We were up and gone from the Pub by 8'ish and headed off to the bakery for brekky. Then a refuel and we left for a drive to Big Red. We had to take a detour along the South Australian/Queensland Border fence because of water across the normal track. The were half a dozen or so dunes along the way to give me a little taste of what it is like to drive the Simpson Desert. There were a couple of people on top of Big Red and we drove up using the easy track to save having to let air out of the tyres and then pump them back up. We spent some time taking photos before we headed back to Birdsville, Brett took the steep track down the side of the dune while I took the more sedate track we had used to get up.
Back at Birdsville, Brett fueled up again and we headed off to Cooper Creek. The road was in very good condition and cruising on the speed limit was quite easy. We got to the Mungerannie Pub and Brett fueled up again while we had a quick rest stop. Then off to the Cooper Creek ferry via the diversion road. We got there about 3:30'ish and with 5 or 6 cars ahead of us we didn't get across until about 5 pm. The ferry has one bung motor so it was running at half speed. Then it was about 100 km drive to where we wanted to camp the night at Calyton Wetlands. We arrived just as the sun set and got camp set up - our first time for the trip.
There were quite a few cute little native mice around and we had to keep the cars and the tents shut up so they didn't climb in looking for food. After a quick dinner we got the camp fire going and chatted for awhile until it got too chilly. Then it was time to crawl into a nice warm sleeping bag.
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