I love a sunburnt country

And I love my husband... that is all

A nice little oasis in the desert

We did happen upon a few of these pretty spots. Probably a result of all the recent rain. And, yes, they are sea gulls. Those little scavengers sure do get around.

At the risk of sounding like a Coober Pedy travel brochure

It was all about the opal. Back breaking days digging, sometimes for years trying to find something to make it all worth while. The town is surrounded by mounds of dirt, years and years of digging by miners. There are signs everywhere prohibiting entry into the leases. More signs everywhere telling people not to run, and not to walk backwards. There are a lot of deep shafts down there, which apparently a lot of people have fallen into. Point taken.
Some people dig for years. The owner of the caravan park we stayed in, Gianni, had a lease and searched for opal for five years, not finding anything really. He sold the lease, and surprise, surprise, the new owner found opal and made a nice little penny out of it.
Also, the house permits up there are a strange thing. Apparently mining in the town centre is now prohibited. But you get your house permit, blow it out with explosives, drag out the dust and I'm sure you'll find something. However, you don't need planning permission to add rooms to your dugout house. The only rule is that you need to stay four metres away from your neighbours. Several houses there have ten bedrooms.  A lot of renovation happening in the town. Seems they might have found a bit more opal, but they're not going to own up to that one!

 

There is a bit more though, to the Coober Pedy story. A few kilometres north of the town is a place called the Breakaways. You're not allowed to mine up there - it's too beautiful, although the locals reckon there would be a lot of opal under the ground. There is probably a pretty good chance that you've seen this landscape as the back drop in the odd movie or two. Anyone see Mad Max2... or Priscilla?

 

 

The long and winding road to Lake Eyre north... spare a thought for Caroline

I've previously mentioned the drive to Lake Eyre north, especially all those annoying little flies (pretty sure we brought some of them home in the van). The landscape on the journey, though, was amazing. Halfway in, the vista changed dramatically. The area millions of years ago had been a massive inland ocean and the landscape is what is left of the seabed.
Around one curve, the view before us was breathtaking. I think I even said "wow, look at that".

Then, not five minutes up the road, the landscape changed dramatically. We almost felt we could have been on the moon. Or certainly, the last two people on earth after some type of Armageddon.

 

 

And then we made it to Lake Eyre north. Apart from the flies it was pretty daunting looking at this huge lake, where you couldn't see where it finished.

 

 

The grass on the shore was a bit strange.

 

 

But let's pause, just for a minute. This place can be very unforgiving. We had stopped at William Creek just before the Lake Eyre north turnoff (I'm talking only 7km here). It had rained pretty heavily the week before and we were told that a lot of travellers were stranded there for about five days until the fantastic SA road crews could open all the roads.  On the Lake Eyre north road is a memorial. A memorial to Caroline Grossmueller, a 28-year Austrian woman, travelling with her boyfriend. The memorial said that she had perished on that site. Seems they got bogged and couldn't get out, and being an experienced hiker Caroline and her boyfriend had tried to walk out. The boyfriend couldn't go any further, so Caroline pushed on, leaving him with the tent. And she didn't make it. The police officer who later got their van out of the bog let the tyres down a bit more than they had. And he got out with not much difficulty. Thankfully to the crew at Britz we were equipped with a nice, little yellow box in the glove box of the van. A distress beacon in case we got into difficulty. I didn't even give it a second thought when we decided to drive up there. I'm sure many people would do the same thing. In hindsight, I'm not going anywhere in the outback without a beacon or similar safeguard.

 

And this is how we ended that day.

 

 

 

 

Couldn't get enough of this

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Monsieur insisted I take a photo of this lizard sunning itself in the middle of the road (yes, that's a road). I think it was dead. Monsieur begs to differ. The jury is still out. But to keep the Frenchman happy...

The last bits and pieces...

Now that we are home safe and sound, just a few little snippets that I didn't get around to blogging on the road. Let's face it, when you are blogging in the middle of nowhere, at night, racing against the clock before either the lantern, lap top or iPhone batteries ran flat, some stories just had to be put aside for later. And in case you were wondering, it was usually that lap top that gave up first.

