Leigh Creek, Australia

Today was our big descent to Kati Thanda Lake Eyre!

Paul (our guide) had been checking the satellite forecasts to make sure we didn’t get stranded in a flash flood. There was some storm activity southwest of us but nothing to worry about. Today was also much cooler - a forecast high of 32C, much better than the 38C we had yesterday. However it was really windy all day today. Luckily the recent rains had kept the landscape green so there wasn’t too much dust. Usually this time of year the heat has burnt off everything.

About 30 minutes in we spotted a couple of wedge tailed eagles, munching on roadkill. They flew up into the roadside bush as we drove up. Got some decent pics, although Paul teased me for having my camera buried in my day pack instead of at the ready.

By about 10am we were there! It’s a dramatic approach, as the first view is after cresting a dune a few hundred metres from the lake.

We had been comparing our various devices as we approached (the car GPS, Garmin, and our iPhones) to see the elevation. They varied from -24m to -8m (the official measurement is -12m).

There’s a car park, and then a path which descends to the actual lake. We started on a salt crust over hard sand, which eventually turned to softer sand. We walked out about 100m before turning back. It was super windy - it was really hard to walk back.

We also saw lots of chatters of budgies flying by, every few minutes. I didn’t know that budgies existed in the wild. I also had to look up the term for a group of budgies - chatter is appropriate, as you hear them before you see them, flashing green as they passed by. I took some random pics that you can recognize as green and bird-shaped, but not anything I’ll be submitting to National Geographic.

There were cool shaped ant hills on the shores. They were like cookie-cutouts, with vertical edges rather than a sloped side, I think because of the wet sand. Anyways they were cool to see.

We spent about 45 minute exploring Kati Thanda. We walked back to the truck over an abandoned rail line - Paul suggested we look for a railway spike as a souvenir. Once we found one we saw hundreds of them scattered along the former rail line. Got a nicely shaped one, rusty but still with the original point on the spike.

Stopped for lunch in Marree, at Marree’s Outback Roadhouse. One thing we both really liked about the excursion is that we ate at real places that locals frequent, rather than tourist stops. They have a real small-town feel to them (as you’d expect). It also does feel like you’re in the outback. The tumbleweeds blowing by probably add to the atmosphere too :)

Passed by the Lake Eyre Yacht Club, which started as a joke but is a real thing. We had read about it when researching the trip.

We had a few more stops in the afternoon - at the ghost town of Farina, Lyndhurst Ochre pits and the Aroona Dam. We saw some long-necked turtles and black swans in the artificial lake behind the dam.

We stayed overnight at Leigh Creek Outback Resort. Their diner was much more sedate than last night, although still pretty busy. It was steak night; we both had the Scotch steak, which in Canada we’d call a ribeye. The chef knew what he was doing - it was really tasty. We’ve been drinking Cooper’s Pale Ale on tap here in South Australia, the brewery is in Adelaide and it’s really popular.

It was a very full day of touristing, we fell asleep quickly.