East Coast Road Tour 2012

The Mail Run
Departing Coober Pedy at 9.00 a.m. on Monday 24th it wasn’t long before we knew we were in for an interesting day with the Mailman. Two Road Trains carrying cattle to Anna Creek Station had become stuck in the mud so Pete the postie stopped to see if they required assistance, they were going to sit there for a few hours and wait for the road to dry out a bit. The trip out to Anna Creek Station took about 3 hours slipping and sliding on the muddy road. Anna Creek is the largest cattle station in Australia.
Being so remote primary school education is done at the station. Presently there is one little girl whose brothers are at boarding school so it makes for a very lonely existence for her. She has a governess to look after her schooling. Education is a mix of correspondence, internet and school of the air.
On leaving Anna Creek Station it was only a further 15 km and we arrived at the William Creek pub, the town (if that is what you can call it) which
has a permanent population of 3. While Peter was unloading the mail we sat in the beer garden and had lunch, by the way if you want to buy a Pie or Pastie it would set you back $7.00 and that does not include sauce. We departed William Creek at around 1.30 p.m. and headed North up the Oodnadatta Track driving through varying road conditions from dry flat road to slippery muddy tracks and creeks which were flooding over the road.
The first drop on the track was at Nilpina Station and then onto Peake station. A little further up the road we stopped at a heritage listed bridge called the Algebukina Bridge, a magnificent steel bridge which spanned almost 500 metres and was built for the old Ghan railway.
The Peake creek was flowing with the recent rains and was 450mm ( 18 inches for we older people) deep and covering the road for almost 200 metres. The next mail drop was for Alandale station but due to flooding over their driveway (3km) we were not able to get in or they get out so what did Pete the postie do? He put it in their letterbox, blew his whistle and off we went toward Oodnadatta.
Knowing that we were going to be late home Peter handed a menu from the Pink Roadhouse around and we wrote down our selections and he radioed ahead to ensure that our meals would be ready for us on arrival (except Alan’s fish) I realise that it was a long way to any ocean so I probably should have ordered steak the cattle were a lot closer. We left the Pink Roadhouse around 8.00 p.m. after a 2min comprehensive tour of Oodnadatta and set off for our last drop at Mount Barry Station and then back to Mars ( oops I mean Coober Pedy) arriving at 11.00p.m. A long day but extremely interesting.
A little bit about Peter Rowe, from the time we set foot in the OKA he started talking , lots of things pertinent to the mail run and a few true outback stories and a few others which were a tad sus. If you should go to Coober Pedy and have a Monday or Thursday available then this trip, although a long day is a must do.