Day 17
Sunday, 30th September
Coober Pedy - Port Augusta
Coober Pedy
Glendambo
Pimba
Woomera
Port Augusta
Distance Traveled
Today - 544 km
Total - 6359 km
Blog
I broke my pda pointer, so I am typing with a stick.
Underground camping is very impersonal.
After we all went to sleep, some new people arrived and moved in next to us.
Others were also just down the hall. They talked and snored and farted all night.
Any noise echoed throughout the tunnels.
After a restless night we went and did some final noodling (looking through piles of small rocks for traces of opal), checked a museum and then hit the road for Port Augusta.
It was a very long drive after not getting a good sleep.
On the trip we saw many landscapes. A lot of very baron land and some pockets of trees.
We saw 2 huge mining dump trucks getting transported north. They had police escort as they took up both sides of the road.
The army was moving a dozen vehicles. We saw an 86 carriage goods train also heading north.
There was also many 3 car road trains and one 4 car.
We stopped at some isolated roadhouses and also Woomera.
Woomera was built for Defence to test nuclear explosions in the 60s. It still is lived in and is a strange little oasis in very barren landscape. It has outside museums with rockets and planes.
We stopped at a salt lake on the way. Hart’s Lake. There was water only 5 cm under the salt. We could easily walk a long way out on it.
At Port Augusta we got a camp ground by the water. A nice change after all the dryness.
These signs are everywhere around Coober Pedy. My favourite.
Last bit of Noodling and Geocaching in Coober Pedy
The kids playing in the Coober Pedy playground. Noodling is play, so there are no swings, that's just too hot.
A digging machine, just the right size.
A last look out at the expanse of mines at Coober Pedy
The desert landscape of South Australia. You would just wonder what you could do with land like this.
Looks like someone found a use for the land. This is the Woomera Nuclear Testing site of the 60s
Saw a few of these every 100 or so km.
Nice bush scene in the outback desert
The ever changing landscape of the outback. Saltbush grows well and also feeds stock in the worst droughts.
Mirage effect while driving along the road. This was very common
The army moving vehicles through the area
Glendambo. A rest stop in the middle of the desert and restricted area
A four carriage road train.
Terrific. A Lake. Time for a swim and wash off all this dust and sand.
Picturesque Lake Hart in the middle of the dessert.
Parked at Lake Hart. Ready for a swim
Walk to Lake Hart
Walk onto Lake Hart. Its a salt lake. No swimming today.
The boys swimming at Lake Hart
Its a wonderful lake once you get over that its salt and not for swimming
Looks like an old pier. Not sure.
The water is only 5cm below the surface under the salt.
The corrosive effect of anything left on the salt.
More Lake Hart photos
It totally fascinated all of us
Walking along the pier of Lake Hart
A sign stuck in the middle of the lake. I wasn't sure until then how far we could walk across the lake.
A salt pile near the lake.
Returning from our Lake outing.
The Gann railway snakes around the lakes.
The railway next to Lake Hart
A railway underpass to get to the lake.
A ruin near Lake Hart
... and then back to the desert again.
An approaching dump truck. We needed to get off the road for this one to fit.
Make that two dump trucks.
Another lake or is that a mirage. It is very hard to tell most of the time.
A distant town on the horizon. That should be Pimba.
Pimba. Another road house on the Woomera road. This is just outside of Woomera.
More desert until humans stuck a town in the middle of it.
A human made oasis in the middle of the desert.
Even the local oval has grass on it. I think that was the only thing.
Defence toys
Rockets everywhere around this little town.
An outside museum at Woomera.
Woomera museum
Space junk at Woomera museum. The redstone display.
Here is a list of the stuff on this side of the road.
The blue streak. Or what's left of it.
ABR (A big rocket). Lots of rockets around this site.
This is a different rocket.
The odolite for tracking all these rockets and missiles.
And then it is back on the road. The road didn't change too much, but there was enough to keep us interested.
Another salt lake.
A train with three engines (or is that four) and 86 carriages.
Here is the tail end of the train.
More of the front end has passed under us. We parked in the middle of the highway, but not a single car came along while the train slowly moved under us.
The back end of the train again.
The front end and still going.
And that is the last of it.
And then lots more straight road for us.
Another long train at Port Augusta
More of the train at Port Augusta. Looks like another four engine job.
Arriving at Port Augusta, South Australia.