And the verdict is in... (drum roll please)

We stopped!  We are holed up in a tiny little place called Wycheproof (yes, I can hear all the broom stick jokes now). We found an old little motel and the place has been taken over by bikies! But it's ok though, most of them have grey hair. And yes, we have caved on the last night and got a motel - in part to appease Monsieur about unpacking the van all the time to get to his bed. We carried the rocket launcher all around Aus and didn't get it out once! (What's that? Are we terrorists? No, of course not, the rocket launcher is Monsieur's pet name for the telescope.) It was still too light pretty much all the time with the lights in the caravan parks. And we may or may not have had a couple of reds before the stars came out and were scared of dropping the bloody thing. So, this could be my last holiday blog, except for a few catch up bits and pieces when I get home because I'm sure that after a couple of days back in reality the memories of our 4wd Priscilla outback camping safari will fade into a distant memory. In closing, thank you Monsieur (love you to bits xx), thank you to all the fabulous people along the way who made it so memorable, thank you to those who read and enjoyed the holiday blog, and thank you outback Aussie - it's been a total blast!
Au revoir xx

Blogging in my office

The bets are on!

Although we still have one night's hire left on the campervan, now that the wheels are pointed in Victoria's direction, Monsieur is anxious to get home, see the doggies, get rid of that godforsaken camper van and have a relaxing day on Sunday before going back to work on Monday. My plan was to break up today's eight-hour trip with another night's stay somewhere along the way. I have a feeling that Monsieur will have his way. And I'm not too disappointed, it's been a 'Fantastic Journey' (in the words of that great author, Ray Bradbury), but hopefully Monsieur might change his mind. Stay tuned!

The art of being an artist in Silverton

I have already mentioned the artists in Broken Hill. Today we visited the late, great Pro Hart art gallery. He used to collect Rolls Royces (saw four of them in the driveway) and also Picassos and Rembrandts (saw one of each of those). Silverton is a tiny town about 30km out of Broken Hill. A collection of little art galleries, this little place is full of artists and memorabilia. The movies, Mad Max 2 and A Town Like Alice, to name just two were filmed out here. We looked at the Mad Max Museum from the front. The entry fee didn't seem worth it really. The memorabilia? Well take it or leave it. Have to say being in a room with 200 dolls staring at you was a bit unsettling, and I'm sure I've seen a horror movie at some point somewhat along those lines. Monsieur bought me a lovely plate. Lee Fabbian, the artist who works with the glass is amazing. She removes the base from her kiln and works the glass from underneath. The plate I really liked was red (and found out later that it contained gold dust as well). I've done a bit of leadlighting in my day and I know that red glass is expensive so most people use it very sparingly. Add the gold dust and you have a plate that is over $200. A bit out of my pocket, so monsieur splashed out and bought me this nice little plate for around $60. And added bonus, something went wrong with the EFTPOS machine, and Monsieur fixed it! For that good deed we got given a nice little Silverton sticker.

 

My favourite place was the John Dynon art gallery. This place was a little gem in the desert. Loved his paintings, but could only afford to buy a few printed post cards. I got five of them, handed over my 10 bucks and he gave me a signed postcard of the emu. Nice! This guy gets around. He had pictures up there of him with Jeff Fenech (the boxer, remember, I love yous all), Barry Crocker and wow, he even once shook hands with Fergie (no, not the singer, the ex royal ex wife of Prince Andrew) He also mentioned that I'd just shouted him a couple of beers, although he's not sure if he should be drinking these days – says he doesn't remember much about it but he did say that his wife make sure he knows all about it! Really loved his beer garden made out of bicycles.

 

 

 

 

 

And the car, yes we saw a lot of those. Seems that if something stands still long enough out here they will paint it.

 

 

The pretty painted Priscilla Palace Hotel

When a picture is worth a thousand words...

 

 

 

It's not an outback Aussie tour unless you see a thunderbox

Royal Flying Doctor Service

No doubting what a good service they do for all the outback people of Aus. Interesting to see a base in active service. And, so they tell me, Queen Lizzie visited there. I got to see hers and Philip's original royal autographs and also got to see the chair where she plonked down her royal bum to sign the book. Now I've seen everything. Looks like Catherine and William were following us around Aus. Didn't catch up with them. Their loss.

