Arguably the major landmark in Marree, South Australia – the trruck driven by the late Tom Kruze, the famous Birdsville Track mailman.
©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved

I have been through Maree many times on my way to somewhere.

It was the same a couple of weeks ago when I passed through Marree to do a feature for the upcoming R M Wiliams “Best of Outback Stations” magazine.

Maree is the beginning ( or the end ) of  the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks – both legendary Outback stock routes and it was up the Birdsville Track this time.

Maree isn’t quite the bustling town it was when it was a cattle railhead …. or more recently when thousands of tourists flocked north to see flooded Lake Eyre.

©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

It must have been quite a sight  seeing Tom Kruze pull out of town at the start of his many epic journey’s up the Birdsville track.

A movie of his fortnightly journey called “Back of Beyond” was filmed back in the early 1950s. It is still for sale and an excerpt from the movie can be seen by clicking on the highlighted title.

©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

In the back streets of Marree, the skeletons of less famous vehicles can be found. These too most likely had plenty of tales  to tell.

The sign on the door of this old wreck gives a clue to its working history. Allandale Station is up the Oodnadatta Track at the top of Lake Eyre . It would have spend its life carting supplies along the rocky track.

©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

What was even more intriguing was its current location – right next to the bones of an old petrol bowser.

It is as though the old Chevrolet rolled into the garage and the two died together

I am sure there was more to this story but time wasn’t on my side this time.

This picture best illustrates for me the vastness of Anna Creek Station.

The KIdman station is the largest in the world. The statistics say it is 6 million acres or 24,000 square kilometres and as big or bigger than some countries, but that is hard to imagine.

This scene, with the Margaret Range in the background is just a tiny part of it.

Anna Creek station’s Cessna 172 in action spotting cattle for the ringers on motorbikes below.

Without the flying experience of my friend Trevor Wright from William Creek, shots like this would be impossible to achieve.

Working cattle from the air is an essential part of cattle production these days.

On a vast property like Anna Creek Station in South Australia’s far north, using an aircraft to spot cattle spread out over big distances saves time, money and the efforts of the stockmen on the ground.

It is a fallacy the Australian Outback is a vast, flat featureless plain.

Granted, at times the gems may seem far apart but in reality it is an ever-changing landscape of colour…almost chameleon like.

Take for instance the Margaret Range, about 70 kilometres south of Oodnadatta on the Oodnadatta Track not long after a brief shower of rain and a cloudy sky.

140 years ago this building must have seemed like an outstation on the moon.

Even today it takes a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get the last few kilometres to it. Back then the trip would have been of astronomical proportions.

This is the Peake Telegraph station, constructed as part of a commutations network that crossed the Australian continent from north to south.

The Peake is an outstation on Anna Creek Station, the world’s largest cattle property run by the S. Kidman Company.

I did the photography for a story on Anna Creek for the R.M. Williams Outback magazine back in March this year.

The telegraph station is on this section of the property. It’s just south of Oodnadatta on the Ooodnadatta Track.

Two things stand out about this old telegraph station. The first – how substantial the buildings are. The second – the beauty of the surround landscape.

It was one of 12 repeater stations between Adelaide and Darwin and its completion brought Australia closer into contact with London via telegrams when news could arrive in around 24 hours instead of months.

Getting back to my point about an expedition to the moon….back in 1872 or thereabouts when the telegraph line opened between Adelaide and Darwin this was remote in the extreme. To get here people had to cover some of the most rugged and dangerous country in the world and be completely self sufficient at the same time.

36,000 poles and 3,200 kilometres of wire were used to link the two cities at a time when explorers had only just before passed through or died only a few years before.

A project of epic proportions.

These photos need no explanation……same part of the world…different journeys.

With the smokey grey sky and the leafless bushes, it would not be hard to imagine this was the aftermath of a bush fire.

It’s just scrub country up the Oodnadatta Track after sunset.

I’m not sure where…some distance north of William Creek I think.

It was just something that caught my eye because it was a bit unusual.

Sunsets though are a dime a dozen out here.

Hand held at 1/25th sec, f5.6 ISO 400

The question is…what’s over the hill?

It all depends on which way you are travelling, but what ever is ahead, it will be a welcome sight.

If you can take your eyes of the road, there’s a vast ocean of green out there and it goes on for kilometre after kilometre.

Travelling down the Oodnadatta Track and through Anna Creek Station, the world’s largest cattle station.

It takes a bit of imagination to comprehend its size of Anna Creek but you could multiply this scene by 50 or 60 times and you’d be in the ball-park

Having used a shot of a dingo only a short time ago I would have been a bit reluctant to use another one so soon, but I came across this one this morning while coming down the Oodnadatta Track.

