Highlights from Woomelang – Burra – Orroroo – Wilpena Pound – Farina – Marree – Lake Eyre
After record rains in March and April 2026, the dry salt bed of Lake Eyre in outback South Australia, began to fill. By June it was at its highest level since 1989 and we decided this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Lake Eyre full of water. So, we packed up the van and headed North west from Melbourne, via Mildura and into South Australia. We originally intended to go to Coober Peedy the underground opal mining town then into William Creek – the closest town to Lake Eyre for a scenic flight over the lake (the only way to see it is from the air). Unfortunately, the roads were closed into William Creek due to the same rain that had filled Lake Eyre, so we switched directions and headed for Marree which has a bitumen road that ends in Marree before it branches out into two famous Australian red dirt tracks – The Oodnadatta track and the Birdsville track. We hadn’t been this way before and were thrilled to discover amazing landscapes and some super friendly towns.
Woomelang
Our first stop on our road trip from Melbounre to the South Australian outback was Woomelang – and whilst this is still in Victoria, I have included it here as Woomelang provided the best free camp experience we’ve had at the Cronomby Tanks campground. Woomelang is a wheat town with just a small general store and the free camp has a flat gravel carpark with picnic tables, fire pits, a super clean large flushing toilet, bins and a lake which has an art trail around it with clever steel paintings depicting life in the area and art silos with local flora and fauna.
Wentworth-Mildura Light Shows
Our next adventure was in the twin towns of Wentworth and Mildura either side of the Murray river to see the light installations by Bruce Monro. In Wentworth NSW, in a remote section of the Perry Sandhills we walked around 80 illuminated Hill’s hoists that pulsated to an orchestral score by Nanita Desai. Then in Mildura, we walked amongst 12,500 firefly lights and colourful sculptures on Lock Island. Clear, still, sunny days and nights made both installations even more magic.
Burra
After Mildura we headed up into the Flinders Ranges, stopping at Burra. This beautifully restored Cornish mining town was the 7th largest town in Australia in 1850 and was made up of 5 villages: Kooringa, Redruth, Aberdeen, New Aberdeen and Llwchwr ( guess who lived there , yep the Welsh!) . Cornish style mining was used here as they imported 1000 Cornish men and boys along with equipment from Cornwall to run the mines. We walked up to the Lookout and mining museum and discovered that between 1845-1867 the Burra Burra mine extracted 2 million tonnes of ore rock and produced 24,000 tonnes of copper. The ore rock containing oxidised copper minerals – malachite green and azurite blue, was deposited 400 million years ago after volcanic activity in the area. The mine site is now a 50 m deep lake. Just outside of Burra you can pull off to see the hut featured on Midnight Oils Diesel and Dust album. We stopped for a cuppa in the clear sunshine and re-lived the songs from this seminal album
Orroroo
From Burra we went up to Orroroo a town that’s taken on its friendly sounding name by welcoming in travellers with delicious cafes like Two Farmers’ Daughters and a produce store selling the best local made spelt and sourdough bread around. Orroroo is one of those community driven towns with loads of heart. They were holding a market to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation and we bought delicious marmalade, pumpkin soup, Anzac cookies and local olive oil. We enjoyed a meal at the pub which had the old fashioned salad bar, and cheesecakes displayed in glass cabinets for desert. There’s also a delightful walking trail along Pekina Creek which has aboriginal rock carvings and takes you up to the reservoir. we stayed at the van park that backs on to the golf course and enjoyed a magnificent sunset framed by the 15th hole. About 1 km out of Orroroo is one of the biggest gum tree’s I’ver ever seen – it’s 11metres around and estimated to be about 500 years old – truly magnificent.
Wilpena Pound
After leaving Ororroo we headed into the central Flinders Ranges driving through rich green agricultural fields framed by the choral and ochre Ikara-Flinders Ranges. The rock of the ranges tilted at different angles, resembling an oversized Japanese fan in one section then a Colourbond roof in another. We made our way into the Wilpena Pound Resort for the night and parked in an unpowered site to enjoy an open fire looking out over kangaroo strewn fields. The next day we walked amongst ancient river red gums. with the towering Wilpena pound enveloping us. We did the 8km Wangara Lookout walk past. The Hills Homestead and up a rather steep slippery path to the lower, then upper lookouts for great views over the Pound. We didn’t have time to stop at Arkaroo rock on our way out but plan to do this loop walk to see the ochre and red rock up close next time.
