Fri 23rd May – Day 15: Innaminka down Strzelecki, Track

Last Fuel before we reach Lyndhurst at the end of the Strzelecki track - $2/Litre for diesel – ouch! More repairs needed as we blew out the Left headlamp protector (thanks to the broken aerial) and the microwave in the trailer has worked itself loose and threatens to carve up everything in its way if it slides around the floor, the car fridge has been inundated with exploding diet coke cans as they rub together on the bouncy terrain and wear thin, and the cage at the back finally rattled free as we could hear screws dropping all through the car as we rocked along….Anyway the great big auto place at Innaminka managed to find a few screws and 3 small pieces of inch angle to repair the microwave ($15 thanks very much!) – we’ll get to that later but for now it is wedged into it’s site with waxed cardboard, the same stuff we used to plug all air vents in the trailer in an effort to reduce the dust – what a waste of time, the stuff has a mind of its own and weedles its way into the smallest of openings. At every stop it takes about 5mins to broom the accumulated dust out the door.
Onwards to the Strzelecki we go, the taste of dust forever on our tongues and the precious sweet water we got back in Cobar filling our daily drink bottles. Since the discovery of Oil & Gas out here the roads tend to be fairly well maintained and apart from the odd bulldust holes the road wasn’t too bad – later at Montecolina we met a couple who said the track was the worst they’d seen in years, they obviously hadn’t come up from Tibooburra, as the roads we’ve been on were little more than one way tracks. To us the Strezlecki was a 3 lane highway where we managed 80-90km/hr, a record for the past week.
About halfway down we pulled of the road to a small sign ‘Montecollina bore’ – originally sunk as water for the stock routes it now hosts an array of birdlife including Corellas, Galahs, Eagles and Magpies! As the only legal camping area along the track we were soon joined by about 4 other trailers. The water at he bore was piped hot out of the ground and although a little bit on the rotten egg side (sulphur) we managed to wade around a bit and had instant hot-water for washing up, or in Chloe’s case for soaking clothes now covered in mud from a slide in the bogs!
After dinner the moon rose straight outside and we all set up deck chairs with blankets and beanies to star gaze – many shooting stars seen and the milky way a long

Montecolina Bore (free camping) - Strzelecki Track