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Published: September 3rd 2021
Leaving Arkaringa Station and The Painted Desert, forgive us for looking forward to reaching bitumen road again. It had only been 4 days on unsealed roads, but it felt like a lot more. Still, we did have a bit to go before meeting bitumen about 35 kms out of Coober Pedy.
We followed the road south, out through Arkaringa Station and Mount Barry Station which eventually intersected with Kemp Road, turned west and on to Coober Pedy. These roads were really good until we met a pair of graders working their magic and as a team in the same direction we were going. We gingerly skirted around them and then the road turned challenging again, back to those damned rocks. It was slow going and the lighting at the time made definition of the road surface quite difficult.
The first thing we did when we got into Coober Pedy was to raise the tyre pressures again, ready for bitumen driving. The wheels were very dusty, as was everything else and Greg needed to blast away dust to find the tyre valves. It was quite spectacular.
Generally, when we travel in the caravan, we like to stay 2 nights
at a location every couple of nights. As we had not done a 2 night stay since Farina, we chose to stay 2 nights in Coober Pedy. We had no real agenda other than to have a few days of rest and relaxation, and to catch up on few blog posts.
This mostly happened. While Joan was to beaver away on the Blog, Greg was to head into town to get a few supplies and fill the car with fuel. OMG. Wouldn’t you know it, but as he approached the 4x4 he noticed … another flat tyre! Yes. Another one! This just added another item to his ‘To Do List’ in town.
So off he went, returning sometime later with a variety of tales, some of which cannot be repeated here. Once again, even though this was a different tyre, there were problems removing the wheel. What’s with that? The cost for the repair $30. What a bargain!
The first night we reminisced as we dined out at Outback Jacks, the same place we shared dinner with S and G after their rather disastrous caravan experiences on our last trip. Would have been great fun catching up
again, however Joan did have a great chat with S the next day.
There was much discussion on the final evening about our plans for the next day. A severe warning for damaging winds had been issued for the area we were supposedly heading into the next day. It was not looking good.
Deciding to prepare for a very early departure, we hooked up the van, prepared everything, including disconnecting everything except power and tucked in early.
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