After Marree I am on the legendary Oodnadatta Track. Stuart had first crossed the continent from south to north along this route. Later the first telegraph line and the Ghan railway were built here. Today it is still one of the most fascinating outback tracks. This moment when I leave the last patch of bitumen behind and this endless wide opens up in front of me is magic. Still I get goose pimples everytime I do it. The knowledge that for the next couple of hundreds of kilometers there is just nothing but some lonely roadhouses is overpowering.

On the forth day I see some dark clouds ahead. At first I am quite pleased as this means some cooler temperatures. But then it actually starts raining, only little at first but then quite strong for only a short time. While I take a break I start thinking whether the rain has any effect on the track. The answer I get only a few kilometers further on. The beforehand hard clay has transformed into slippery, sticky mud. Withing minutes I am totally immobile, I cannot move 50m foreward nor backward anymore!

There is nothing else I can do but sit next to the road and wait for it to dry. After an hour I try again. I only get 100m further then I give up frustrated. Every 200m there is a lower point where the water has created puddles. Only with all my power I manage to get through one of those and after that have to clean the bike thoroughly so anything moves anymore at all. So I continue all afternoon long, a total waste of energy but I can see already dark clouds again in the sky. Finally I give up frustrated and camp for the night.

I had planned to continue from here on dirt road all the way to Alice Springs. But after the heavy rain, all these roads are now closed. So I follow the Oodnadatta track that continues for another 210km. The forecast says there is still the risk of more rain, so I wait a day and let the road get dry.

The deep tracks through the mud have now become hard and I can cycle quite fast but I keep looking worried to the sky where dark clouds have appeared again. When I put up the tent I know already that there soon will be a storm. Later I sit in my tent, mesmerized watching the spectacle outside as the strobe lightning lights up the dark surrounding every second and everything is slowly going under water. Because it is mostly clay here, the water does not drain but just stays on the surface. Soon the water level is ankle-deep in my tent. It is going to be a long and uncomfortable night.

For the next section after Kings Canyon, the Mereenie Loop, I need a permit because it passes through aboriginal land. Whether I have a 4WD? The road is only open for those. No, but a bicycle I laugh. When I get the permit she has written in bold letters 'was warned about road condition' on top. Some hours later I don't feel like laughing anymore. My Goodness, what's that? A terrible track that only consists of sand. The corrugation is so severe that I can hardly stay in the saddle at all. For 2 days I bump along at walking speed until I feel every single bone. As a reward there are great gorges and big waterholes for swimming in the West McDonnell Range afterwards.

The further north I get, the more flooding I can see next to the road. I am travelling across a rainwater catchment that covers a sixth of Australia. The area is so giant that even if it rains in the far north of Queensland (which it did plentyful this year) all that water eventually comes down south here to Lake Eyre. Normally a dry saltlake that is now filling with water, something that is only happening every 20 year. And so it comes that while I am mostly travelling through deserts, many of the river beds are now flooded. Because of that I have to cycle some detours through soft sand, pushing rather that is.