There's another track...

We were given another mud map from Gina & Norm at the Eyre Bird Observatory, which took us from the observatory on the coast, along the bottom of the escarpment to the Madura Roadhouse – skipping a little bit more of the Eyre Highway. We left late in the afternoon so the light was golden on the beautiful mallee country through which we were driving. The track followed the old Telegraph line (with most of the cast iron poles still in place) for a while then skirted the ruins of Burnabbie homestead. We camped the night near the Burnabbie ruins, and explored them in the morning. The house was built with frames of the mallee that is all around them, and then clad with flattened kerosene tins – this wood is so hard that the frames of the hut, and the fences, and the old shearing shed are still largely intact (70 years later!).





The track to Madura then travelled into much drier flatter country, and into the Madura station. A few ruined water tanks and wells about, and some signs that it does rain there sometimes – but it was hard to imagine on the dry dusty day we passed! There was also a fine collection of ruined cars starting from the days when people began making horseless buggies up until the present. We were later to realise that this wasn’t a reflection of profligate vehicle use by the station but a graveyard for those vehicles which had expired on the nearby Eyre highway.