Day 3 ... Iga Warta to William Creek via Lake Eyre South

I worked out that I needed to unzip my sleeping bag and use it as a blanket within the swag, rather than as a cocoon. This was when I started wrapping all my dirty clothes in my rolled towel to use as a pillow. Getting the hang of this. Now if only someone would slit the throat of that bloody rooster!

After a leisurely breakfast, Johnny Coulthard drove us out to the Ochre Pits to show us where his mob got all their colours for their body decoration and for their works of art. He was a nice easy-going lad, but once again, low on the cultural significance. We were each daubed with a dot of each colour. He told us that dots and l ines and squiggles had their own significance. But there was noone else there from his mob to be ceremonially painted. He was generous with his time and personable.

Then a quick 100 kms over to Lyndhurst to gawp at Talc Alf and listen to his rantings on how all the academics have the significance of language wrong. If they only listened to Alf they would realise that all language was taking us closer to the sun ... or something. He was a Dutch man who came to live in this part of SA over 50 years ago - probably heat-stroke from being too close to the sun.

Another hour in our trusty vehicle, a quick left at Maree and we were on our way to Lake Eyre South. This name looms large in my adolescent imagings because of Donald Campbell and his ill-fated attempts to get his beloved Bluebird to smash the World Land Speed Record in the 1960s. As Shelley said "boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away". Jarrod's spiel was starting to hang together as a coherent theory: Gondwanna Land, inland sea, Alice Springs Orogeny, Peterman Orogeny. We could see it in the folds of the Flinders and the layers of Brachina Gorge.The geological history of my country was coming alive before my eyes.

We crunched our way out onto the salt pan - a bath full of moisturiser would not have helped our poor skins. The land stretched out towards the mirage on the horizon. The dishevelled remains of the Old Ghan rail sleepers bore testament to the supremacy of nature over man. Yet dig through the crust and the "soil" beneath was moist (well, more moist) even though thick, black and gluggy. David Attenborough could bring this parched, encrusted landscape to life with that which is invisible to this neophyte. I shake my head in wonderment and disbelief; I am actually out here. That is the sound of my boots crunching upon Lake Eyre. I am walking above the Great Artesian Basin, I am about to travel the Oodnadatta Track. I have seen the folds in the Flinders where the Peterman Orogeny caused the upward displacement of the earth's crust. I have run my fingers along ancient folds and faults where the earth tried to turn itself inside-out.

Forward, Ho! William Creek is our camp for the night - in the pen out the back of the pub. Can't wait!

Comments

[Julie]

I am pleased you are still following along with me, Claudia. It was an intensely emotional trip. I guess the proximity of the living arrangements heightened reactions to things. But the landscapes are just a knockout. There is such a thing in Australia as the "Grey Loope". This is when people retire they get a van and travel around the continent - usually anti-clockwise. I am seriously considering doing this. Just need someone else equally stupid.

[Claudia]

Beautiful photos...Quite a trip! There I am, studying the Peterman Orogeny with Google, hoping to understand your feelings about the land you're walking on.