Lake Hart

One disclaimer I ought to mention: Not all the photos on this blog were taken by me. Though the best ones are obviously mine, a few of the less important, blurry, supporting photos were gleaned from others (primarily Christa, but also Tim, Duncan, JT and anybody else that lets me get my hands on their camera SD card...).  

Lake Hart is a shallow salt lake about a half hour drive to the west of Woomera. Like the Dead Sea, it has no outlet. All the water that flows in evaporates. In the week prior to our visit there was a fair amount of rain and the water level was pretty high. We expect that the lake will look a lot different in a couple months.

As usual, the flies were pretty bad. The locals keep warning us that they will only get worse. None of our bug sprays seem effective. We occasionally test various substances (like Eucalyptus), but have not had much success. I think you just have to tough them out...

A reminder that we are in the Woomera Prohibited Area and that the lake was used for target and bombing practice:

From about 1918 to 1931, Lake Hart was commercially harvested for salt and there are still visible remnants of the operations today. It had some of the purest salt of the time and some consumers claimed it was twice as salty as normal salt.

The salt (and some water) were pushed up into large catchment pens from which the water would drain and  evaporate. We think these are the structures that we still see extending out into the water:

The salt was then harvested and refined on site before being loaded onto the train which runs right by the lake. There is still a pile of some 7000 tons of salt from 1931 that was never picked up:

Wheels from cart used to move salt:

A train came through while we were there. It was mostly freight, but there was one passenger car at the beginning of the train.

Everything down near the water level is covered in salt. We walked across salt out to the edge of the water and then took off our shoes to wade out a ways. In most places, walking was not bad, but there were a few places out in the water where the salt crystals were quite sharp and walking was painful.
The beach was just a layer of salt:

Christa crossing the sharp section of salt crystals:

For the curious or suspicious, here are my sources for the "facts" I present in this post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eyre_basin
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/35997558
http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/salt.htm

Kite Flying

Wile driving to Lake Hart (subject of next post), Duncan wanted to stop in a windy, open area to try flying his kites. That sounded mildly interesting. I hadn't flown a kite in a long time and I had my camera to keep me busy if it was too boring.

Hmmm. His kite is pretty large... I've done some windsurfing and the surface area of this kite was similar to a beginning windsurfer sail. That can catch a lot of wind.

So, Duncan (6'4" and weighing a fair number of stones) has to really lean back to maintain control of the kite and it still drags him around a bit.

By pulling on each of the handles, you can make the kite turn, either flying it in figure eights or loops.

An obvious next experiment is to take somebody smaller and less experienced and let them try flying the kite...

The results were not completely unexpected nor devoid of entertainment value:

We all tried the large kite, with somewhat limited success. Mostly we got dragged around and crashed the kite into the ground.

After switching to a smaller kite, we all had a lot more success.

Mounting Biking

Duncan, Christa and I went out for a bit of mountain biking to explore the environs. There were dirt tracks leading out of the village and we had seen what looked like some water in the distance and were curious what was out there.

Turns out, there were a couple ponds and a waste water treatment facility. We were tempted to steal their sludge, but the sign intimidated us:

The cool part of the ride, though, was kangaroo spotting. It started when we flushed a kangaroo out of a little valley near the pond. He bounded off and stopped right on the horizon for a while to watch us. 

In Woomera Village, the kangaroos show up after dark. We wondered where they spent their days. We spotted several other kangaroos and were able to approach one of them to within 40-50ft. Eventually they would get nervous and go bouncing away. (I had a 300mm lense, so we were not as close to them as some of these photos may appear.)

A post about creepy crawlies for the nephews...

We took a brief pause during work yesterday to do some hunting around the hanger for interesting creatures. We went into an unused corner armed only with flashlights.

Duncan, our best spotter, located about 4 red back spiders.

I guess their bite is pretty painful, but since the introduction of an anti toxin over 50 years ago, there have not been any known deaths. Nevertheless, the standard policy here is to wear gloves when you are working anywhere that they might be hiding. (That pretty much means I should wear gloves whenever I am not working on my computer.)