Fancy a bit of drag today, monsieur?

Made it to Broken Hill today. Had a look at the painted Palace Hotel. This pub featured a bit in the movie, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There are murals painted on pretty much every internal wall and ceiling. Not surprising given that Broken Hill is and has been home to some pretty famous Aussie artists (not dropping names but the late, great Pro Hart lived here – going there tomorrow – I hear there are a couple of Piccasos there). So, apparently when they filmed Priscilla in Broken Hill, the three lead actors dolled out in their drag gear, got out of the bus and just walked up the main street in Broken Hill, much to the amazement and amusement of the locals. What you see in the movie is exactly the reactions of the locals, no acting there. I was wondering if monsieur would like to recreate the scene. Guess not! We did have a nod to Priscilla travelling around, a lovely shoe keyring hanging and the obligatory French flag.

But just look at what I found in downtown Broken Hill today! Now that's a much better homage to Priscilla.

Come fly with me

The flies in the outback are on a mission. To make your life as miserable as possible. They are vicious little buggers and take delight in getting in your ears, up your nose, behind your sunnies and if you are really lucky you might just happen to swallow one. One suicidal fly took a dive in my morning coffee. That will teach him. However, there is a particularly nasty batch of flies up at Lake Eyre North. These little shites have a hone in skill second to none. After one and a half hours of driving on the track, which had been washed out in places and took monsieur's 4wd driving skills to a whole new level (yes, we had one nose down bog, but he managed to back out of there without too much difficulty). We got out to have a look at Lake Eyre, the biggest inland lake which is pretty much empty all year round, although when it does fill up it holds five times more water than the Sydney Harbour. And bam! We are just covered in flies. They are so bad we walk to the lake shore, shoot off a few photos and then hot foot it back to the van. Oh, did I mention that monsieur had left his window open. You can imagine what the inside of the van was like. And one other thing – MONSIEUR HATES FLIES!! At home he is the king of the fly spray and keeps the insecticide companies in business all year round. Is that some form of poetic justice maybe?

Just cut the bull dust please, no, really... I'm serious

Not what you want to see coming at you on the track

The aftermath of a couple of days driving on dirt roads. And it gets into everything!!

Camping ingenuity

Our camping spot on the Oodnadatta track was a fabulous little place called Coward Springs. The owners have put in a lot of work to make this place and the amenities at the camping ground were fantastic. Especially the wood heated shower... in the middle of nowhere... just gotta keep that fire going.

Those great little outback Aussie pubs

The first outback pub on the track was at William Creek. This was my favourite one by far, firstly because the people were really friendly, but also because the hot guy behind the bar was oh so cute! The population in William Creek this week is nine. They run a cafe, pub and scenic flights. The hotty was pretty young, and a pilot. I commented that when he went to meet people and fly them around they were probably wondering whether he had his mother's permission! The girl behind the bar was a Dutch backpacker, having a stop off to earn some money while on her one-year tour of Aussie. Nice way to make a buck or two.

Second pub was at the end of the Oodnadatta track at Marree. Bit more posh than William Creek, but still pretty friendly people. Highlight here was that while I was disappointed not to have seen the end of the longest street parade in Coober Pedy, the owner had taken part in the Priscilla parade. The goal was to set the record for the longest street parade – about 750km in total. A heap of them decorated their vans and travelled along the Oodnadatta track to Oodnadatta and ended at the Opal Festival in Coober Pedy. Apparently the owner, a big burly guy called Phil, dressed up in fish net stockings at the Coober Pedy parade. They started out with seven vans and ended with only three due to accidents and breakdowns. It was a success though and they will be submitting their record to the Guinness Book of Records soon. They also have a pet dingo called Bundy. Apparently these dogs train up pretty well, and when you get one that has been trained for a couple of years they can be worth around $12-14k! I don't know about Bundy though, he seemed pretty happy dreaming the time away on top of the barrell.

Third pub was... somewhere in South Australia. Lots of old memorabilia to see here. Tiny bit creepy though. Monsieur was impressed with the lady's curtain... the Eiffel tower no less.

