. I put clean pants on yesterday and after scrabbling under the car and generally being out and about they quickly get super dusty. At least it’s clean dust. Lol!!!
A rocky track this morning
We traveled onto the Nullabor Plain this morning with no great speed reached.
Drove through an old gate in an old fenceline. Perhaps the forlorn remains of Premier Downs Station?
We eventually found an old windmill and turned to the homestead ruins a few kms later. There are cattle out here which came running with the noise of the vehicles.
Premier Downs Homestead ruins are definitely ruined, there was a concrete floor of a house and some dead fridges, there was an old vehicle and a truck and then there’s a working windmill and stock troughs with plenty of water. The storm clouds provided some good background for shots, not sure what they’re gonna bring or how we’re going to drive into the rain rather than around them.
Then onwards again towards those dark clouds. The rain eventually did start as we got back onto the CS Highway track again, it was initially just a few drops, then enough to need the wipers and give things a bit of clean.
The track remained rocky and stable for a while until a bit further along they had obviously had some more rain than we had and things got a little slippery slidey, with mud and small stone bits flicking up everywhere. The van has copped a spray of mud again and when the muddy bits land on the windscreen, the wipers smear mud everywhere.
Anyway after a few sliding patches where we all managed to keep everything straight, we travelled up to the Trans Continental Railway Line at Rawlinna. A lot muddier and wetter than we’ve been for a while.
We turned into Rawlinna, drove around the one road, saw the entry to the Annual Outback Muster Rodeo site, the old Rawlinna Primary School site and the old buildings associated with the Railway Line – the station, the Post Office, some old toilets (still flushing , but needing some TLC) which I was VERY pleased to see!!! We gathered together at the Railway Station and concluded that we were staying put for the night.
While we were standing around discussing options a train could be heard approaching- well bugger me dead if it wasn’t the Indian Pacific, there was a lady waiting near the Post Box and an older gentleman standing back, as if waiting. Sure enough the train drew to a stop and the older gentleman took a bag of milk and some groceries as well a dozen eggs. Turns out Nicole is the key person in town – she took delivery of the mailbags.
The Indian Pacific train was a very long one, we could see people having lunch or high tea, some waved at us. We were stunned to have timed things to see the train.
Turns out the older bloke was Nicole’s dad visiting from QLD. Nicole and her partner are in charge of things here, they help arrange the Friday Indian Pacific stop – where passengers actually get off and eat a meal here with a musician and fires in drums etc. Nicole is also in charge of knowing about road status. Steve chatted to her and learned the roads are closed and we should plan to go nowhere today and she would advise us of conditions tomorrow. She pointed out the campground and that’s where we headed.
We set up in the muddy conditions to avoid the strong and blustery winds and settled in for the night. The mud was sticking like glue to our shoes and we felt quite a bit taller.
We went for a walk over the railway line, checked out three wrecks and an old decaying Ford Ute (raided a bonnet prop and a wheel chock, some sockets, bolts and bits and pieces ( that might be useful one day.)
Then there was a bit of a storm so we all retired to our vehicles and campers. We do have full 4G phone service, so I made a messenger conference call to the Outback crew and we chatted from our various camps and Col and Mary hooked in from Jeeralang. A bit of fun.
A short window with no rain allowed for a little time around the fire.
Then we also had another train come through – a very long goods train – we stood by the tracks and waved and hot a toot of the horn.
Given the wet and windy conditions it was early tea – with the Lawsons and Steve sheltering under Brian’s awning for tea and Stef and I hanging in Mary and Phil’s camper before all hitting the hay super early. There was another train go through about 10:30 and I saw and heard another at midnight.
Today saw us completing the second of the two major tracks we set out to tackle. Today we completed our travel on the Connie Sue Highway from North to South. This along with the Sandy Blight Junction Track were the key destinations for this trip.
Travel adventures with Nicola & co. 