Green Carab Beetle

These guys are everywhere. They are constantly prowling the hangar floor and occasionally climb somebody's pant legs. They are harmless, but a bit creepy. Oh, don't flick them at your coworkers. They are liable to emit a foul smelling substance on your coworker's backpack and make your coworker displeased with you. 

 Beetle:

Coworker in happier moment:

Other things:

grasshopper

Rose Breasted Cockatoo? (We haven't exactly identified this guy yet.)

Black Flies. They are everywhere. They don't bite, but they are really annoying. They seem to like eyes, mouth, nose and ears. And they keep pestering and pestering you.

Me being pestered: (see the ones flying around my face ready to pounce...)

And here I am with a fly net over my head. They are not a great fashion statement, but they are effective. Even wearing sun glasses makes a big difference. Anything that keeps them from crawling into your eyes.

Nothing happens particularly quickly on the range. There is difficulty getting equipment and parts and there are a fair number of safety regulations. Oh, there were some really amazing things that happened, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you...

I have started biking to the range. It is about 5 miles and takes less than 25 minutes. On a busy day, I'll get passed by 4 cars. Most days, it is just one or two. Here are two views from the bike ride. In both directions, I can see my destination after about 1/3 of the ride.
Here you can see the airport hangers in the distance:

Here you can see the edge of Woomera Village in the distance:

Here is a Bearded Dragon warming up on the road in the middle of the day. He let us get quite close to photograph him and then suddenly scurried away.

Last weekend we drove an hour north to Roxby Downs to do some more serious shopping. There are about 4000 people there, so their grocery store is a lot better. We also took a swim in their indoor, 16 meter, overheated pool. I still managed to get a workout.

Here we are loading our groceries into our car.

Here we are having chicken curry pies at a small restaurant. Sunday afternoon, there were not many stores open. Though it is the end of winter, the day was nice and warm. It could presage a summer that is quite hot.

Duncan (customer), Tim (project manager), Christa (system engineer)

 JT (electrical) and Chris (mechanical)

Lunch yesterday: Roo burger. I would not have known it was kangaroo if I wasn't told.

The flight to Australia went pretty smoothly. It was long, but there was an extra seat between us that we alternated using. This allowed us two contorted sleeping positions instead of the normal one. Big difference, actually.

Once in Sydney we reclaimed our luggage including our bikes. Conveniently there were several halls, doors and aisles that were too narrow for the bike boxes. I managed to get stuck several times and had to stand big boxes on end and slide them around while everyone behind me had to wait. In the end we missed our connecting flight and got to spend an extra 5 hours in the Sydney airport.

Once we finally got to Adelaide, we barely fit all our luggage in the car:

And Christa volunteered to attempt the first drive on the left side:

Driving on the highways turned out to not be that bad, but driving in the city was quite challenging. You are sitting on the wrong side of the car, so you tend to drift left. The turn signal is on the right so you tend to turn on the windshield wipers instead. Every time you make a turn, you have to consciously remember to get into the left lane. It took two people to drive. One controlled the vehicle and the other provided directions and reminders on how to drive on the left.

We made it to the hotel without any serious incidents. It was very nice. The view from Christa's room:

We ended up staying the entire next day in Adelaide. The weather was rainy and chilly. We went to the South Australia Museum which was quite good. We toured a bit around the city. Our section of the city was predominantly shopping for many blocks. We did get an excellent Tapas dinner and a Korean dinner.

Next day. Drive to Woomera. It took about 5.5 hours and went smoothly. There were many miles of nothing. The last 2 hours were through mild desert areas with low scrubby bushes and red sand.

In Woomera, we are staying at the Eldo Hotel, which is made up of converted barracks. The building we are in is at the edge of town and one of the older/less fixed up buildings. We may end up moving if some other rooms open up. I am in the 2nd room from the left on the ground floor.

Our street is on the edge of the village. The trees are eucalyptus.

At its peak, the town had 4000 people. Now it has about 400. It has a very deserted feel. As you can see, parking our car at the hotel was no problem. Over night, there are 3 or 4 cars here.

My accommodations. A bit spartan but adequate. The biggest issues are that I don't always seem to get hot water for showers (it might be timing my showers after one of my coworkers') and there are no driers in our limited laundry facility. There is a clothesline out back. 

Work has been fine, though a bit slow