We pull into Marree early and after a little scout around town and visit to the shops we head to the Drovers Rest Tourist Park. A large and sparse caravan park but with the cutest little crafty touches about the place, that gave it a warm well loved feel.
Being early the park was pretty empty but gradually filled up as the day went on. It was a steady stream of 3 bunk vans pulling in one after another, until there was a possy of 12 kids. The owners of the park were lovely but I don’t think they knew what hit them when the kids got into full swing. However that said as we sat around the communal fire pit at night we all had plenty of stories to tell.
We were blown away when the host Jo made a separate gluten free damper for Georgia. I haven’t gotten around to finding a recipe and this was above and beyond. So Georgia didn’t miss out I had actually made her a batch in the van to cook on the fire so we had gluten free damper galore. Jo’s was delicious made with Chickpea flour but whether Georgia was distracted with her new friends or not she wasn’t too keen on either. Doh!
That night was much fun socializing, either sitting around the fire or standing by the vans chatting, as the kids ran around and eventually all settled down to write their journals together. What a great bunch of parents and awesome kids, and the best bit we are all traveling in the same direction so its likely we’ll be spending a bit more time together. I have really missed friends and that beautiful buzz you get from making connection with like minded people on a regular basis.
Some of us are leaving the next day and others are going to be a day behind but we are all travelling the Oodnadatta Track and meeting up at William Creek in two days time. It had really cooled down over night and we’d speculated around the fire about there being rain. Brent the owner was quick to shut it down with a comment of “there’d be 40 heart attacks in town if it rained, it’s not rained in 4 years!” Well here’s hoping everyone survived the shock as in the morning it rained, a fairly decent shower to. We were then blessed with the most spectacular double rainbow.
Marree this small town in the middle of nowhere had turned out to be one of our most memorable camps. Not for the fact it’s home to the Lake Eyre Yacht Club (raises eyebrows as the lake only fills once every 50 years), or the history of it being an old Afghan town, or home to Australia’s first Mosque, or a feature of the old Ghan railway. But for new friends, rare rain and rainbows.
