Another Muddy Day

After a leisurely breakfast and repacking the vehicles we established that the road to our next destination was open again. We had considered staying in Coober Pedy another day but Maria and Roland were keen to move on and the history of the past five weeks in this area was that we could risk another lot of rain if we delayed. Most unusually the roads in the area have been closed for a couple of days in each of the previous five weeks due to this exceptionally wet season. William  Creek the roadhouse we were heading for has had 13 inches compared to it' s usual 4 inches.
While topping up our water supply we watched a stream of eager beavers who seemed to have just heard the road was open head off out of town. We were content to go slowly and it was to our advantage as they established tracks through the muddy patches which we could follow and which limited the difficulty of getting through and the load of mud we took on. Even so all our hard work yesterdey to clean up the Cruiser and the camper was undone very soon. This was no where near as bad as yesterday though. The first part of the road out to William Creek was the wettest and the latter part presented no real challenge as it was mostly over higher ground. Amazingly we met two parties of motorcyclists. Three were going into CP and two were going our way. We spoke to the two at William Creek while we were eating our icecreams. They had actually started at William Creek that morning hoping to make CP but they only had semi off road bikes and the tyres just weren't managing the conditions so they would be staying in William Creek for another night.
We set off again and the road wasn't too bad once we were down the road a bit. We were back on the Oodnadatta track and soon began seeing evidence of the old Ghan railway. We went into the old telegraph station at Strangeways which was quite facinating. It had been quite a settlement and there are substantial ruins. This had included a Police Station, a Chappel and staff quarters. There was the later addition of dry stone wall stock yards when it became part of Anna Plains Station. The telegraph station had been built within a cluster of mound springs. This is where a fracture in the underlying rock allows artesian water to be pushed out to the surface. However the heavy mineralisation of the water deposits sediments which build up around the pool over time forming a mound. They were at least six feet above the surrounding landscape. The ones which were still active had a very pretty green crown of vegetation and we found signs that a small animal had been digging into the top of one to get to the water.
Our next stop was the Beresford Siding where we found almost intact ruins of the staff quarters , and a huge water tower and loading facility.
It had obviously been used as a camp site but was quite clean. As it was that time of day we set ourselves up for a very comfortable camp. We are well back from the road and there was planty of wood for a fire so while Maria cooked dinner I made some bread in the camp oven. The loaf looks
good but the proof will come at lunch time today.