After a nice night at the Stuart Caravan Park we got on the road quite early (for this trip) and headed for the servo ($1.749L) and then the Cooper Pedy IGA to stock up before leaving. The IGA was amazing, grocery store and hardware store all in one.

After a shopping spree we stocked up on good water at the “water bowser”. They have a reverse osmosis water system here and $0.20 gets you 40 liters from a sort of petrol bowser type arrangement. Filled to the gunnels with fuel water we went up to the lookout and took a couple of shots of the town before heading up to the dog fence. Just before the dog fence we decided to do a small back track up to the Break Aways lookout. Well worth the effort for some spectacular views.

Back on the road and through the dog fence we hag a large convoy of 6 T-Vans a few KM behind us giving a nice running commentary on the UHF of what we had just passed. We planned to do a longer loop almost out to Oodnadatta but after they turned off towards the Painted Dessert and Akckaringa and we went past and had to give way to a horse in the middle of the road we had a quick conference and followed them.

They called up the Akckaringa station where coffee, scones and cream are on offer for $10. We bypassed the station for now and went to the Painted Dessert and went up two lookouts and did one short walk. The colours of the hills are amazing. We called the station on the UHF on leaving the lookouts but unfortunately Lauren had to go to a meeting and we missed out on scones. We did however confirm the UHF worked as that was the first time I had used it. After arriving at the station and talking to her we decided to camp on their property which turned out to be a great decision.

We had an instant friend in the station dog “Wei” who incidently has his own fridge magnets for $3ea (best seller according to the station owner). He visits every new arrival but only eats steak and wants to be patted a lot. He knows how to work the system and watching him go from site to site in a well oiled drill was amusing. We went back out the Painted Dessert on sunset and took a few photo’s of the deep red in the sky.

Returning to cook tea we sat with several other groups around a communal fire pit area and an old timer Hobsy and his mate Roger kept us entertained with stories for hours and a we bit of Glen Fiddick was shared as well. He was an interesting character who is very well known in the area. His best story was his train driving days – he said he had television before anybody else in Australia. After changing drivers on the train they would sit in the office and watch all the people go past in the train windows, dangly bits, wrinkly bits of all shapes and sizes!

Akckaringa was a good find and a great place to stay. The showers and toilets where a bit light on though first thing in the morning.