7th May - Wilpena to Maree

Alan beat me loading the bikes this morning which has to be a first. The lady at Rawnsley Park recommended the Wild Lime Cafe in Blinman for breakfast. It was run by a couple of ferrals with dreadlocks. It was the most expensive breakfast on the planet at $64 for two. Vegetable soup with damper, foccacia with gluten free bread and vitamin free filling plus to mugs of coffee, but very nice anyway.

There were 30 kms of dirt road to Parachilna and then we were back on the main sealed road to Leigh Creek.  The road was the same one Morag and I took in 1981 with Lachlan, Hilary and a Holden HR station wagon.  It wound along a gorge through the western ridge of the Flinders ranges and ended up with a straight flat road to the highway - very like the rest of the roads in these parts.   As we headed north we had our final glimpse of the ranges.

We rode through Leigh Creek where Morag had her 30th birthday in 1981, past the huge open cut coal mine and on to Lyndhurst.  We planned to stop there to fill up but the petrol station was closed despite the big sign outside the town extolling the facilities at the BP!  We thought it prudent to ring on to Maree to check they had fuel, but as there was no mobile reception we had to use pay phones - none of which worked.  So we set off with some trepidation on the 78 km trip to Maree.  Both Alan and I were alarmed at the fuel consumption on our bikes as we had to do a very long run between fuel stops on the Tanami.  We were therefore concerned about the extra kms.  It turned out that we were both back up above 20 km/L mainly due to our lower speed.  I had noticed that the engine oil was a bit low at Wilpena and had topped it up.  As well the motor was making a clicking sound when cold which may be a worn bearing.  I concluded that the 120 kph cruising speed to Wilpena from Mildura might have over stretched the DR 650 so was keeping speeds on the highway down to 100 kph.

Maree was a very sleepy little place since the railway closed in 1981, with the two main businesses - the roadhouse and the pub - competing for every tourist dollar that was going.

We stayed in a cabin owned by the roadhouse and had a beer in the pub, but we decided to eat at the roadhouse.  The owner was also the cook and he produced a very creditable lamb shank which we washed down with a bottle of red of 2009 vintage from his limited cellar.  It must have been priced wrong because it was the best wine there and half the price of the rest.  I sent a postcard off to my work colleagues as it was also the post office.  The only other diners were the back packers he had employed to run the place so once we were finished he wanted us out.  The trouble was that the wifi only worked in the roadhouse and I wanted to write this blog.  As a compromise he left the wifi running and we sat outside in the garage forecourt finishing off the bottle of red.  It was futile in the end as Alan couldn't get his notebook to connect to the wifi.

We were consulting the weather web sites because a cold front was approaching SA with lots of rain.  At first it appeared to miss the Oodnadatta Track but later forecasts had 1-5 mm of rain predicted.  We decided to give William Creek a miss and use the Borefields Road to get to Roxby Downs and a sealed road before the rain arrived.

Back at the cabin we continued our nightly game of Gin Rummy with me comfortably ahead.  The evening was balmy and clear and we saw a lot of stars once the moon set.