Arckaringa to Hamilton Station

 

Heading off from Arckaringa saw us travelling back east towards home. It’s sad in a way, heading back east. It was a bit like when we reached the tip of Cape York.

To know that you aren’t travelling any further away, and you’re essentially on you way back home is a strange feeling.

Unlike “The Cape”, however, we weren’t just heading back down the same road home, as we still had the main section of the adventure ahead of us, crossing the Simpson Desert, which is obviously the main point of the trip.

We travelled back east via the painted desert and grabbed some drone footage early in the morning while waiting of the rest of our companions to reach us.

The convoy joined us and we snapped of a few more photo’s in the morning light before grabbing a group photo. It was at this point I noticed a distinct and unmistakable smell of burning electrics. Having spent a lot of time doing my own electrical work I know that all too familiar smell and in this case it was radiating from the White Crocodile (Gary’s Courier).

We quickly opened up the canopy and isolated the issue to what we believe was a faulty 240v inverter. This was promptly disconnected and, as the saying goes, crisis averted.

We continued on our way to Hamilton Station however to get to Hamilton we had to head back via Oodnadatta, stopped in to top of the fuel.

TIP: You never know if the next town is going to be out of fuel. Always top up with fuel if it’s available.

In our case, however, the next town was Mt Dare and we were pretty sure they’d have fuel. And if not, we’re pretty sure they’d have refreshments, so either way we’d be OK.

The road to Hamilton was relatively good although starting to get a little rough. There was a bit of water around which meant taking it easy through wet sections.

Arriving at Hamilton Station was a simple process. We pulled in at the station house to say g’day and let them know we had arrived. We then drove down to the camping area, dropped our money in the honesty box and set up camp for the evening.

We arrived with plenty of time for me to capture some more drone footage of the camp site and surrounding area.