Oodnadatta

Roll into Pink Roadhouse, waste an hour or two trying to upload on hopeless Optus connection. A room is $180. Down the street at the optimistically named Intercontinental Hotel, a nice comfortable room can be had for $100, plus we drink a few rounds and eat dinner, so the owner has definitely got the right idea.

The main street and highway through  Oodnadatta.

Clare and Phil tell us about Clare's father who was in the Warsaw resistance of WW2, gets captured by the Germans. A bomb hit their jail killing everyone bar him and a guard who won't let him move.

Left: the picture theatre.

He understands that the guard is injured enough to die. so simply waits for him to pass out, then escapes. Goes to Lviv (formerly in Poland, now in the Ukraine). Gets captured by the Soviets who send him to Siberia on the train. He smuggled a knife, and he and a colleague burrow into the train floor, and escapes the train on the way to Siberia.

Right: you need to pay for drinking water.

Her dad spends 6 months in the Russian winter getting back to Lviv. Gets captured again by the Germans, and sent to a labour camp in Germany. At wars end, he eventually gets to Italy. Spends years there, gets asylum status for Canada, the US, Australia and somewhere else. Chooses Australia to get as far away as possible.

Left: the rail and general museum.

Clare and Phil live in Geelong. He's a retired Obstetrics and Gynaecology specialist, it turns out, after Marie says she's all for a home birth, since women have been doing it for years. I argue that things can go wrong, and then he mentions how you can bleed to death in about 10 minutes, so best have the modern equipment at hand.

Right: the buried rail tracks that made the town, then took it away...

Oodnadatta used to be the end of the rail line. After that, Alice was supplied via camel from here. It used to be a very important town. People cried when the last train left the station. The tracks are still here in the dirt, but along the rest of the line, the sleepers and rails have been dug up for other uses. During WW2, Oodnadatta was also a major fuel stop for fighter planes. They had about 400kms of range, so needed to refuel many times in order to cross the country.

Following in their footsteps. Turns out we've been following the old Ghan railway the whole time. This follows the explorer's routes, which followed old Aboriginal routes, which followed available water: the springs, water holes, the holes that held water after rain etc. The ancient lines continue.

 Nearest petrol.

Marie at the glamorous Intercontinental. We always stay there when in town.

I went for a jog, but got scared by the street dogs. They roam around parts of town in packs. Left Oodnadatta after uploading all the school work, thanks to v good wifi. Was a very satisfying stop, productive.