He was quite fearless and had no qualms about marching right up to me as you can see from this photograph.

However he had other things on his mind and quickly headed of towards a herd of cattle nearby. I followed along to see what would happen as the cattle were very nervous about his presence.

Things turned into a bit of a stand-off for a while but while the cattle were trying to figure out the situation, there wasn’t much chance the dingo could be anything more than a nuisance.

The cattle soon figured out that, as a group, they had the upper hand and after a quick charge the excitement was over.

I have finished the last of the assignments for R M Williams Outback Station magazine, which comes out in June.

Bronco Branding. The action is fast and furious once a young beast has been roped.

This plan is to bring it to a thick steel frame, universal around cattle stations in Australia, at the same time putting a noose around one of its front and back legs.

The plan doesn’t always work and that’s when things get a bit chaotic.

The ground team has to use the leg ropes to bring the animal to the ground where it is given an ear tag and branded.

Of course the young heifer or steer isn’t too cooperative about all this.

That’s the rough and tumble part of the competition but the roping requires a bit of finesse and a lot of accuracy. The success of this initial part of bronco branding can often determine the winners and losers.

And if you thought this was just a a bit of fun for the boys…think again, there were plenty of girls in the thick of the action too.

In fact the winning team down from Queensland were a mixed doubles

Non-stop action all day for 10 bucks. You just can’t beat that

The Australian bronco branding championships held at Marree over the holiday weekend were an absolute hoot.

You have no idea how strong these competitors have to be and the team work that’s needed to compete, until you see them in action.

There’s plenty more pictures of the action, the atmosphere and the people coming up

It has been suggested that this is an artists impression of a South Australian Leafy Sea Dragon.

Having never seen one I can’t vouch for that.

It’s the surface of the Great Victoria Desert somewhere south of William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track taken from 2,500 feet (760 metres) up.

I can only admire the very good aboriginal artists who are able visualise and paint their land from on high with such accuracy.

Taken with the usual Canon 5D Mk II, f10 at 400th of a  second. ISO 200. Focal length 70mm. Shot vertically without glass or perspects in the way

Here’s a little artwork that could do well on the international circuit…probably fetch a fortune.

I guess you would describe it as paint and rust on metal but I’m not sure what the subject is.

It’s the top of a 44-gallon drum (hence the hole) and it’s weathering well on the Oodndatta Track in South Australia’s far north.

The artist is unknown but I can hazard a guess who it was.

Due to some changes being made to the Sentimenal Bloke website there will be no photos published for the next two or three days.

I apologise in advance but it is hoped the changes will give more prominence to the photographs.

I hope the changeover too will be seamless for everyone.

Subscribing either by email or RSS in the top right hand section of the page will also ensure you get posts automatically as they are made.

It’s still a recent memory….long years of drought.

People on the land and their cattle just hanging in there.

Lush pastures, fat cattle…..what a difference a drop or two of rain makes in AustraLia’s cattle country.

The rich coloured ochre from the Lyndhurst Cliffs were used and traded by the local tribes for many thousands of year so the area is of great importance to the aboriginal culture.

The ochre deposits are much larger than covered in these two photographs.

Obviously, to keep the area preserved, it’s not possible to have people wandering throughout.

The beautiful white, red, brown and yellow ochre from these colourful cliffs was once a great trading resource for the aboriginal tribes of the region.

The spectacular Ochre Cliffs, just north of the tiny South Australian Outback settlement of Lyndhurst on the Oodnadatta Track, were once considered to be of the finest quality for use in aboriginal ceremonies.

The ochre was traded over a vast area as far away at Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, into Queensland and south to the coast and to the Nullabor Plains.

William Creek, closest piece of civilisation to Lake Eyre and despite its isolation has been about the busiest airport in South Australia these last few months.

The main strip can easily be seen running left to right in the picture. The racecourse in is the foreground and the Oodnadatta Track runs right through the town.

William Creek is entirely surrounded by Anna Creek station, the largest cattle station in the world.

Anna Creek is roughly 24,000 square kilometres and that’s a bit bigger than Israel and eight times bigger than the largest cattle station in the United States – King Ranch in Texas.

There a number of locations from which you can fly to the Lake. You’ll find the best of these in the ‘Links’ column on the right hand side of the page.

However it is worth considering going to William Creek to get a flight because getting there is a bit of an adventure in itself.

Plan a trip for next Autumn.

I met these blokes about a day’s ride north of Maree, the jumping off town for the Birdsville and Oodnadatta Tracks.

They were heading for Darwin….a long way to go.

The night before, wild dogs or dingoes around their camp had made them a little edgy. The dog were something they were going to have to get used to.