The Painted Desert

A link to the higher res photos... if anybody cares...

After our visit to Coober Pedy, we continued further north to Arckaringa Homestead and the Painted Desert. We had to drive about an hour and a half on dirt roads around sunset to get to the homestead where we were staying. Before it got dark, we saw some great skies.

Upon our arrival, an older farmer showed up in his pickup drinking a beer. He charged us for our rooms (cash only, no receipts) and then requested help figuring out how to run his new washing machine. Looking at maps, his homestead was at least 40 miles from the nearest town.

It was a fun (and odd) experience. The rooms were quite small and separated from each other by little more than a wall of corrugated metal. I could hear the click in the neighboring room of someone turning on/off their flashlight. A single room:

We had picked up some food for dinner along the way. They had a small kitchen area where we could prepare food if we wanted.


We hung out around the campfire comparing notes with the Aussies on how best to toast marshmallows. Several of our fellow travelers had recently completed some rough off-roading in the Simpson Desert where they were able to average only 6mph with their vehicle.

Around 10pm, all our electricity was shut off, disabling all lights in the rooms as well as the air conditioning. I did not partake in a shower the following morning, but those that did confirmed that at best there was a dribble of cold water along the shower wall. I wish we had a shot of the grammatically incorrect sign warning us not to steal their toilet paper.

Before sunrise the next morning we dashed off to the nearby Painted Desert to watch the sun come up. Waiting...

The sun hitting the hills/mesas of the Painted Desert:

Duncan then pulled out a camping stove, coffee, and coffee cups to make us coffee. Like Hermione, he must have a bag modified with an Extension Charm. It never feels like he is traveling with much but he always has all this crazy stuff with him.

We have since seen worse, but at the time, this was the worst fly situation we had come across. The locals laugh at us and tell us that it will get a lot worse in the coming months. If the flies would just stay out of my eyes, nose and ears it wouldn't be so bad. I have squished a dozen or so in my ear by mistake. All of us have ingested a few while walking or biking.

We got in a little hiking on the hills and saw some very scenic vistas.

We continued driving around dirt outback roads the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Our first destination was Oodnadatta, a small town along the track of the Old Ghan railroad. We had breakfast and resupplied at the Pink Roadhouse.

Me doing some last minute reading of the tour books. I have been berated several times for not paying attention to the scenary from the car because I am engrossed in a tour book.

On the way back, we finally found the Dingo Fence. We had looked for it the weekend before, but never found it. The dingo fence is a 3500 mile long fence built in the 1880s to keep Dingos to the north in order to protect the sheep and cattle farms in the south. Every year, multi-mile sections of the fence are lost to storms and floods and need to be repaired as quickly as possible. On bad years, dingos can kill tens of thousands of sheep.

Duncan got this great picture of the Dingo Fence with the fly in the foreground.

Coober Pedy

In choosing the best pictures from our collection, I ended up selecting more of Christa's pictures than mine. Grrr...

We took a two day trip up to the northwest. Our first destination was Coober Pedy: the self-proclaimed "Opal Capital of the World". The majority of the world's opals are from here. Its other important industry is tourism and there are a plethora of shops and tourist destinations trying to lure you into their tours or opal shops.
A view of downtown Coober Pedy:

Coober Pedy is a town of several thousand in the middle of the desert. Opals were discovered here in 1915. The original mining was done by hand. The miner would dig a vertical shaft up to 30 meters deep. When they discovered horizontal stripes that indicated the possible presence of opals, they would start to dig horizontal tunnels through the seam.
Replica of early miner digging a shaft:

Hand dug mine tunnel:

Opal in the rough:


Just for comparison, here is a tunnel dug by modern mining equipment:

This is the display outside one of the opal mine tours. This type of truck is a giant vacuum cleaner that assists the opal miners. As rock debris is created in the mine and needs to be removed, it is vacuumed up by these trucks through a long hose and stored in the barrel at the top. The truck can then go dump the debris in one of the piles of scrap scattered all around the surrounding country side. In the back of the picture you can see piles of scrap.

Occasionally, opals make into these scrap piles by mistake. The term for searching through the scrap looking for opals is "noodling".

