Mystery Meander : Day 6 September 26–A spot off the track between Cameron Corner and Innamincka to a lovely lakeside campsite at Coongie Lake.

After lots of chasing around after tents, this morning’s pack up was also done in pretty high winds as well. Sand everywhere, but we all managed to do it unscathed.

We travelled along the Old Strzelecki Trak and passed through an area full of oil mining equipment, including many, many ‘nodders’ that are used to pump the oil up and into pipes to somewhere.

At one point we got a bit separated so the group divided into “The Dark Side” and “The Federation” Rod, Greg, Kerri and I took the right hand road along the New Strzelecki Trak, while the rest of the crew were some way behind and opted for the Old Strzelecki Trak.

From there we all ended up in Innamincka, The Dark Side team managed to score the showers, just before they were closed for cleaning. Then fuelled up and did a small bit of washing. At the same time the boys were inspecting the Willshire-Morgan-Viney vehicle to see if the busted air conditioning could be revived. Unfortunately not, so it’s back to four window for that crew and lead car to prevent copping everyone else’s dust.

Lunch at the Innamincka Pub for most and several attempts to get some intelligence on the road to Coongie Lakes and the type of shelter etc out there.

A few more were waiting for showers, so showers had and finally back on the road at approx. 3.30pm.

We arrived at Coongie Lakes at a magnificent time for photos, the light was perfect, with the sun low in the sky, the lake looked quite blue as we crested the dune from the main trak to the lake foreshore. We saw a huge flock of Brolgas just standing around in the reedy lake edge, our arrival caused a bit of consternation and they began to dance a little.

A beautiful campsite with sunset and lake views, it would be perfect for sunrise in the morning.