Advertisement
Published: August 5th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Scott writes:
Come out, come out where ever you are
From Kings Canyon we travelled 500km to reach South Australia (our 4th Australian state) and visit Cooper Pedy.
Coober Pedy, is a small Opal Mining town of about 4000 people of 45 different nationalities, situated in the middle of the desert. 80%!o(MISSING)f the folks live under the ground in caves due to the extreme heat (50 degrees and up) in the summer time and the freeze at night! There is even a church and a few shops underground as well. The Aboriginal translation of 'Coober' is white man and 'Pedy' is rock hole. So Coober Pedy is literally a description of what the local Aborigines regarded as peculiar activities (both mining and living underground) resulting in the town's name 'white men down holes'!
It was the craziest town with not much there other than a small high street, tonnes of scrapped machinery and general crazies. We only knew we were approaching the town because of the mounds and mounds of dirt surrounding it for miles out. It was a bit like one big steptoe's yard.
We visited a couple of the caves / homes where people
Crazy Mad Max house
Not sure we really want to go in - its a drive out in the middle of nowhere up a dirt track and the place is freaky actually live. One was actually really nice. Dug out over many years in the 1960s by three women using only hand tools - a decent 5 room house with a bar and everything! But the other, the genuine house of Crocodile Harry's, was totally freaky to tell the truth. Boobs & dusty knickers everywhere, coupled with random scrawl on the walls by 'artists' who have stayed with him. It was used in
Mad Max 3: Beyond the Thunder dome, you know the one with 'Steamy Windows' Tina Turner in, so i think that says it all. We took our obligatory photos and left pretty sharpish before we transformed into Willow or any of the characters from the Labyrinth.
Not even a little tree
Back on the road, we could see what being the driest state meant for
South Australia. It means 'nothing'. Literally nothing. We drove and drove and drove and drove and the landscape remained exactly the same, nothing! Seriously you would look out in all directions and not have a clue how far you could actually see because there was nothing to give you any reference. If you saw a car coming towards you in the distance
South Australia
A whole lot of nothing! (which was pretty rare) it would take about 15 minutes before you actually passed each other. Totally mad.
Just before we made our last rest stop on the Stuart Highway, before we made it to
Port Augusta and civilisation, we were greeted by two Kangaroos having a 'rest' in the road. It was around 6:30pm and the sun had almost gone when we spotted them. We slowed and as we approached they found it difficult to decide which we to go before they parted in opposite directions and off into the bush. The larger one was gone in a flash while the smaller one bounced along by the side of us until that too decide to hop off into the bush. We hadn't seen one actaully on the road, in our path all this time and now we had two on the final night. Just glad the Kangaroo Bars on the front of the van were not put into action!
We made a fleeting drive by of
Adelaide and then pushed on towards Melbourne before we had our final night at a road side rest stop. The free nights spent at these little stops have been so handy
Twelve Apostles
The famous Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road for us and free fun. The next morning we stopped at a road house for coffee (well ablutions really under the pretence of coffee) and the owner, a 70 year old liverpudlian man of origin, made us crumpets 'on the house' just for being travelling Poms. He chatted for a while as we munched away happily before getting back on the road and passing the border into
Victoria, our fifth state and heading for Warrnambol.
Baby whales
Warrnambol is a town where
Southern Right Whales migrant in search of warmer water to rear their young for a while. We stopped the night and went to the lookout for a glimpse and spotted a couple not very far out that looked to be a mother and child. They were semi out of the water and we saw spray as they blew out from their blow hole. The water was quite choppy so it was hard to see how big they were but they are supposed to grow up to 18 meters and weigh in the region of 3 tonnes, so that's pretty big in my book. It was on the news a few days later that some more whales came
in and as they were excited to see each other, they greeted each other by putting on a tail slapping, body breaching, fin waving display. We were gone by then. Sweet.
The Great Ocean Road
Our final sight seeing expedition before Melbourne was a trip along the
Great Ocean Road. A breath taking coastline scenic road that travels along south west Victoria. We planned to spend a few nights staying along the way so we took our time and visited all the ocean top lookouts, the rock formations, waterfalls, the laid back coastal towns and a couple of cliff top walks. The highlights include the magnificent
Twelve Apostles, giant rock stacks which used to be part of the coastline but have been eroded away over time to leave these massive stacks sticking out of the see.
Bell Beach, which is a great surfing beach and home to where all the major brands of surf dude clothes originated from back in the late 60s / early 70s. Also the actual road itself is extremely impressive as it winds itself along the coastline giving you view after view. We had to stop many times to get just one more photo!
Arriving in Melbourne
At dusk our mamouth road trip came to an end as we entered Melbourne Melbourne
We popped out the other side three days later and set our sights on the glitz and glamour of
Melbourne. Not making it before dark meant that the Info centre was closed. Therefore leaving us on our tod to find a camp site using our less than adequate maps, driving around a huge city which was like a warren trying to find a route through. After an hour of tooing and froing we found the right road and we were home and dry. Well cold and dry as the weather in Melbourne was freezing but we made it, the van made it, so we were happy. We had done 5500 kilometers in eleven days and had truly experienced the vastness of the outback. It seriously had been a pleasure to travel along those roads and see it all.
Now the sight seeing was over, we had just one goal before flying out to Fiji. Sell our Stuff!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.361s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 18; qc: 78; dbt: 0.2198s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Gem
non-member comment
WOW!
Wow you guys, just read through your most recent blogs, and sounds like your having a fab time there! The pics of Uluru in the rain is just awesome! Have fun in your last week, maybe see you in Fiji?!