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Published: March 28th 2009
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South Australia
I lost an hour here.. A 4am rise for the group on the third day. We had a full day on the bus ahead of us and hundreds of miles to clock up between Yulara in the Northern Territory and Coober Pedy in South Australia.
I gazed out the window all day watching the changing scenery. The green landscape became sparser as we drove south, the trees thinned out, the bushes became smaller, the grass was bleached and thin on the ground. The red desert began to show herself. Little else happened as the miles rolled past, we stopped for lunch, we lost an hour as we crossed the border to South Australia, we stopped for fuel and also spotted emus as we neared Coober Pedy.
Coober Pedy is an Opal mining town and still has a feel of the Wild West about it. Nick was an ex-miner and regaled us with stories of the town. No large mining companies operate here, it’s all individuals who take up the challenge and reap the rewards. And there is money to be made. Temperatures are routinely in the 50’s in summer so most residents of the town live underground in houses tunneled out from the
rock, here the temperatures are a cool 22-25 degrees all year round. No mining is allowed in the town itself to avoid it being undermined but house renovations are. One woman has a 21 bedroom house and still swears she hasn’t found any Opal in doing so! We stayed in a hostel which was an ex-mine. The rooms had been carved out from the rock and were still bare. We had a quick tour of the town, saw an underground church, took a mine tour, resisted buying jewellery, changed then went out for pizza and drinks (in an underground bar - of course).
At first light I went noodling (which is now my favourite word). Most of the rock is blasted out from the ground with explosives and would be too dangerous to let tourists anywhere near it, here in the rock had been bulldozed out and the resulting piles of rock (which had already been searched for Opal) were available to us to noodle again (noodling is searching for Opal in the piles of rock). I found nothing but one girl found a piece worth $200+ and big enough to be made into jewellery! We were all very
excited for her (and secretly wished it had been us).
The bus headed off to the Breakaways; eroded rock formations in the middle of endless red desert. The landscape round here had been used for many different films like Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Mad Max. I was in the front seat by the driver for the day and enthused about the scenery; endless long straight roads, flat red earth stretching out as far as the eye can see, desolate unforgiving landscape. Doesn’t sound interesting but it was. I’d come central Australia to see desert, and desert was what I got.
On our way south to the Flinders Ranges (and many more miles to churn out again), we had time to stop at a salt lake. It was magnificent. It gleamed in the sunlight, shining white as far as I could see, changing only into an inviting mirage in the far distance. We walked a short way out onto the salt plains and drank in this unusual sight. We arrived at our destination near Port Augusta early evening. Quorn was a quaint little village, full of protected buildings from the early 1900’s. Our hostel was a pretty ex-mill
building on the edge of town. As we all got off the bus the jackets, jumpers and cardigans came out of everyone’s bags, it was a chilly 28 degrees! (Isn’t it amazing how quickly you get used to the heat?) We were given a feral barbecue that night for dinner; kangaroo steak, emu burgers and camel sausages (I think I’ll stick to beef and pork next time).
Thankfully there would be less road and more sightseeing the next day.
Wilpena Pound is a National Park full of wildlife in an almost circular mountain range. Our group was the first to walk the short trail to the central lookout that day so we hoped we’d be lucky to see a good range of animals in the park. The sun was shining and there was a cool breeze in the air for the first time, a beautiful morning for a walk. Kangaroos and Wallabies punctuated our journey. The view from the lookout at the heart of the park land gave a wonderful view of the range surrounding us on all sides.
In the afternoon we had a whistle-stop tour of the area. We stopped at Parachilna, a village with
5 residents, but it has a rather nice pub! We looked at deserted homesteads and fooled about on the road where ‘Wolf Creek’ was filmed and marveled at more Aboriginal art in a cave at Yourambulla.
Last day on the tour. I was delighted when I woke up to find that the big walk for the day had been cancelled! The rangers in the park were culling goats so the track was closed. I didn’t fancy a hike up a mountain so selfishly I was pleased we’d all be doing something else together. We had a morning of activities before we churned out the last of the miles to Adelaide.
Yellow footed Rock Wallabies are pretty rare. I understand that there are only 4 groups left and we were able to visit one such colony. They were incredibly shy and difficult to spot but we caught a few glimpses and snapped a few pictures of these highly coloured timid creatures. We stopped back in Quorn before heading away from the Flinders Ranges. I had coffee and cake in the café. It may have been the best cake I’ve ever had (and I’ve had lots of cake in my
time so that’s saying something). The café specialases in Quandong; Quandong shake, smoothie, jam, cheesecake, pie…. I had the pie. It had a crumble topping and was the most delicious berry-like (but unique) flavour. Wow. The bus stopped in Melrose for lunch, wine tasting and a last view point over the immense flat plains of Australia. After that we just pounded on through the traffic to Adelaide as the scenery changed again through vineyards and crop fields.
After travelling 2280 miles through Central Australia I was tired but delighted to have experienced it. I had seen the ‘real Australia’ as people say, the dramatic scenery, impressive Uluru and Kata Tjuta, green and red deserts, noodling, salt lakes, emus, kangaroos and wallabies, Flinders Ranges, tasted the wine, swatted flies and my clothes covered in red dust. It was an incredible trip. I was undecided how I felt as I entered Adelaide. There almost seemed too busy for me but on the other hand I was excited at the prospect of some civilization and comfort.
I only have 2 more days left to enjoy Australia before heading off to New Zealand.
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