Ozzie Road Trip - The prequel

[Sharifa]

Have a safe journey
Enjoy and waiting for lots of Would love to tour with you

[mouseinthehouse]

Hi Wildies!

We are at Coober Pedy in the middle of nowhere. This is opal mining town and country. I bought the obligatory opal jewellery. Haven't had any service so will have to update on our adventures later if our overnight stop gets phone reception. Need to press on right now. Laptop also driving me nuts and want to hurl it out the window. Have taken so good photos - hope to get some up here later.

Bye for now! -O

[Toko]

Mith

[nan]

and now you travel with an opal

[Mel]

Hello mith! Keep enjoying - despite the laptop. -O

[Lisbeth]

Mousie! don't throw the laptop out of the window, you'll regret it later

[mouseinthehouse]

Okay, I am back.

we have made it to Uluru/Ayres Rock in good order. Over the last four days we travelled through some beautiful little towns in the southern flinders ranges. We crossed the range and got to Port Augusta.



Here we are just outside the town. Vannie looking wonderful in her old beaten up way....bit like me really. -O

It is right at the mouth of the Gulf St. Vincent. We bought a few things, fuelled up and pressed on eventually passing some beautiful salt lakes which are a feature of northern South Australia.





Our campsite that night was a free campsite with toilets - these are dotted along the highway and are very popular. That night was reminiscent of hyena patrols in KNP as some feral foxes came to do the rounds of the campers. The highway is excellent and hardly any traffic except grey nomads with their caravans and the odd road train which was a first for me.



We took off early next morning and saw wedgetailed eagles (australia's largest bird of prey) feasting on road kills, mainly kangaroos but some cows (road trains fling them off like insects!!!). One carcass had a pair of eagles and a pair of foxes sharing! It was hard to get good photos as they would fly off when we slowed down. Sorry for poor quality photo.



We also saw a mob of emus but they are so flighty they take off wildly when you pull over!



The highway went on forever and we forged on to Coober Pedy. A very ugly landscape but quite fascinating. Thousands of anthill like mounds of mine sand dot the landscape which is completely devoid of trees.
I treated myself to a pair of opal drop earrings and we headed on out of town. Tomorrow I will relate our further adventures, overnighting just across the Northern Territory border at Kulgera and then on to our present abode at Yulara campsite, 15 kms from THE ROCK. Will have lots more great pics.......stay tuned.

[Lisbeth]

Thank you, Mousie for taking the trouble to keep us updated (good that you did not throw the laptop away )with great descriptions and pics Vannie looks spacie

It is impossible to judge the size of the eagle, but it looks very majestic and what a beek

[Dewi]

Nice one Mith. Vannie looks cool.

Love the wedgie.

Seems you are having a great road trip so far. Looking forward to reading more as you progress along here.

[mouseinthehouse]

Here is some extra info:

Driving through the north of SA is driving through sheep stations - literally. It was particularly meaningful to Crackers (SO) and myself because SO worked for my Dad 25 years ago on many of these same stations that we drove through. My dad provided contract shearing teams to some of these huge stations which are measured in the hundreds of square kms. Where they would shear tens of thousands of sheep over many weeks. Sometimes in heat around 50C. The campsite photo above is on Bon Bon Station. 25+ yrs ago SO worked there. 10 years ago is was bought through a PPP and turned over to conservation. Huge tracts of former sheep and cattle stations are being converted to nature reserves in this way. That is a wonderful thing because it is the only way some of our precious marsupial animals are going to be saved from extinction.

North of Coober Pedy sheep stations make way for cattle stations. These stations are no smaller in size and some much bigger. There is nothing else for hundreds of kilometres. Kids on stations learn via school of the air. Or these days via satellite internet. Mustering of stock is mostly by helicopter. Supplies and mail are mostly flown in. If you are badly hurt you call for the Flying Doctor.

This is such a huge country and it is only now I am passing through it that I can appreciate just how big it is.
When we got to the SA/NT border a sign said: Darwin 1700kms. We weren't even half way through Australia from bottom to top!

Hi Lisbeth, Wedge-tailed eagles stand almost a metre high and have a 3m wingspan.

Until next time, thanks for reading.