Oodnadatta Track Information

Oodnadatta Track Information

Oodnadatta Track

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The Oodnadatta Track will take you past some of the most weird and wonderful places in Australia. There's a lake the size of Holland, Australia's smallest town, one of the world's biggest cattle stations and a fence 5,300 kilometres long.

The legendary track stretches 615 kilometres from the old railway town of Marree in the south to Marla on the Stuart Highway, over endless expanses of red gibber plains, sweeping red dunes and saltbush plains.

Lake Eyre, actually two lakes covering an area of 9,690 square kilometres (or about the size of Holland), is spectacular dry and in flood. It has filled to capacity only twice in 150 years, but makes for an awesome sight when waters flow in from great inland rivers to part fill the dry salt pans. You're much more likely to see it dry and glistening white – the salty crust is 460mm thick in places and estimated to weigh 400 million tonnes.

The former railway town of Curdimurka is now one of 20 interpretive sites on the Old Ghan Railway heritage trail, stretching from Port Augusta to Alice Springs and tracing the path of the first railway to link Adelaide with the North Territory. Grab a copy of the trail brochure at visitor information centres throughout the region.

Next en route is the Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs Conservation Park, where water bubbles to the surface atop mounds ringed with grasses. The mounds, created by mineral deposits, are an amazing curiosity in a very surreal landscape. Two of the best examples are The Bubbler and Blanche Cup, both fed by the Great Artesian Basin.

You might want to spend the night at the Coward Springs campground, an Old Ghan stop-off featuring date palms and tamarisk trees from a failed farming enterprise a century ago. You'll love soaking in the thermal pool surrounded by tall reeds as you watch rainbow martins darting by.

Further up the track is William Creek, where you can book a desert camel trek or a unforgettable scenic flight over Lake Eyre. Stand-out features of the flight include Warburton Groove and river systems that flow into Lake Eyre, the lowest point on the Australian mainland. Take a look in the William Creek pub - it's a great watering hole with loads of character.

Continue your drive past Anna Creek Station (at more than 24,000 square kilometres it's bigger than Belgium), and 150 kilometres down the track you'll come across the Algebuckina Bridge. This is the longest steel-span bridge in the state (580 metres) and is an ideal place to camp. Check out the surrounding cliffs to see just how wide the Neales River can become in flood.

Just 60 kilometres further down the track and you'll be in Oodnadatta, which was once the railhead of the Old Ghan Railway. Refuel and send a postcard from the quirky Pink Roadhouse.

The last 209 kilometres to Marla takes you past Todmorden and Welbourn Hill stations as the route swings west via floodplains and tributaries of the Neales and Alberga rivers. At Marla civilisation returns as you join the Stuart Highway.