We discovered this morning that the family that manages Arckaringa are on vacation and the young man that arrived last night works for the company that owns the station (the same company owns an adjacent property). Our route this morning, as planned yesterday, took us through what is called the Painted Desert, an area of small mesas with multi-colored soil and rock layers from the variation of mineral content.

Apart from the Painted Desert the drive to Oodnadatta, like most of the drive yesterday and the day before was through flat, dry, dusty country that is only broken with a splash of green when the road periodically passes through a dry creek bed. It would be very difficult to call these roads scenic; interesting maybe and certainly intimidating. Not a place to breakdown.

Oodnadatta is bigger than I expected, maybe three streets by three streets. It has a road house (painted pink - hence its name The Pink Roadhouse) which is a gas station, general store, restaurant, pub, post office and caravan park. In addition there is a pub, a general store, a gas station, an aboriginal school, outdoor railway museum and a free campground without facilities. But it is the Pink Roadhouse and the annual horse race day that this town is known for.

After lunch we took a short 60 km detour south along the Oodnadatta Track to Algebuckina Bridge and Water Hole. The bridge was built during the 1800s as part of the construction of the Ghan railway (the first north-south railway across Australia). Up till recently it was the longest bridge in South Australia. The bridge spans Neales Creek and a little way east of the bridge there is a large section of the creek that is (apparently) a permanent water hole.

We camped the night at the camping ground associated with the Pink Road House. It had all the usual facilities, flush toilets, hot showers, camp kitchen - but they were all a bit on the primitive side. The real attraction of the campground is that one can escape into the Roadhouse for a beer.