Day 20 – September 20 2012

Our departure this morning was delayed somewhat.  I have discovered that the clunking noise in the back of the car was the top of the left rear shock absorber banging around, its two top high tensile bolts have both sheared, presumably somewhere on the Oodnadatta Track.  I found a place nearby that sold high tensile bolts of that size, so proceeded to empty all the tools from the back of the car & replace the bolt.  On doing this, I also found that where the shock absorber had been flopping around, it had also rubbed the tyre a bit, so there were a few chunks missing & a bit of steel showing so I had to replace the tyre.  Fortunately, the tyre shop next to the caravan park had the size that fits my car, it is not a common size so I was pleasantly surprised.  All of this delayed our departure a bit, so it was not until around 11.30am that we finally left Coober Pedy.  We said our fond farewells to Helen & John as we are parting company with them this trip, they need to head back to Canberra.

The drive on the bitumen, though pleasant was somewhat monotonous, the desert landscape did not change much for many kilometres.  Between Coober Pedy & Woomera, there are a few distinct vegetation types according to the underlying geology.  Firstly from Coober Pedy it was flat desert scrubby type of country with low grasses, then a few larger shrubs appeared.  The next section had a fair few small trees & lots of red sand hills, then lastly very low sparse grass desert for the last 100km into Woomera.  It was strange, just a switch from one vegetation type to another.  We saw a few largish salt lakes along the way, though nothing to compare in size to Lake Eyre.

We arrived in Woomera around 5.30am after 397km for the day, set up camp, a few nibblies with cheese & red wine, then dinner with Mike & Rose.  The wind has picked up & the temperature has plummeted to around 25C, (we are finding it cool after Coober Pedy’s 36C+) a few spots of rain finished our chatting early then off to the showers.

Coober Pedy – what a town!  Hot, dusty & windy,  home to about 3,500 people & around 45 different nationalities (according to Rudi our tour guide).  There are lots & lots of big & small mounds (mullock) & as many or more holes in the ground where they have been digging for opals.  The town has lots of opal jewellery stores.  Only two grocery stores – they are amazing with what they stock.  Thursday is the day when the fresh vegetables & fruit arrive, that’s when everyone goes shopping.  There are a few garages & what they all stock is an Aladdin’s cave, Ron was happy to discover today.  They have 4 churches & one primary school.  There are some nice big houses, ordinary ones & dug outs.  We were very fortunate to be invited yesterday to Judy & Brian’s wonderful big dug out home, they had rooms & rooms & huge workshops with everything in there & a beautiful even temperature of about 24C all the time.  There seems to be a lot of rusty old broken down machinery even in front/back of homes but the funny thing about is that it adds character/charm to the place.  The mining is not as busy now because the miners are all getting old & it costs a lot of money for the young ones to set up, work hard & live on hope & good luck, so they leave for the big cities or go to big mines (copper etc.) where they get good regular money.  People are friendly & chatty, they reminisce about the old (good & bad) days but everyone we talked to who have lived in Coober Pedy for a longer time, call it home & they wouldn’t live anywhere else.  I thought it was an amazing place.  Ron bought for me a lovely souvenir too.