Coober Pedy Mail Run

Monday 2nd June

Today we joined the mail man Peter Rowe on his twice weekly mail run down the Oodnadatta Track delivering and picking up mail to remote cattle and sheep stations, we covered just on 600 kms all on dirt roads.

Peter is a great Aussie character, a passionate historian, photographer and storyteller, in fact the trip took just over 12 hours and Peter talked nonstop for about 11 of these hours.

We got the full history of Coober Pedy as well of the history of opal and of all the local characters who made Coober Pedy what it is today.  He told stories of the pioneers of the outback, how the Railway came to the area and of those who built it, about all the owners of the cattle and sheep stations. He had jokes and stories about anything and everything relating to outback South Australia and the Northern Territory.

We passed through 9 stations altogether, spending time at three of them.

The first stop was Mount Barry Station where we had the chance to meet with and chat to the owners, the Williams, who actually own several of the stations up here, and have family members managing them. They were delightful people happy to chat to us tourists.

At Oodnadatta we stopped at The Pink Roadhouse for lunch, then had a little time to explore this tiny famous town. 99% of the population here are indigenous but they have none of the social problems experienced by other indigenous communities even though the unemployment here is almost 90%.  The elders here are heavily involved in running the town, in fact the community even purchased the only hotel in the town so they could control the consumption of alcohol, which has been a huge success.

Next it was on to Wilpenna Station where the owners were also happy to greet us and served us a welcome cup of tea and homemade biscuits.  Remember there are 100's of kms between these stations.

We stopped at various sites for photo opportunities along the way including Mt Dutton Rail Siding a water a supply stop for the original Ghan Train. There is a loan grave site at the top of a hill here abd the story is that it is of a 4 year old girl who fell frm the train and dued on this spot. It was a sad and lonely site.

Another bit of trivia for you-
The Ghan as we now know it was originally nown as The Great Northern Rail, later to become The Afghan Express and then to what it is now 'The Ghan'

We also stopped at a huge and very beautiful waterhole which apparently has never been seen to be dry, even in the longest drought, it is called 'The Big Waterhole', it was like an oasis in the middle of nowhere. Peter informed us that there are many such waterholes in the outback, you just have to know where they are

We walked across a great historic iron bridge which carried the original Ghan train, we were so high up we could see for miles

On to William Creek, and by this time it was dinner time. We called into the historic pub to buy a drink to have with dinner but had to carry it across the road to The Dingo Cae and Restaurant to eat. We had a surprisingly good meal and had a jolly nice time before heading off to the last stop.

We were surprised to see so many people in both the pub and the restaurant as we were in the middle of nowhere, there were drovers, pilots, an excavator driver and his young female apprentice driver, backpackers and who knows who else.

We then headed to our last stop at Anna Creek Station which is the largest station in Australia @ 24,000 square kms. As it was pitch dark and very late we didn't get out here Peter just picked up the mail and we took off for the last 170kms for home.

Over the course of the day we saw kangaroos, lots of amazing birds, a giant lizard on the track where we were able to stop and take some very close up photos, and last but not least a dingo trotting down the track.

All in all a fabulous day.  Peter Rowe, Mailman - what a local treasure.