Some travellers stuck in the remote South Australia town of Coober Pedy for nearly a fortnight due to flooding have been told they will be staying at least another night.
A dozen of the estimated 50 travellers stuck in the mining town in the state's far north due to flooding of the Stuart Highway want to leave on a defence force evacuation flight.
Some were preparing to leave this afternoon, with state authorities telling them to take a rapid antigen test for COVID-19 prior to departure.
But the ABC has spoken to five travellers who have since been told by state authorities they will not be leaving.
No reason was given for the change of plans and the ADF has been contacted for comment.
Earlier on Thursday, Premier Steven Marshall said some people with medical needs had already been evacuated.
The news comes as the SES warned motorists not to drive through paddocks in an attempt to access closed-off areas.
The SES said it had received reports of members of the public driving through neighbouring paddocks to try and get around road closures.
"This may result in environment and other damage, and you may cause impacts to the ability to reinstate normal road transport," the SES said on social media.
Pastoralist says authorities should have been prepared
Gillian Fennell and her family live on a large cattle station near the SA border with the Northern Territory, 450 kilometres from Alice Springs and 1,100km from Adelaide.
While their station was not damaged by the flooding, the family of five have been cut off from accessing supplies due to the flooded Stuart Highway.
"We really are no-man's-land in the sense that there's only a handful of us up here, but it affects more than us," Mrs Fennell said.
Mrs Fennell said she had not been contacted by authorities and the "clear lack of coordination" was frustrating.
"It's quite disappointing," she said.
"I understand that we pastoralists are a pretty resilient group and we'll generally just keep working and push through and there are a lot more vulnerable people than us that do need assistance.
"However, we're in a situation now that didn't have to be this way."
"It shouldn't have taken so long to do these assessments, to start thinking about a plan to reopen the Stuart Highway, which is a major freight corridor for the nation."
SA Premier Steven Marshall said the government's top priority was assessing and then re-opening the Stuart Highway, which remains under about 300 millimetres of water.
"I do not have an exact time frame for you, it really does depend on what the damage to that road is," he sad.
Mrs Fennell said authorities should have had a plan in place for the Stuart Highway before the flooding occurred.
"People like to say it was a one-in-100-year rainfall event and everything like that," she said.
"I don't look at it like that … everyone knew it was coming, there was plenty of warning, and there were no contingencies put in place."
