You know what they say about best laid plans - the rain caught us on our second night on the Oodnadatta track. Jen and I noticed a few cars coming from the south in to Coward Springs the same afternoon that were covered in mud. I didn't grab a pic but i don't think I've ever seen cars with that much mud on them - it was THICK, 4 or 5 inches thick and it was everywhere. Jen wasn't to keen on going that way for a look and upon hearing of a couple of road trains had been bogged further south I got THAT look. After having a yarn with a couple of guys that came in the day before we thought it'd be wiser to back track a little rather than cutting up the track unnecessarily. That was our first detour - a snappy 1074km's as opposed to 275km's to get into the Flinders ranges, good thing we're on holidays and don't have a deadline!
And now for the gremlins.....
A lucky escape on the Painted Desert road...I noticed the shovel had vibrated loose on the corrugations and got it just before it ran away!
A rock took out the electric brakes on the van - quick and easy fix.
After fixing the brakes I wandered in to grab a drink and sit down only to find out we didn't have any power - no worries, check fuses....all good, battery terminals....fine, battery levels....plenty of charge. Now I'm running out of ideas until i think to pull out the setec fuse box to check all of the wires and sure enough the corrugations had vibrated some of the connections loose. Push and click....we have power!
A stone managed to dodge my flash shade cloth stone guard under the van to take out one of the drainage pipe.
Our detour saw us backtrack to Coober Pedy via William Creek. All of the brochures i had seen for this little town described it as unique - that's one word for it. The kids were amazed to see the dugouts that people live in.
This thing is parked out the front of a local business....it had nothing to do with the accommodation house, i just think the bloke wanted his own Millennium Falcon!
The kids having a go at "noodling"....looking for opals.
A fun pose while in an underground opal mine ;-)
Coober Pedy turned on an awesome sunrise for our departure.
Another first for us - having to pay for water. It's pretty dry out this way and they had a filling station at the caravan park - 20 cents for 40 litres of H2O...not bad value, if only fuel was this cheap. You also had to take a couple of twenty cent pieces with you when you went for your coin operated shower...kids loved it!
More to come......
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