We travelled down the Strezlecki Track from Innamincka to Lyndhurst, then went up to Marree and drove up the Oodnadatta Track, staying overnight at William Creek ( population 6, which is three times what it was 20 years ago, when I was last there!)

The Oodnadatta Track follows beside the old Ghan railway line, built across the deserts in the late 19th century, and closed in 1980.

I’m sending this on the iPhone, so will keep it brief for now – but here’s a few phone photos: Cooper Creek, one of the great inland rivers at Innamincka; the old Ghan rail line at Currimurka; and sunset over the desert at William Creek.

We managed to get a few minutes of phone coverage at Lyndhurst a few days ago – just long enough to download emails and find out that the finalists in the Romance Writers of Australia have now been announced. As Darkness Falls is a finalist in the category for Novel with Strong Romantic elements.

I’m delighted to be in such great company – the full list of finalists is on the RWA website. The winners will be announced in August at the RWAus conference.

It rained a little overnight so we spent the first part of the morning in Tibooburra, waiting to see what the weather would do. A stroll up the street, a visit to the National Parks office and the Courthouse museum, and then coffee and muffin for morning tea at the shop/cafe.

The photos are of the Albert Hall and the Family Hotel next door to it. There is another pub here, but I didn’t get a photo of it with the iPhone – which is currently the only way I can blog photos just now.

We headed to Milparinka mid-morning, via Sturt’s Cairn on Mt Poole and Depot Glen where Sturt’s exploration party spent 6 months stranded by drought in the 1840s. Then back to Milparinka for lunch at the pub – M’s population is about 5.

Tomorrow, as long as the rain holds off, we’re heading to Innamincka – and probably well out of phone range, so the blog may be quiet for a few days.

We’re now in Tibooburra, a name many people in NSW recognize because it’s often mentioned on weather reports as having the top temperature of the day. Today, however, it’s fairly cool, a mild autumn day, with light rain falling for the last ten minutes. We’re watching the weather with some trepidation, keen to avoid a repeat of our previous trip when we got flooded in at Innamincka for a week. It’s all dirt roads out here,hundreds of miles of fine dust that turns to mud with a bit of rain. So we’re hoping this rain won’t settle in!

The photo is taken with the iPhone, on a slight hill about 100km from Tibooburra. It’s impossible to capture the vastness of the landscape with a basic camera – probably with any camera. But I hope the image gives a hint of it – now imagine that landscape for 360degrees all around….

Off to Tibooburra today.