Into the South Australian Outback
It is humbling to drive for hours on end through the Flinders Ranges and the South Australian outback, where the nimbus infused sky stretches like an endless canopy above the pancake flat desert pockmarked with bobbles of shrubs. In the distance the stegosaurus Ikara-Flinders ranges rise and occasionally the remnants of an old stone squatters shack pinpoints where fortunes were made and lost to drought.
The blacktop is unnervingly straight from Hawker to Marree reminding us of the journey across the Nullarbor. Drowsy Drivers Die signs warn us to take a break at the one-shop hamlets that pop up every hour or so and ‘unfenced cattle and sheep’ keep us on the watch for stray livestock. There’s no mobile coverage, despite the presence of huge steel towers that have satellite dishes on them so we presume they belong to Musk for his Starlink service – not Telstra. We tune our CB radio to channel 40 to pick up on truckies banter and occasionally need to pull off the road to let a road train carrying massive mining equipment up to the BHP uranium mine pass, and once, a truck carrying a massive motor boat to who knows where (perhaps like the explorer, Sturt, they thought we had an inland sea?).
There’s evidence of an old railway line that once carried The Ghan (re-located in 1980 due to damage from repeated floods) and also provided access to Leigh Creek coal mine, closed in 2015 . Tumbled timber poles suggest there was once power lines out here but like the railway, they have been moved elsewhere leaving the sense that people and industry have surrendered the outback to the wiles of nature. Flood damage signs warn of broken bitumen at every ford where recent rains have washed away the road and dumped red silt and purple rocks in its place. There’s a strange lack of roadkill with only three dead foxes in 5 days of driving – much to the disappointment of the hawks we spot hovering overhead. With nothing for the gaze to settle on, the mind wanders with vast thoughts: How do we preserve these wilderness areas? Why are we so hell bent on cutting down ancient trees and digging up million year old rock – selling our very earth to countries far away to produce more energy to produce more things? When you see nature in its pristine state scarred only by the elements of sun, wind and water it makes you want to tread lightly.
Farina
An hour before the bitumen ends at Marree (and branches off onto the 4WD Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks) we take the turnoff to the ghost town of Farina for the night – and found a spot in the spacious gravel campground – which had about 60 other vans/tents/big off road rigs already set up for the night. There’s wood-fired hot showers, toilets and a war memorial that has great views of the sunset and a couple of walks around the old bore-water holes which the cockatoos and galahs loved.
At its peak in the 1880s, Farina had 600 people who grew wheat (hence the name) and farmed livestock. When the Central Australia Railway (later part of the Ghan line) arrived in 1882, the town boomed and there was an underground Bakery, along with hotels, a police station and cells, a school , hospital and brothel . All these buildings have been left to crumble except the bakery which has been restored and is operated by volunteers from late May to late July each year. We were waiting at their door at 8.30am when they opened to snap up a cinnamon scroll, savoury pull apart and carrot scones.
Marree
The last part of our drive up to Marree was slow as the road has been seriously damaged by recent heavy rain. We obeyed 40km an hour signs and had to drive on the wrong side of the road a lot of the way as there were gaping holes and chunks missing on our side. The shrubs got lower and the only hump on the horizon were mounds of gravel excavated from makeshift quarries as the road crews prepared to repair the road.
Marree arrived like a mirage and we filled up with diesel for $3 a litre at the general store which was busy with indigenous families replenishing their supplies. Theres a lot of communities in this part of the outback. The motel units, which were sealed portable buildings with no windows, revealed a lot about the extreme temperatures and conditions and the wash of red dirt and rubble across every surface indicated what was in store beyond this rustic town. There was a monument to the Cameliers who helped Sturt, Stuart, Bourke and Wills explore this area and a lot of 4WD’s gearing up to hit the Oodnadatta or Birdsville tracks. We were the only 2WD vehicle in sight!.