I think it was all about this

Old man emu

I thought I would see a heap of kangaroos on this trip, but so far, just one (well four, if you count the road kill). Emus, on the other hand are everywhere. Especially this one with a death wish that bounded out onto the road (well, track) in front of us. Take a right turn, do a uturn... run back again... Think there is a song lyric somewhere about an emu... "He can run the pants off a kangaroo."

Fancy a dip?

Gotta love the Aussie spirit. All along the Oodnadatta track there are signs designating a dip in the road. Which is really useful as it shows a place on the road which just might have been rained out in the past week and it's probably a good place to put the foot on the brake and glide over the big rut in the road. But, you have to love the way people modify the signs. “Dip” turned into “Lucky Dip”, “Skinny Dip” and of course you always get the one who can't help themselves, “Dip Shit”. Some of my favourites were Greek Dip, Have a Dip and the all time winner for me was Seren"Dip"ity, a bit of thought in that one. And if I had a texta on me, all I could come up with was “Slippery Dip”. But alas, I didn't have a texta, so didn't leave my mark... Maybe next time.

Coober Pedy, Part 4, duty free shopping

Yeah really – but not. The comparison is that you can only buy 1 bottle of wine or 1 bottle of spirits per day in Coober Pedy. ID checked and recorded. A bit like going through the airport at any place on the globe. According to the guy behind the counter, business is a bit slow. Monsieur was despondent because he couldn't buy more and stock the wine cellar in the camper van. Three guesses why this law was put in place...

Coober Pedy, Part 3

Just a small rant, maybe Neil Mitchell on 3aw can put it on his fix it list. They have a lot of sunshine in Coober Pedy. Against the law is the population putting in solar power. They can have solar hot water, but no solar power for their whole house. Why? Hmm, maybe it's something to do with the fact that their power supply comes from a privately owned power supply. Oh yeah, they did put in one wind powered mill at a cost of 750k. Now they cost 1 million. One wind powered mill supplies 4% of the town – they only need another 24 of those. Something there smacks of government and corporations working on a hand shake.. I thought that corruption like that only happens in Asia.

A town like Coober Pedy, Part 2

What a great place! What surprised me the most was the expat community here. The town was made by Croatians, Italians, Greeks and 45ish other nationalities. Which brings me to my next point. Australian governments giving back land to the indigenous people. I get that. But... when you find out that before the white men came to Coober Pedy (note, Coober (or Kupa), is aboriginal for uninitiated, or white person, and Pedy (or Piti) is aboriginal for pit, or under ground), there were very few aboriginal people in the area. Which is fine, except... there are three underground dugouts worth 500k each – abandoned. Why? Because the aboriginal people claimed back the land... but, they don't live underground so the places are empty, the families there had to move out. The practical side of me is saying that is just a huge waste. And I know the aboriginal people have a right to ask to get the land back. But let's balance it here – ok, they get the land back, but they also get the Centre link rights. Surely one counters out the other – if they have the land they should be able to live on it without a hand out from the government. My rant for the day over...

The joys of the caravan park shower block

Now, I've already said this park is pretty good. But it doesn't matter how great the park is, showering is a skill of balance and ingenuity to be learned along the way. First step, getting out of the Pjs while standing on a wet floor because the person before you dripped everywhere. That's not so bad. After the shower is when the fun starts. While standing on that same dripping floor that you just happened to add to, the main question is how to get your undies and shorts on without dragging a wet foot through the legs thereby making for one uncomfortable set of undies. Step one, put the towel on the bench. Next take one foot out of the thong (flip flop for you people who don't understand Aussie!), put it on the towel, dry it then manoeuvre said dry foot into the undie leg. Put said dry foot back in the wet thong, put other wet foot onto the towel, all the while holding onto your undies in one hand. Tip here? Don't stand too far away from the bench, the undies won't stretch that far. Put second dry foot into the other leg while trying not to fall over and voila! There you have it. Repeat the same steps for the shorts. The top half will take care of itself. Just another friendly tip from your ever so helpful happy camper.

Upstairs, downstairs

Yep, monsieur and I are separating. I've decided that living in the upstairs apartment come sleeping quarters in the campervan is just too claustrophobic, so I've asked for the downstairs bed to be made up for me, if you please kind monsieur. Of course, now that I'm living downstairs, I'm the hired help so I'll be up in the morning, early, cleaning out those chamber pots and making the coffee with a yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. Happily so...