The opal mine tour we took:

The weather here can get really hot in the summers. After WWI, returning troops working in the mines built homes and shelters underground where the temperature remained constant.
An example of an old underground house:

About half the houses and some of the buildings today are underground. The mine museum we went to had a sample underground house: (The grooves on the ceiling are from the excavating equipment.)
Kitchen:

Bedroom:

We also went to a cool underground restaurant.
Stairs down to the dining room:

Eating lunch in the underground restaurant:

Redback Spider

A couple evenings ago, Christa spotted a redback spider on the wall outside my room. It had spun a web just under the window sill. We were able to get some good pictures with our cameras. Most of the other spiders we had seen were on the range where we are not allowed to have our cameras. [Boy, there was a great one (non-dangerous, but scary looking Huntsman spider) that dropped on Christa in the portapotty. I wish I had a picture of that one...]

I attempted to squish the Redback with a stick, but it eluded me, hiding in a crevice in my wall. The next morning, though, it was back again. This time, a shoe made quick work of it and its egg case. Generally, I have left all the bugs here alone, but this was not something I wanted near where I live.
Scene of crime and weapon:

Afterwards, I read that you need to be careful squishing spiders. If any remnants fly into your eye, it can cause a day or so of serious discomfort. Especially, take care if you think it would be fun to hit a large spider with a hammer.

Coward Springs

Our first trip onto dirt roads in the Outback. Several miles north of Roxby, the paved roads come to an end and you eventually come to the Oodnadatta Track. It follows the original path to the interior of Australia. It was used by Aborigines and then by settlers with their camel trains and eventually the first rail line connecting north and south Australia.

When traveling on these roads, they recommend a 4 wheel drive vehicle, 2 spare tires, 10 liters of water per person, a satellite phone and a UHF radio. (We didn't have quite all that stuff.) There are several levels of quality for the dirt roads in the Outback and this one was at the high end. It was fairly straight, level and smooth. Compared to many roads, it also has a fair amount of traffic. I would estimate we saw another car every 20-30 minutes.

Being the only one insured on this vehicle, Duncan got to do all the driving.

The distances can be quite large. As we started the dirt road, it was 250km (150 miles) to the next town... which has a population of 10.

Unfortunately it is common to see a lot of road kill on all the roads around here. Lizards, kangaroo and snakes being the most common victims.

Bird we scared away from its road kill lunch:

We startled a couple emu:

and had a dingo (a wild Australian dog) walk past us.

The original north-south rail line had to follow this route since it was the only one that had the regular sources of water required by steam locomotives. This route also had a lot of trouble with washouts, though, and passage was not always reliable. With the advent of diesel locomotives, this rail line was abandoned and a new one built about 100km to the west.

Remnants of the original Ghan rail line.

On the way, we passed Lake Eyre, the largest salt lake. The middle of the Australian continent contains quite a few salt lakes. This entire region is slowly sinking, forming a basin that water drains into and not out of. I didn't realize Australia also has areas below sea level

Our final destination was the hot springs at Coward Springs. The springs ended up being a bit underwhelming. The water was tepid at best and there was a pump house right next to it that didn't make it feel particularly natural. The flies were a nuisance, but it was refreshing to get in the water after our hot dry drive.

Woomera Life

Here is a collection of miscellaneous events in and around Woomera.

One weekend we and several of our customers participated in a 5k run in Roxby Downs called the Desert Dash.
The particpants: Christa, Duncan, Gabe, Jez, Ian, ?, Allan

The start of the race. There were serious runners, not so serious runners, walkers, kids, people with strollers.

Christa finishing:

 Duncan finishing:

It is wild flower season here in the desert and there is a fair amount of color. In a couple months, there will probably be a lot less color.

The Cudgee bar. A tiny little bar on the edge of Woomera. We went here for Chris and JT''s last night before they headed back to the States.

Chris and JT, ready to head home.

Woomera dinners. Several times a week somebody cooks dinner and 3-6 of us descend on their apartment. We have had some very good meals so far.

Butter Chicken:

Toad in the Hole

Dinner at Christa's apartment: Graham, Tim, JT, Gabe, Chris

Raspberry soda at a restaurant. Beautiful natural color.

Commuting home from work.

Spider removal. I refused to kill this spider and attempted to flick it away from Christa's door. I sent it flying somewhere, but we have no idea where... See Christa scowl.