A family holiday for 6 months around Australia. Switching off for a while to remind ourselves of why we are doing what we do. Enjoying time with our little family that we have created. Creating some great memories and taking some awesome photographs as well.
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A day out today in Coober Pedy. We started at the feeding of the orphan kangaroos which was great fun for the girls (see video) and saw some aboriginal artwork at the gallery.
It was mothers day today and we sat for lunch in the underground hotel and enjoyed brunch.
Coober Pedy was a dusty hole of a place with no real comforts to speak of but a tone of character, a definate must see if travelling Australia... We stayed at the Riba's underground caravan and camping park which included a Mine tour in the evening it was very cool. We did some water divining and learnt about staking our own claim in the opal business. girls were terribly bored after 10 mins but it was their bed time and both were sleepy. This caravan park also caters for campers who want to camp underground in the hillside dugout tunnels..
Learning about how to blow the earth away with high explosives
Water divining is key to finding opal in the ground
The chicken man - strange travellers starting to appear
Coober Pedy from the Big winch Lookout area
Coober Pedy landscape
The Big Winch
We desperately wanted to find some opal and for people keen to try their luck there is a noodling area near the main street of town. It looks like a big pile of diggings from opal mines that you can noodle through and if your lucky and look hard you can find opal... we were lucky and found a few bits to bring home.
We bought the girls some opal earrings to remember their trip to Coober Pedy.
This is our final night at Coober Pedy tonight and since it was mothers day.. no cooking for mum so we bought one of their much talked about pizzas . Heading off in the morning leaving all the street drunk aboriginals behind. The only downfall to this town is the local aboriginals scattered through the streets drunk and sitting in the gutters... not a good site for tourists.
Noodling & The Breakaways
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After a great camp fire night with Brian & Merrilyn (our new found travel buddies) today saw us awaken to the picturesque Heart Lake. Although it is only a roadside stop-over, it is one of the better ones because of the lake.
Wayne on the roof of the land cruiser taking a sunset photo
We took a morning walk down to the salt lake with Brian and Merrilyn it was amazing to see such a huge lake without water but with its salt left behind... lots of great shots. Brian collected some salt to put in his salt grinder for dinner tonight.
A Salty Lake
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After noticing that all the freight trains come right by this lake, I decided to video underneath one. This can be very dangerous and the video proves this.
Panorama of the sakt lake
Rusty old train wheels from the mining done here years ago
The girls running along the old platform area
Brian & Merrilyn
The glare from the white surface made it hard for the girls not to squint
Salt lake education 101
The running man
heather on top of the salt mound
The Australian colours are starting to show
Run over by a freight train
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We jumped back into the van pushed forward to Coober Pedy today.
Along the way we started to see lots of road kill.. a tone of eagles and Kites (small eagles). We were warned when leaving port Augusta to be aware of cows, roos and strangely enough eagle. As anyone of these could jump out in front of you at any time. its not uncommon to see 4 or 5 wedge tail eagles sitting on the side of the road eating a dead carcus.
We only stayed a couple of days in port Augusta. It was more a rest time for us and preparation time to head up the middle of Australia.
While we stayed here we permanently fixed our solar panel to the roof of the van as it was becoming increasingly difficult being placed in our bathroom every day.. this way it can function all day as its supposed to. The batteries are of a super size and can easily last all day without a direct sun positioning.
We went for a boat cruise up the inland water way. Watched dolphins playing and shot some photos through the uppermost part of the inland sea.
Outback River Cruise
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We headed off without the license (as it was left in Victor Harbour) after a quick stop at the outback information center.
Ice creams for the girls
The Old bridge ferry
This old ferry carried parts up and down the waterway for building supplies. After finishing the bridge they realised that is was on the wrong side of the bridge so could not be taken back to the open ocean. they just left it to decay.
The new Shopping village at sunset
The outback centre snake
Drove on to lunchtime stop for some red dirt pictures and a family shot...
arrived at heart lake to see the sunset and get a shot in. Camp fire night with Merrilyn and Brian.
A quick trip to Port Germein before heading forward to Port Augusta. The longest jetty in the southern hemisphere.
Port Germein was once an important transport hub for the surrounding districts following the opening of its jetty in 1881 - at the time known as the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. Due to the shallow water along the coast, the long jetty was built to allow sailing ships to be loaded with grain from surrounding districts. Bagged wheat came from the local area, the eastern side of the Southern Flinders Ranges via Port Germein Gorge (opened in 1879), and from the west coast in smaller boats. About 100,000 bags of wheat were loaded per year. The jetty was extended to its full length of 1680m in 1883.