A town like Coober Pedy

This place was the whole reason the trip happened in the first place. The Oodnadatta track was like dessert – a something for after, something we weren't expecting. And while I can't say I was overwhelmed by Coober Pedy, it's hard not to be in awe of the place, where people dig out homes, work hard mining trying to find that one big opal that's going to make your fortune. It didn't inspire me to blog though... and then we met the lovely Vincenzo. We are staying at another caravan park, and while all caravan parks could be classed as quite the same, the Stuart Range caravan park in Coober Pedy is a cut above the rest. Excuse me, the toilet block tiles look like something out of Home Beautiful, and if that isn't enough, the park has its own lisenced pizzeria... run by no less than the great Italian nonna of the household. The pizza was divine, one of the best I've had. But I digress, we met Vincenzo when he asked if he could sit out our big big table to eat his pizza. Turns out he's from Milan, moved here a long time ago when his sister and brother in law talked him into to coming to Australia even though he was quite reluctant. Funny, his sister is living back in Italy now, but Vincenzo is still here, part time in his motor mechanics workshop, other times in his opal cutting workshop. After living in Carleton, he moved to Coober Pedy because he was interested in the process of opal mining. Since then, he bought a plot, built his own dugout house (using the explosives to blow out the inside of the hill and dragging all the debris out with a bulldozer). He still reckons it's hard to come back after each visit back to Italy, but come back he does and that's a good thing because our lives are a little bit richer after chatting to the Vincenzo the magnificent. Oh, and by the way, thanks Coober Pedy for putting on a pretty awesome fireworks display to herald our arrival... I just might like a town like Coober Pedy after all.

In my defence for all things idiotic

I am a patriot. I am a patriot for whichever country comes to my aid in times of distress. And if that country happens to be France while we're away, then fine, I'm French by marriage. As you can see, I brought our little (petit) French flag along for the holiday. My strategy? If, by chance, we happen to: 1) do anything really stupid: 2) look like total imbeciles; or 3) look totally inappropriately dressed, then I shut up! I say nothing, look totally astounded and let Monsieur do all the talking. That way, hopefully we will be mistaken for European tourists and we should be totally forgiven for any indiscretions we may foolishly commit.

 

 

The iPad's connected to the...

It's quite a technological challenge to blog while in the middle of nowhere and being totally reliant on caravan parks for your power... and not to mention the holy grail of modern technology itself, FREE WIFI! That is not easy to come across, so after a nice live chat with the lovely Hazel from Telstra in the Philippines (from the middle of Clare caravan park), I managed to add on a data pack to my mobile phone which is now my personal hotspot. For those of you thinking that my personal hotspot may have something to do with somewhere on my anatomy you need to get your mind out of the gutter and google it. Effectively, I take a picture on my iPhone, connect my iPhone to my lap top to transfer the pictures, then connect my lap top back to my oh so sexy personal hotspot on my phone, and voila! Well, you're reading this blog, right? Gotta love modern technology.

It's a big, vast beautiful land

I wanna put on, my my my my my boogie shoes

When one is travelling in the outback of Australia, there are certain things that one must be very vigilant about. One of those things is to watch out for people who refer to themselves as 'one'. Stuff that! The other thing to be aware of are all those creepy crawlies. And with this in mind my google search and frequent viewing of 'The Block' led me to She Wear, Australia, manufacturers of sturdy, stylish work boots for the hard working, yet fashion conscious female tradies all around the country. Of course they also looked pretty good on the twins, Alyssa and Lysandra, and that steel cap toe came in pretty handy whenever their male tradies needed a good foot up the... toolbelt.

 

And although I am not planning on doing any major renovating while on our travels, they do fit the bill for keeping out the snakes and spiders. Did I buy them with safety in mind? Of course! Are they are fashion statement as well? Absolutely!!

The ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz they're not, although one (cut that 'one' crap will ya) could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps we are travelling down the Yellow Brick Road given what we came across in the Barossa. As Dorothy said, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore”.