Thursday 2 October 2014

Australia 2014 - (12) The Mail Bus Run

Twice a week, Australia Post run a Mail Bus service from Coober Pedy to Oodnadatta in the north then William Creek in the south dropping off mail and parcels to various cattle stations and road houses along the way.

We set off at 9 am and until the first stop at Mount Barry Station I got to sit up front with the driver, Peter Rowe. He was a fascinating gentleman who come to the outback 47 years ago and fallen in love with it. As well as doing the mail run he had also been a potter, an opal miner and is an extremely good photographer. His knowledge of the history of the region was phenomenal and he regaled us with numerous stories of how people had overcome the adversities of the land to set up reliable homesteads there.

Next stop was the Pink Road House at Oodnadatta. I’d been wanting to go here for years. It wasn’t that different from most road houses. It had fuel, a restaurant, a post office and a reasonable sized store, it was just unmistakably pink. But it gave it a unique character and I liked that.

We had time for a quick look around the town before leaving, including the old railway station where the Ghan had been extended from Marree, the outdoor cinema, the Transcontinental Hotel and the Hospital (founded by John Flynn who had also founded the RFDS).

From there we headed south along the Oodnadatta Track to a series of other cattle stations, dropping off parcels and bags as we went. The track runs parallel with the Old Ghan Railway so there were some interesting sights to see, like the Algebuckina Bridge, the longest one in Australia.

The track itself was in a similar condition to the Birdsville Track, in that it was quite badly rutted in places. There were also quite a few sections with long, hilly undulations and sweeping bends so I was glad I hadn’t attempted to do it on the bike, it would have been easy to have a spill and given how far it was between homesteads, I could have been waiting a long time for help.

We also stopped at Anna Creek Station, the largest cattle station in the world at 24,000 square kilometres – approximately the size of Belgium!

Last stop was William Creek where we had dinner then made our way back to Coober Pedy. By this time it was dark so again we were breaking the outback law and driving in the dark. Unfortunately, this time we weren’t so lucky and hit a kangaroo, which sadly, didn’t survive the impact.

We finally got back to town at 10 pm. Two big days in a row and I was wasted, but happy.