Kata Thanda – Lake Eyre
We checked in with Arid Air at thier office in Marree then made our way to the airstrip for our flight over Kata Thanda – Lake Eyre – the reason why we’d come.
Our young pilot conducted a safety briefing and made us strap lifejackets to a belt around our waists. Life jackets, in the outback? After getting over 600 ml of rain in March and April the usually red centre was now green and the dry salt Lakes including Lake Eyre have the highest water levels since 1989. And are at 2.4 metres deep – as we were flying over this immense body of water (9,500 sq km) we had to prepare for a water landing!
The five passengers squeezed into the 6-seater Cessna and after lots of “Foxtrot Zero Charlie entering runway, tracking to the northwest…” we were up and away over the arid landscape we’d just driven through. There’s no central control tower in the outback and the scenic flight operators chat amongst themselves constantly which we could hear in our headphones: “Foxtrot Zero Charlie, tracking you off Marree, zero inbound we’ve got you on visuals …” which was both reassuring and unnerving .
We soared over the Dingo proof fence which keeps dogs in the north and sheep in the south stretching from Ceduna to Dolby. At 5600 km it is the longest fence in the world and is still maintained by the government. We also saw waterholes where the 70c degree water had broken through front he Great artesian basin underground. This is the largest water basin in the world with enough water to fill Syd harbour 130,000 times . Framers used to have access to this water but did not manage its use responsibly so their bores were cut off in 1980s to let the basin recover. Today the great artesian basin’s biggest user is BHP who draws from the basin for the BHP Olympic dam copper and uranium mine. 500 litres of water every second goes to BHP mine and the basin is (apparently) constantly monitored to ensure it remains at healthy levels. Lake Eyre basin represents one 7th of Australia’s land mass and is the only basin that has rivers draining into a lake rest instead of the sea.
When the rivers swell with rain and start to drain into Lake Eyre (every 30-40 years) they bring fish and wildlife from thousands of miles away. It’s hard to imagine how the Pelicans, Storks, Ibis, ducks and seagulls know to fly so far inland but they come in droves to feed and breed as they are safe from predators on the islands that pop up around the Lake. We saw thousands of pelicans nesting on Brook islands and apparently 90% of Australia’s pelicans have made it to Lake Eyre this time.
The other remarkable population of animals that thrive in the outback here is the camels. 24 camels were Imported from India and Pakistan by Elder in the 1800’s to help the explorers – they proved so hardy and helpful that up to 20,000 were brought in by 1920. But when the railways arrived they were no longer needed and the cameleers were instructed to shoot their camels. The cameleers, attached to their livestock chose to let them go in the desert instead where they thrived. In 2008 the camel population was over one million – with a lot of damage being caused by these massive creatures. They have now been culled and the population hovers around 300,000.
The final large scale sight of our flight was Marree Man. Discovered in 1998 by a charter pilot, it depicts an aboriginal hunter holding a weapon called a Woomera ( throwing stick like a boomerang). At 4.2 km from head to toe, it is one of the largest geoglyphs (ground drawings) in the world, and covers roughly 2.5 square kilometres (620 acres) of desert plateau. The individual lines forming the figure were originally about 35 metres wide and 35 centimetres deep. There’s so many stories about who created it – including one that US scientists stationed at Woomera during the nuclear testing might have created it but I think it’s more likely that local artist Bardius Goldberg, who expressed interest in creating a visible-from-space artwork might have been responsible. He dies in 2002 but his friends claim he was given $10,000 for a secret project, he never revealed.
After our momentous flight over the stunning emerald, aqua, sandstone and sapphire Lake Eyre and across the eggplant, sage and ochre land, we began our trek back home, making it all the way to Ororroo for the night just as the sun blazed its way to bed over the golf course. Driving south back towards the coast and Victoria, the fields turned yellow with canola, purple with old vines and grey with bare fruit trees. The Murray was our companion until we turned south, down through silo art trails of St. Arnaud, Brim and Patchewollock. We stopped in community campgrounds at night, avoiding the commercial van parks and enjoyed fires under starry skies and woke to frosty cool mornings with ice on the windscreen. A road trip in the van in winter with short cool days, low light and less people is a very different experience that gives you time to reflect, snuggle in to nature and appreciate this wide cockatoo full land of ours.
