We had to give in. As much as we would have preferred to cut ourselves off from civilisation, we had to have just that one last fix. Even though Leigh Creek was one hour out of our way in the absolute wrong direction from Mungerannie, it was the only town in the area that offered phone & internet access. So, from Maree we headed 120kms south to Leigh Creek. We would then travel back through Maree to make our way up along the Birdsville Track to Mungerannie.
The Maree pub... heart of the Oodnadatta, Birdville & Strezleiki tracks
We were originally umming and ahhing whether or not we should go but I gave us one more reason to head towards civilisation. I found three mysterious lumps on my left ear. Somehow, when you manage to find one ... it snowballs until you find two more and then you start thinking, how long have they been there? Have they been there all of this time and I just hadn't noticed? Or, had my recent excessive exposure to the sun over the last 6 months resulted in skin cancers on my ear? They were only tiny and if it was something that needed to be taken out, I'd much rather have preferred to have it seen to before they grew to a rather painful size.
Thankfully, it was a false alarm & they were just clogged glands which are apparently quite common to find in the ear. But it has certainly made Tom and I a lot more conscience of the possible harm all of this exposure to the sun could be doing to our skin. I guess, gone are the days were we can head out for an hour or two without bothering to slip, slop & slap. And coming from me, the worlds most useless sunscreen applier, that's certainly a big call.
The town of Leigh Creek is right in the heart of a major coal mining operation. The whole town has that 'custom built' feeling to it. And it is quite strange to find such a heavily built up community so far away from anywhere else.
Tom and I camped up at Leigh Creek for four nights. Because it was cheap and we had another few days after that to make our way to Mungerannie where we would have zero mobile or internet reception. We both figured it would be quite a nice break, away from everything and everyone just us, the roadhouse and all of the travellers passing through.
We have to let our 'healthy' guard down every now & then, particularly when we have a big stash of fresh dates from Coward Springs just crying out to be made into a Sticky Date Pudding...
Site : Leigh Creek Caravan Park
Rating : 6 / 20
Facilities : Clean toilets & free showers in a shipping container. No shade. Flat Pitch.
We demoted ourselves. After having a chat to the barman in the pub at Copley (just 5kms for Leigh Creek) he told us that we could set up camp out the back... for dirt cheap too!!
Site : Copley Hotel Caravan Park
Rating : 7 / 20
Facilities : While it may infact double as the pub's carpark... this place is dirt cheap at $10 for a POWERED site! Clean bathrooms. And the best bit - tap beer is just a stumble away.
1 comment:
Thanks for giving rates to those camp sites, at least campers like me will have an idea. I hope there are positive changes in those camp sites after three years.
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