Advertisement
Published: June 18th 2007
Edit Blog Post
...So we are in South Australia... on our tour one of the first things we saw was a car just off the road...in a tree! it was mad the car had swerved to miss a kangaroo at 100kmph and ended up in a tree!
We saw some more massive egales this time they were really close cos they were eating a dead kangaroo on the side of the road. Just before we arrived at Coober Pedy we stopped at the Longest Man made "structure" on the planet...longer than the great wall of China! its only a little fence but it stretches nearly the whole width of Australia and was used to keep Dingos away from Sheep...so we played the sheep and Dingo game to illustrate this! lol.
We eventually arrived at Coober Pedy named by Aboriginies meaning White Man's Burrow. it was originally a Opal Mining town and to get out of the summer heat and keep warm in the winter they started building houses underground. even our accomodation was a massive underground dorm!we went out and had some lovely pizzas as a big group then went to an underground bar for some drinks! very strange though.
the next
morning we got up nice and early again to go on a tour of the opal mines. we saw demonstrations of how Opal gems are found and extracted from the rocks... then we had a look around a real underground house! if you think about the benefits they are not daft! the sun is so strong out there they can't just sit in their gardens, its perfectly dark during the day so its perfect for shift workers, ur never disturbed by ur neighbours, traffic, or outside noises....AND its more than half the price of a normal house. plus u can extend as much as u like (one man owned an underground house with 44 rooms)...that probably because he found Opal in each of the rooms and if u find it on ur land u can keep it! Then we went into the mines 17metres underground..Ant was impressed that the film Pitch Black was filmed there and he was having fun climbing into the nooks and crannies to scare people in our group!
After Coober Pedy we hit the road again heading for the next big town Port Augusta about 6hours from Coober....the locals were saying they regularly drive to
Port Augusta just to go to the doctors, do a big shop in a big supermarket, buy clothes or even to go to Macdonalds!!! couldn't believe it! We saw lots of the famous road trains on the way (these are just MASSIVE Trucks like American style usually with 3 big carriages, and they totally bomb it down the roads!)...We also made a stop at the breathtaking Salt Lakes... just a massive lake of Sodium Chloride (salt) which was used by NASA of all people to test bombs! but was amazing to walk on...looked like snow!
We didn't stay in Port Augusta just got a big shop in and headed 40km out of town to a little village called Quorn and a nice little backpackers where I made a fabulous Spag Bol for 22 poeple and we had a couple of drinks at midnight for Micah's Birthday. Then up bright n early AGAIN to climb a mountain called Devils Peak. this one nearly did kill us. very steep climb but the view at the top was fantastic...AND Ant was very proud of me cos I was the First girl up, beating most of the lads!! it reminded me of The
Lake District and was beautiful..plenty of pics!
we visited a camel farm after that and i found out how nice camels are...they don't smell as much as i thought and they don't spit! after a while they are quite loveable! The farmer told us that in 2006 they had a total of 8 days rain in that area!!
After that we had lunch and continued on the long drive to Adelaide...we worked out altogether we must have been driving for more than 19hours! We got dropped off at our hostel and its really nice with free washing!! well needed after 6 days in the Outback! then we had a big night out with everyone in our groovy group and had a great time. we made some really good friends and will be really sad to say goodbye! even if we had swapped a million email addresses! lol
So on our only day in Adelaide we were really impressed. we had our first we deserved lye-in in a while then wondered round the city. it has a really nice friendly feel to it even if it was only 13 degrees! and tonight we organised for most of our group
to go Go Karting just outside of the city.. Ant didn't win but the boys had a really good time whizzing around the track!
So tomorrow we are starting yet another Groovy Grape tour...unfortunately Micah isn't our guide but sure it will be canny! so next stop Melbourne...home of the set of Neighbours!!!
Chow for Now xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.036s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mum and Dad S
non-member comment
Arrrhhhh! - You two are brilliant
Aunty Sue and I have just read your last two bloggs and e-mail with the biggest smile on our faces - infact we looked so happy that we soon had a gathering of staff around our computers looking at the bloggs and guess what - they all started to smile too!!! We must have said arhhh thats lovely a million times - Write up brilliant, pictures brilliant, captions brilliant - everything brilliant. This blogg and the outback battlers blogg was so informative - you really are experiencing life to the full - we just love the "Couple picture" - Not a crazy couple in sight.... lol. and the Playing Dingos and Sheep picture was hilarious. The picture of Ant alwlays lliving life on the edge scared me to death but oh How true!!! and Mini Emma was just amazing. You are both looking so healthy and so happy - we have a question for you Anthony - how are you coping with your hair? - its unbelievably long.. Stay healthy, stay happy and stay together!!! Speak to you soon Lots and Lots of love Mum, Dad, Andrew, Adam, Paws and Oscar xxxxxxxxxxxx