Coward Springs

Date of Adventure 16 - 18 December 2024

I’ll say a few words about this campground and post some pictures. It might be the best campground I’ve stayed in so far. The only other campground that compares is Loyalty Beach at the tip of Cape York. And both of these were especially good because they were empty…off season.

Coward Springs is on the Oodnadatta Track. It’s an oasis in the middle of some of the most desolate country I’ve seen. When I contacted them about “reservations”, Scott said that they hadn’t had any guests in a while so no problem, just let them know and show up. That’s what I did. They have a self check in system and I found a reasonable campsite. There was no one else around. I ran into Scott a little later in the afternoon and he explained a few things.

It’s a former railroad station and is heritage listed. There are a bunch of old railroad relics and a small but interesting museum about the area and the railroad.

One of the reasons that they built the station in the first place is that it has an interesting spring. The water comes out at pretty high pressure so they’ve piped it into a “spa”. There are a couple of “jets” in the spa.

The daytime temperature was pretty hot when I was there. About 40 or 41 degrees in early afternoon. But the water in the spa is nice and cool and really refreshing.

They let the water (after the spa) run into some channels, resulting in a wetlands that is more or less controlled.

They have also used some of the old railway timbers to build several structures, including toilets, showers, and a date shak. And there are other remnants of the old railway station around the grounds.

As I noted, they have a date shak because they are a pretty active date farm. It’s interesting that they have a few different kinds of date palms, some tall and some pretty short.

I originally thought I’d spend 2 nights but it was very relaxing so I decided to spend a third. The only problem was that on the third day as I walked into my campsite there was a brown snake there. It kind of crawled away. I tried stomping my feet (from a distance) to scare it back into the bushes. Well, it crawled under the Troopy, through one of the wheels and up on the suspension of my car. Needless to say I didn’t stick my head under there to see where it went. I just closed the Troopy up tight and stayed away from the area where I thought it might be. I never saw it leave but when I talked to Scott later in the day he said that they occasionally see them, not usually many at this time of year, and they just kind of disappear into the bush so it probably left shortly after I saw it. You can look it up – Western Brown Snake – one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. They are really different from the American vipers in that they have really tiny teeth. And everyone has told me that they really avoid people if at all possible. But it’s not something I’m going to mess with. I suppose I’ll see more of them before the trip is over.