coward springs to hawker

There were only one or two sparrows cracking when we got up this morning as we had 200km of dirt out of 400km total. As we had already ridden the first 65km the day before we knew what to expect, nice hard pack, what was next was a bit of a mystery. As it unfolded, we had a little bit of everything and a bit too much of some.

After we passed the turn off to roxby downs, the road got a little rougher and rockier but it was still pretty good, the rockyness of the road was reflected in the landscape because that's all there was, miles and miles of little wind blown rocks and not a tree or shrub in sight. In fact there was little vegetation of any kind.

yep, that's us and a whole world of nuthin

About 30km out maree we came across planehenge, a field full of scluptures of found objects including 2 aircraft standing on their tails and covered with paintings and an old bus with wings called the ghan hover bus.

planehenge

the ghan hover bus at planehenge

the big dog of planehenge

Maree is a small town that clearly used to be something until the ghan stopped running, now it is just a small town with a lot of memorabilia that seems to be dying slowly. You can however get a cracking steak sandwich from the general store and roadhouse.

the maree roadhouse and general store

We were told that the road from maree to lindhurst, our next stop, was a mixture of tar and dirt and that it was in good condition. Well it was a mixture tar and dirt but there wasn't much tar and the dirt staarted out great but very quickly degenerated into something that was anything but great. It clearly rained quite a bit and the road had become one enormous skid pan. It was as slick as and it stuck to the tyres so traction and steering became a thing of the past and it made for a very slow 20km. Finally we hit tar to much celebration and after stopping to rid ourselves of many, many kilos of accumulated mud we set off again, revelling in the amount of grip and consitency of surface, only to run into rain.

a small portion of the mud clinging to our bikes by the time we got to lindhurst

We arrived in hawker at 5.00pm and we decided that enough was enough. Wilpena pound was still a good three quarters of an hour away and it was raining there and we didn't really feel like camping in the mud. Soft i know, but there you have it. So we hit the caravan park and grabbed a unit, then toddled into hawker to have a look around. It's a cute little town with lots of fabulous old stone buildings. This is another town that was very reliant on the ghan but it seems to be fairing substatially better than maree.

We went for dinner at the old ghan restaurant and gallery and where the only guests. The food was great and we got to chatting with bob, the owner, and wade, his son. After dinner we ended up playing pool with bob and wade and fortunately there was no money on it as we were well and truly schooled. Thanks for a great night guys.

the old ghan restaurant and gallery, a great feed and very good pool players

Tomorrow we're off to the barosa valley to take in some fine wine and a smackeral of fine food.

our exact location: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-31.8838,138.4125&ll=-31.8838,138.4125&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Comments

[the wife]

planehenge - cracks me up - but hey Wal, isn't that what druid tools/boats do!!