LIFE ON OLD ANDADO IN THE EARLY YEARS
Imagine living with no closed in verandahs, no windows, no fly screens, no doors! The temperatures in summer can escalate to over 50 degrees Celsius with ant plagues, hundreds of thousands of flies, snakes and other creepy crawlies to deal with.
There was no plumbing to the Homestead; water had to be carried to the kitchen, bathroom and laundry area. At first there was no power so kerosene lanterns were the source of light, kerosene powered fridges kept food and the wood stove cooked food and boiled water. In the 1970’s a generator took over the job of supplying power but the wood stove is still in use today.
There was no way of communication initially apart from the camel drawn mail cart which would have only come by every couple of months between the 1890’s and 1930’s. In the 1930’s the radio telephone was invented by Paul Traeger for the Flying Doctor Service and fast became an essential communication tool for the isolated station people. Molly was still using the radio telephone well into the 1980’s until a satellite phone tower was installed.
Before the existing roads were graded the only way into Old Andado was via Kulgera and Finke following a set of tyre tracks. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that a track was made from Old Andado to Allambi, Santa Teresa and Alice Springs. It is now a public double cut graded road called the Old Andado Track.
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