This morning we were back on the Birdsville Track.  

While this was once a rough difficult journey, the track has become a well maintained connection through to Maree making our travel easy.  However this was only a short reprieve as the plan was to take a less trodden path on the Walkers Crossing heading to Inaminka.  While I was originonally proposing to go via Cardillo Downs which cuts through the centre of the Sturts Stony Desert, the audiobook on Burke and Wills was fascinating so the idea of travelling over some of their path took hold.  The idea of 5 hours on gibbers was not so fascinating.

Walkers Crossing skirts the edge of the Sturts Stony Desert and passes through the Strezeleki Desert.  It is an interesting drive with sections of Gibbers (just enough to remind me this was a good idea coming this way) and white and red sand dunes in ribbons.  In between there are the gnarled eucalypts, acacias and haceas clinging to the sand waiting patiently for the rare rain to rejuvenate them.




 It reminded me of Midnight oils song dead heart

We don't serve your community,

Don't serve your king,

Know your custom,

Don't speak your tongue,

White man came took everything.

Da, do, do, do, do, do, do

Rob Hurst, the bands drummer, supposedly wrote the do, do, do, after listening to the knock of the axle on the toyota landcruiser as it crossed the central Australian desert.  After this trip I can relate to it.    

The area is also the location of gas fields with numerous restricted tracks that bulldoze their way through, with little care for what is in front of it.  These wide straight roads are in sharp contrast to the track we are on which is narrow winding in and out of the creek crossings and dunes fitting in to the landscape not fighting against it.

The track crossed the path of Burke and Wills as they headed north. In the comfort a our 4WD it was hard to fully experience the hardship of their journey but I can appreciate being stuck with the same person for an extended period of time and how this can drive a man crazy. 

As we got close to Innamincka we diverted to see Wills grave and where King was found alive. 

Wills died in June 1861 and was originally buried on the Banks of the Cooper River.  Following Burkes death, King stayed wth aboriginal people until he was finally found by Edwin Welch. The more we listened to the full account of the journey the more I learnt about the misguided trip.  While my school boy memories were about Burke being the hero, he was probably the most foolhardy of them all.  I have a new found appreciation for the others in the trip in particular King and the other guy.

With more of the Burke and Wills story tomorrow, we made our way to Innamincka to refuel and - yes - visit the Innamincka Hotel. Innamincka is not much more than a stop over point lacking the real character of other remote towns we have visited.  Either that, or it was the lackluster and uninterested service at both the pub and store that gave me that impression.

So after a quick stop we moved on to Cullyamurra waterhole on the bank of the Cooper Creek. Here we camped under the shade of a Coolabah Tree waiting for the billy to boil and I had to hold by self back from singing a tune.