Wednesday 1 October 2014

The number one rule of the outback, apart from “Never drive past fuel” and “Never walk past a toilet” as I had learned, is “Don’t drive at dust or dawn” as this is when all the kangaroos come out. I was about to break this rule – big time.

Today I was heading back to Coober Pedy. I’d had a brief glance at my map and added up that it should be about 675 km, this would mean a seriously early start to cover the distance.

I was up at 5 am and on the road for 6.30 am – dawn. I was heading east so the rising sun was in my eyes and I could hardly see a thing. Plus, there was another headwind! I was down to 70 km/h and had 245 km of this before I joined the Stuart Highway south again. It wasn’t all bad though, I saw my first ever dingo, and what appeared to be a piglet running across the road in front of me. I also saw three huge eagles rise up from the roadside as I passed.

I made it to Erlduna and the junction with the Stuart Highway at 10.30 am – it had taken four hours. A quick fill up with fuel and I was on my way south. The wind wasn’t so bad here but it seemed the road was continually rising, which was confusing as I should now be descending to a lower altitude, and Ruby could only manage 78 km/h.

By 12.15 pm I’d made it to Kulgera. Another refuel and when I asked the man behind the counter how far it was to Coober Pedy, he said “Four hundred and twenty k.” What? Surely that wasn’t right? But the sign on the way out the town confirmed it – oh God, I’d mis-calculated. I’d only done 319 km plus this 420 and that made a total of 739, not 675 as I’d thought. There was no time to lose, if I was going to make it to CP by nightfall, I better get a move on.

By 4.40 I was at Cadney Park Homestead and still had 153 km to go. “What’s the chances of getting to Coober Pedy before sunset at 80 km/h?” I said to the man as I paid for another tank of fuel. “Yeah, you should be right, it’s only 4.40 just now and it will only take 2 hours at the most.” Yeah, two hours if you can go over 100 km/h.

115 km out of CP I saw the guy who I’d seen walking down the road on the way up. As I was on the same side as him this time, I pulled up to find out what on earth he was doing. “Are you walking across Australia?” I yelled at him. “Err, yes, I am,” he replied. It turned out he’d walked from Sydney to Ayres Rock in 3 months, spent 3 months there working with an Aboriginal community, and was now walking home again, via Adelaide, a feat that would take him about 4.5 months. He was raising money for an Aboriginal health programme. It made me feel all my efforts were meaningless in comparison.

30 km from Coober Pedy the sun started setting. 5 km from the town it was almost dark. By the time I rolled into Reception at the Opal Inn Motel and Caravan Park it was 7 pm and pitch black. But I’d made it and had managed to avoid hitting any wildlife in the process.

I pitched my tent, blew up my airbed and transferred everything into the tent, then a couple at a picnic table nearby said, “We’ve made too much food, would you like to finish it for us?” It was a gift from the heavens. I couldn’t thank them enough.

And what was the reason for this insane dash to Coober Pedy you may ask? Well, I had found a way to do the Oodnadatta Track that didn’t involve taking Ruby down it – the Mail Bus Run – but it only ran twice a week and I’d got the last place on the bus the following day.