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This jetty is very long and the wind today is tremendous, almost blowing us off the jetty. A cool little lighthouse still sits by the edge of the water and we took a couple of snaps here and decided to head up the road to the next "main town".
The jetty was extended to its full length of 1680m in 1883.
The girls stop for a quick snap
Cannot fit it into the full shot
Talk about repetition
At low tide the bottom shows for kilometers
The old lighthouse still stands
We arrived safely at Port Augusta and had the rest day to relax for us all. As we arrived at the main entrance to the van park we noticed barbed wire surrounding the fences and a sign saying if your not in by 9pm, the gate gets locked. Not a comforting thought to be caged in a van park. We cleaned the van a little, and grabbed an ice cream for the girls. Tomorrow will see me mount the Solar panel and fix a few things for the red centre journey.
At last a sunny morning to wake up to. Not much to pack away from the night before and off we go. a severe headwind has us held at 60-70kms on our journey and this is really bad for fuel consumption. Very frustrating driving indeed. We lock a town called Snowtown into our GPS and push forward. Every 5 kms or so the GPS wants us to take an unsealed road but we don't follow its advice and drive straight ahead on the bitumen surface hoping we will end up on the A1 main road, and slowly but surely we were right in our judgement. Snowtown is just around the corner for us. We pass a very tiny town called Lochiel which is located by the Bumbunga lake. At this present moment Bumbunga lake is a dries up salt flat for as far as the eye can see. Quite blinding the sun bouncing of it but awesome to see by the side of the road we are travelling on. I notice a loch Ness monster that someone has created for when the lake is wet and it would look cool if there was any water. It still looks pretty funky even in the sand so we stop to take a shot. The wind nearly blowing us of our feet all four of us wonder out in the middle of the salt bed. ( see photos and video)
Bumbunga Lake
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This will be printed when we get home
Mum & the girls fight the windy conditions
Fake Loch Ness Monster
There is one extra cool photo begging me to snap so i capture it and will be a print for sure. Old fence posts running off into the salt sand. Something from a postcard style of thing. Once back in the car we bypass Snowtown because our fuel is still holding and press on for Crystal Brook. I try to keep as little fuel in the tank at this stage because of the headwind and i am trying to minimise the weight of our rig. Crystal Brook is not what the name suggests. Most of these out of the way towns are only famous for some early explorers and hold very little unless you like early architecture or buildings, but when you've seen a couple of late 1800's building you feel like you've seen them all. Time for a little shopping in the local supermarket and its time to start thinking about where we will be spending the night.
Crystal Brook township
Crystal Brook pub
Port Pirie soon appears and we pull up right by the main inlet for some lunch. the girls feed some seagulls while Heather bakes an apple buy that we bought earlier at Hahndorf. Coffee and apple pie for lunch. mmmmm... We cannot seem to find a camp site that is for big rigs but one appears on the map search up another 25kms further ahead. Its called the Baroota Rodeo camping grounds. I call the phone number attached as it says "permit required" I chat with the previous owner of this site and he tells us that it has been closed for 6 months due to renovations, "but" he owns the land opposite and has just bulldozed it to make some space for travellers that keep turning up at the closed camping grounds. At $5 a night we take the plunge and drive there. he meets us at the gate and shows us around his new venture. Nothing but dust and dirt but off the main road which is always better than near it. we are the first van he has let in because he only pushed over the bush a day or so ago. Firewood everywhere and this place is as warm as toast compared with earlier grounds we've been staying at. The Flinders Ranges are just a couple of kms away and sit in the background for us. Beautiful to watch the sun set on these great Mountain ranges.
Flinders Rangers
Baroota Rodeo camping ground view
The setting sun behind the trees
I build a big fire and we settle down for a night stop. We soon see another van trying to get into the Rodeo camping ground and so i flag them down and offer the new dusty spot to them. they love the idea of $5 per night and in they come. Nice to have some company too. There names are John & Helen and they are on their maiden voyage in their new van as well. campfire chats went on most of the evening and it was a nice little town of our own created. Its funny how the most crappy looking things can soon become well remembered times for us all. Tomorrow we will land at Port Augusta to set up for the long dry dusty journey up through the middle of Australia. Cooper Pedy, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek will soon be in our sights.
The moon rises as we sit by the fire
Long exposure photo of the road trains passing in the night
In the morning we had a visitor. Can you spot him?
Morning Visitor if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
