3,2,1, Blast Off

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We made our way to Woomera, and found a very exciting and interesting town, Steve and Samuel where in their element looking at all the old Missiles and Rockets around the town, which included the remains of stage 1 of the first Australian satellite WRESAT that was sent into orbit in 1967 We visited the information centre and found more than we bargained for. Firstly in the complex there was a Museum that explained the fact that when London was bombed by the Germans during WW2, the British decided to use Australia and specifically Woomera as a testing site to develop their own ballistic weapons. Now as interesting as this was the main highlight of the Information centre building was the 6 lane, Ten Pin bowling alley that we just had to use, why you ask!! Well how often can you say you got to go ten pin bowling in a bowling alley you have all to yourself in the middle of the Australian central desert. (Samuel won the game, by the way)
We also found out that as well as Woomera, Lake Hart where we stayed on the way to Coober Pedy was once the launch site for test missiles but it was found to be on too low a latitude to get satellites into the correct orbit so it was eventually dismantles well. If Steve had only rode further across the 15km wide lake he might have found it.
We continued on to Roxby Downs for the night, this mining town is literally an oasis in the desert, it has a everything even a full size shopping complex with Woolworths and Subway, it totally blew us away. Both Woomera and Roxby Downs are two of the cleanest, tidiest towns we have seen and everyone that lives there, is there because they work there. Woomera for Defence Support Services and Roxby Downs for BHP Billition. The community spirit is incredible.
We left Roxby Downs and headed of into the desert again on our way to Adelaide, we decided to make our first stop at Port Augusta where we had a look through the Tourist information centre interactive museum. It covered the geology of the inland sea to the explorers of the outback, Eyers, Sturt, Giles and McDouall Stuart.

Then we travelled to a little town called Mallala to free camp at their local sports field, it was a great camp and a cute little town with great sandstone cottages and baked in history

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