Cooper Creek Cutting Off The Birdsville Track
My apologies for the delay in getting more pics posted. Our internet is playing up (again!). Here are the photo’s of Cooper Creek:
Underneath all that water is the Birdsville Track! As you can see, it’s not exactly passable by vehicle at the moment. Farmboy didn’t really drive through it, he just backed up the car to the edge. 
If you wish to get further North, you have to take a detour track:
And as you can see, it’s pretty much a “track”. I was amazed that some people brought caravans through here and others attempted it with 2WD vehicles (and then wished they hadn’t).
You can see the single-car ferry behind the kids. The last time this ferry was running was 1990. So 20 years ago. There was just a phenomenal amount of water! And when you realise how many lakes the creek has to fill on it’s way down it’s hard to even comprehend how much water it takes for the creek to flood over the Birdsville Track.
We took a boat ride on the Cooper. Above you can see us looking back at the Ferry from the creek and also our silver Pajero’s (our friends also have a silver Pajero). The silver building is a long drop toilet marked “women”. I guess the men are expected to use a bush!!?? You need a peg for your nose and your own roll of paper to use it.
The boat cruise was very interesting. We got a good look around and a bit of history of the place as well. At one spot we were shown where a make shift bridge was built to get sheep across when the creek was wet. It certainly would have taken a special breed of people to work the stations back in pioneering days! Lots of hard yakka!
I’ve forgotten the name of it but the image above is one of the Lakes that gets filled as the water makes it way along, eventually ending up in Lake Eyre. When there is water around, there is some good money to be made fishing in some of those lakes too. And because they will dry up, there’s no real point in not fishing them “dry” (the fish are not going to survive once the water disappears).
It was a really interesting day and the kids seemed to enjoy it as much as we did (I wasn’t sure how boring they would find it).
On our way back to Marree, we stopped in at a little camping spot set up by one of the stations. They had a little tub there that could be filled direct from a hot spring. It was a bit warm for my liking but the kids enjoyed it:
Next Installment (hopefully in the not too distant future): Lake Eyre.
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You know what I really love the most about these pictures?
It’s that you guys own a 4WD and are using it for its designated purpose - to get off the beaten track.
For a city slicker like myself who is utterly sick and tired of seeing Soccer Mums drive their little darlings to school in these Toorak Tractors every day it is utterly brilliant to see yours, covered in mud, a key part in a big adventure (victorious fist pump)!
Do you know what I find curious about all this? Lakes that have been dry for so long, years and years, sudeenly get full amd out of the blue, there’s fish in them. Fish big enough to catch. Where do the fish come from? I know about frogs who bury themselves in mud and then survive until the wet, but surely fish don’t do this too?
It’s lovely to see so much water out there isn’t it?
Kath - we actually ummed and ahhed about buying a 4WD at all because they’re so expensive compared to what you can get in a 2WD. But, it does get used as a farm vehicle and drives through mud, sand, stubble etc. And hubby does like his 4WD-ing (although I don’t really have the best temperament for the really “full-on” tracks).
River - I think the fish come downstream when the creeks and rivers flood.