IT was so hot in the South Australian outback town of Oodnadatta yesterday that the local servo stopped selling petrol.

The Outback town has been sweltering through one of its great heatwaves with the temperature soaring above 40 degrees every day this year, reaching a peak of 48.2 degrees yesterday.

"The ground, the building, everything is so hot, you walk outside and you feel it's going to burn you," Pink Roadhouse owner Lynnie Plate said.

Mrs Plate said the Roadhouse couldn't serve unleaded fuel after midday because it was vapourising and wouldn't pump in the extreme heat.

Nikki Staskiewicz, 25, and Angela Blomeley, 28, were unable to fill up their Holden Rodeo.

After driving up the Oodnadatta Track from Marree in the morning, they were stuck on the forecourt - before bunkering down between the meat freezers.

Ms Nikki Staskiewicz and Ms Blomeley hope to fill up this morning and resume their travels from the east coast to Central Australia.

But for Oodnadatta, the heatwave is expected to continue after a slight cool change with a top temperature of only 40 degrees today

Oodnadatta holds the all-time Australian record temperature of 50.7 degrees set on January 2, 1960, and may be heading back towards that peak this Sunday when the Bureau of Meteorology expects it to push well above the forecast 47 degrees.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Matt Collopy said Oodnadatta had set a record with the past seven days each topping 45 degrees.