Inside an underground home

Jesse doing some noodling.
Emily and I doing noodling.
Part of the golf course
At the Breakaways
Inside an underground church

Monday 26th May to Thursday 29th May

We ended up doing a tour this afternoon. We went to see the Dog Fence again, but here in Coober Pedy this time. The Breakaways, an underground church, a golf course with no grass just all sand, Umoona mine and the museums plus an underground house. We watched a video on the history of the opal mines. The whole tour took about 4.5 hours.

We having a nice time here as we have met some other people along the way who are also staying here. You seem to see a lot of the same people whilst you are travelling. It is really good to catch up with them from one place to the next and swap travel stories.

We have met a lovely retired couple, Bruce and Joy and their dog Chloe. They have sold their house and are travelling full time. Before this they lived on a yacht for seven years.

We have met another family Jeff, Tammy and their 2 year old Caitlyn who are also very nice. We have swapped phone numbers and we will catch up with them.

We are going to stay here for a few more days and just chill out a little. We have been so busy lately it will be nice to have a few days of not doing too much.

The kids have made friends also with some kids staying here. We are opposite a nice big playground so they are happy.

On Thursday we went to do some noodling, which is looking for opals. We did not find any which we did not think we would. Afterwards we went to see this underground house. It was really nice and some people actually live in it and let you walk through. It is called Faye’s house as it was built by a lady called Faye and her friends. It was a three bedroom house. They did have one room that was not underground which had an in ground solar heated pool inside. It was really nice.

We are leaving here tomorrow morning (Friday). We are heading along the Oodnadatta track to William Creek. We probably wont have any internet or mobile service for a few days.

Sunday 25 May

This morning we got up early to leave for Coober Pedy. David’s parents are at Coober Pedy also, they are here for one more day. We will spend the day with them.

We arrived around lunch time; we are staying at the Stuart Range Caravan Park. It has a big playground for the kids.

We went and had lunch with Val and Brain. We then for a walk up the main street of Coober Pedy and had a look around. Well what can I say, it is different here.

There is not as many aborigines here as I thought there would be. I did get approached by one for money though, just outside the pub. The aborigines here are not allowed to buy alcohol until after 3.00pm in the afternoon.

We ended up having dinner with David’s parents at the pub.
It was nice to catch up with someone from home.

Friday 23 May

We left Marree this morning and have decided to back track a little to a place called Woomera. We drove some of the way down the Oodnadatta track.

We finally have phone and internet reception again. We have been without our phone or internet for about 5 days now.

We arrived late in the afternoon. We are staying at the Woomera Travellers Village. They also have a communal fire at night, so tonight we went there for a while. We have also met some other travellers at Marree who are also staying at Woomera so we caught up with them.
David knows everyone at every park we go to. He keeps disappearing and we find him out gas bagging to some other traveller. He is a little social butterfly.

We are staying here until Sunday, then we are leaving to go to Coober Pedy.

Lake Eyre

on way to Lake Eyre
At Lake Eyre
On way to Lake Eyre
The Dog Fence

Thursday 22 May

This morning we went for a long drive to Lake Eyre which is a dry salt lake. It took us 2 hours to get there. It was very sandy along the way. I was glad David was driving and not me. There was just nothing to look at along the way.
On the way back we saw a Wedge Tail Eagle, it was huge. We also saw the dog fence which is the biggest fence in the world.

After our long drive, once we got back we took the kids to look at some old trains which once belonged to the Ghan line.

Maree

Wed 21 May

This morning we left Arkaroola and are heading to Marree. We stopped at Leigh Creek on the way as we are almost out of food. We have been eating lots of bread lately as the supplies at Arkaroola were not very good.

We arrived at Marree which is a town of 65 population. The caravan park was not much to look at. The showers and toilets well that is another story.

That night we sat around the communal fire they have and met some other travellers.

Our caravan site

A house that is still lived in.

The Main Street of Maree

This is the fire we all sat around

rare white rock wallaby

Tuesday 20 May

This morning we did some more self guided tours to the Nooldoonooldoona and Bolla Bollana waterholes and out to Wheal Turner which is an old smelter site. On the way back we saw a white rock wallaby which are very rare. They believe this is the only one in the area and they were happy when we told them we saw it as they have not seen it for about 1 year. We took some photos and the staff at Arkaroola wanted a copy for themselves

on our 4wd track
yellow footed rock wallaby

Frome lookout

Our camp
countryside

Monday 19 May

This morning we did our own self guided 4wd tour to Mount Jacob. It took us four hours to do about 15kms. We went to Frome Lookout which was very steep, and I must admit I was scared at times. This afternoon we saw our first yellow footed rock wallaby. They are very rare.

Sillers lookout. We drove to the top and had morning tea.

Sunday 18 May

This morning we had to get up early to do the Ridge top Tour. It is their world famous 4wd guided tour. We were taken to various lookouts including the famous Sillers lookout. It was very interesting as our guide explained to us about the history of the area. It is hard to explain how beautiful it is and the photos we took just don’t do it justice. We have taken a video which shows how nice it is. Once we reached Sillers lookout we had morning tea up there and enjoyed the view.

Saturday 17 May

We left Wilpena and started on our way to Arkaroola which is in the Gammon Ranges. It was gravel rocky roads most of the way and quite dusty. It was very baron along the way. We stopped a few times along the way to check the caravan for dust. The caravan has held up very well.

We arrived at Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary this afternoon; we will stay here for 3 nights.

this is called the wall of china

this is the town grader at Blinman
landscape of the area

Thursday 15th May

Today we went for a drive along dry river beds through the Bunyeroo and Brachina Gorges. We then went to Parachilna where we stopped for lunch at “The Praire Hotel”. They served feral food as in kangaroo, emu, camel etc. We didn’t try those we just ordered a normal mince hamburger on damper bread.

We then travelled to Blinman which is an old mining town then to Oraparinna and back to WiIpena Pound.

I have attached some photos of the countryside to see what it looks like.

Wednesday 14 May

Today we went for a drive to the Sacred Canyon where we saw a few aboriginal carvings.

The rest of the afternoon we caught up on some school work.

Wongara Hill Lookout / On way to Lookout / Hills Homestead


Tuesday 13 May

This morning we went for a walk to Hills Homestead and up to the Wangara Hill Lookout. You could see lots of Wilpena Pound from the top. The walk was about 9 kilometres.

Yourambulla caves

Waterhole at Death Rock

Monday 12 May

This morning we left Quorn, we are going to drive to Wilpena National Park which is in the Flinders Rangers today and stay there for a few days.

We stopped along the way at Death Rock which is a 7 metre high quartzite rock next to a waterhole. After that we went to Yourambulla caves and saw some aboriginal rock paintings.

We stopped off at a place called Hawker and bought some groceries.

We arrived at Wilpena in the afternoon. We are staying at the Wilpena Pound Resort. Tonight when we went to go outside, we had two kangaroos at our caravan door.

Sunday 11th May

This morning we went to the Pichi Richi railway to go on a steam train to a place called Woolshed flat where we had some lunch and caught the train back to Quorn.

This afternoon we drove to Devils Rock and decided to do the walk up to the top. It was actually a hard walk as it is 697m high and quite rocky at times.
We finally got to the top of it, and it was very scary being so high up. I was very scared I must admit up the top. It didn’t seem to bother the kids but I kept telling them not to stand up just to sit on top of the rock. We were very proud of the two of them climbing all the way up as it was not easy. They had a visitors book up the top so David wrote all our names in it. The view from the top was just beautiful.
We were all pretty tired once we got back down the bottom.