Oodnadatta is a small, remote outback town and locality in the Australian state of South Australia, located north-north-west of the state capital of Adelaide by road or direct, at an altitude of . The unsealed Oodnadatta Track, an outback road popular with tourists, runs through the town. In the , there were 74 dwellings and the population was 318. Town facilities include a hotel, caravan park, post office, general stores, police station, hospital, fuel and minor mechanical repairs. The old railway station now serves as a museum. From the 1880s to the 1930s, Oodnadatta was a base for camel drivers and their animals, which provided cartage when the railway was under construction and along outback tracks before roads were established. After the railway line was lifted, Oodnadatta's role changed from that of a government service centre and supply depot for surrounding pastoral properties to a residential freehold town for Aboriginal families who, moving from cattle work, bought empty houses as their railway employee occupants left. Origin of name The name was said to be derived from the Arrernte word utnadata, meaning "yellow blossom of the mulga". However, mulga trees do not grow anywhere near the town. An alternative explanation is that it derived from coodnadatta or kudnadatta, meaning "dead man's poo": the first two syllables encompass "rotten" or "excreta" and the second two refer to "there". History For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal tribes visited the place where Oodnadatta is located as a reliable source of water on their trade route; there was no settlement at Oodnadatta itself. John McDouall Stuart explored the region in 1859. His route was generally followed by the surveyors of the Overland Telegraph Line, completed in 1872. Alfred Giles referred to a place called the Yellow Waterhole, or Angle Pole, later known as Hookey's Waterhole and The Peake, near Oodnadatta. The course chosen for the Central Australian Railway likewise followed the route because a water supply was essential for steam locomotives. From 1891, Oodnadatta was an important station on the railway until the line closed in 1981, to be replaced in 2004 by the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor about to the west. Telegraphs, camels and railways Angle Pole () is the point near Oodnadatta where the direction of the telegraph line changed to a more northerly direction. It is near the Peake cattle station, also known as "The Peake", or Freeling Springs. The ruins of