The Lake Eyre Disaster
Flood of 1987 The Lake Eyre disaster occurred when I ignored my own advice to camp early. I had decided to travel through part of the night to camp on the edge of the "inland sea". This was going to be a surprise for “the Kid” when she woke up in the morning. I couldn’t see much because of the dead insects on the windscreen, but I reckoned we were getting close to the perfect campsite. Just then “The Kid”, who was asleep in the passenger seat, woke and said, “Where are we Dad?” I told her, “I wanted to surprise you and camp on the edge of Lake Eyre.” “The Kid”, who is no fool, wound down the window of the Hilux, looked out and said, “Dad I think we are already IN the lake.” Sure enough before I could wind down the window for a look, the Hilux started slowing. Desperately I started a wide U turn back to shore but it was too late. The ute was bogged. The obligatory “cup of tea” was replaced by four stubbies on this occasion. “The Kid” and I rolled out our swags on a high bit of comparatively dry salt near the Hilux. I was a bit worried. In fact it was the most worried I had ever been on the road. It was the middle of February. It was likely to be about 40 degrees Celsius by 10 O’clock in the morning and we hadn’t seen another vehicle since leaving Marree 80 km away. I bravely told “The Kid” not to worry, “Someone will hear us on the UHF." But I knew that there would be no tourists passing in the middle of summer. That the radio had no hope of reaching the nearest homestead. Even if it did, no one else would be silly enough to risk driving this far into the salt to tow us out. But strange things happen in the bush. When we got up the next morning we could see the deep tracks had started to dry up where the ute had broken through the salt into the mud. TWe walked around and let three of the tyres down to almost flat and locked in the four wheel drive. (The other tyre had already gone flat overnight). I jumped into the “Unbreakable” Hilux and reversed out of the bog following our tracks which were now quite dry!
Bubbler Mound Spring Oodnadatta track
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