Alice Springs, Coober Pedy and the roadhouses.

Barrow Creek Telegraph Station

John fills the truck with fuel while I pay and book into the roadhouse caravan park. At Dunmarra we realized they didn’t charge for the powered site. Good to get a “freebie” sometimes. It’s still hot during the day, the nights are cooler though.

Ti Tree roadhouse, our next stop was $25 per night. The laundry charge in the parks varies from $3 to $4.

Aileron Roadhouse

On the drive to Alice Springs, Aileron Roadhouse has a giant statue of an aboriginal man, also a woman and child. They are both huge and impressive. We also saw an eagle with a broken wing in a pen and another big eagle in a tree.

Eagle at Aileron

In Alice Springs we had booked into a small park close to town, Stuart CP. It was $35 per night. Simpson’s Gap is close by, after booking into the park we drove out to this lovely waterhole. We missed seeing the wallabies as it were in the middle of the day and hot. A 20 minute return walk takes us down to the dry river bed and beyond to the waterhole.

Simpson's Gap.

 

shrub in Simpson's Gap.

We replenished the food supply in town and settled into the park.

Camel farm

Today was a long day on the road. We crossed into South Australia about midday.  We called in to see a camel farm we made towards Marla Roadhouse for tonight. It’s a nice stopover, $30 for the night.

We saw two eagles on the way and the wildflowers were lovely beside the road. I suppose the hotter climate bring them out earlier than down south. Some areas were like a carpet of colours, including pinks, yellows, whites and blues.

We left Darwin on Saturday and have had some long hours on the road, just doing one night stopovers at the remote places.

August 13^th

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 Coober Pedy.

Wildflowers

At Marla John and I had a restful night’s sleep and left the park at 8.15 am for the 234 klms drive to Coober Pedy. It started off dull and looking like rain, but we were only on the road an hour or so and the sun came out. We stopped for a morning cuppa and I took some photos of wildflowers. They are not in abundance as much as we head south.

Coffee, scones with Rosella jam.

 

 I have found myself reciting bits of “My Country” on this trip. Australia is a land of ‘sweeping plains, rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains” I think we have seen every lovely landscape including “her jeweled sea”, except for the flooding rains as it is the dry season.

Approaching Coober Pedy.

Coober Pedy is like a moonscape as you approach the outskirts of the town. It’s an opal mining town, over the years there has been lots of large holes dug, looking for it. So everywhere are piles of dirt. It’s dry, dusty, and windy and warm here. We looked in the Desert Cave Underground Hotel, too early for the bar to be open; a nice cold drink would have been welcome. However we looked in the souvenir shop and took some photos inside the hotel. We visited it with friends six years ago and sat and had a drink out of the heat.

Desert Cave Underground Hotel.

We are now settled in the Oasis CP for the night, $33. We have a powered site but no water to sites in the park. We have enough drinking water and other water in our holding tank. This town has only artesian water from the underground, all filtered etc, but every drop counts. I will have a coin operated shower later, 20c for three minutes. I’ll take enough coins to have a decent shower. Usually I shower “onboard".

August 16^th.