With just over a week to go, we feel that we are on the way home, though there is still some way to go.

Travelling South from Erldunda, we had an overnighter at Marla, another dusty landing spot but with enough services to keep us going. We are not so attached to the idea of free camping, as we like the benefits of electric power, and full-sized showers. As we go South, the fuel is becoming cheaper, thank goodness. $1.98 a litre at Kings Canyon was the peak – we are now down to around $1.50 a litre.

A close call
I had a close encounter with a monster road train at Marla. It was a beautiful rig, with two of the three trailers painted up with Cobb & Co graphics, and the prime mover a lovingly prepared Kenworth. I decided to get a photo from low down in front. As I knelt to take the snap of the grill, the rig lurched forward with a belch of smoke from its overhead exhausts. I discovered an agility I was not aware of, leaping with Turnbull-like* nimbleness to safety. Clearly my vantage spot was totally hidden from the driver who was as surprised as I was startled. We had a good-humoured exchange and he was on his way. The pity was that in my haste to survive I missed the picture.

We are all finding that a good day’s drive is about 250-300 kilometres. It means an unhurried start to the day, preparing the vehicles for the day, and arriving at the destination by around 1.30pm, ahead of the rush of vans and motorhomes pushing for space in the camping areas after about 4.00pm.

The drive from Marla to Coober Pedy gave us heavy headwinds that buffeted our motorhome, and wreaked havoc with the excellent fuel economy we have been getting.  When we filled at CP it was costing us 15.8 litres per 100 km, as against our normal 12 to 12.5. The major excitement we had was John getting a flat tyre. His up-market Jeep Grand Cherokee has tyre monitoring, so he got a very good warning as to what was happening. Unfortunately, the road was fairly narrow with quite thin shoulders. Luckily, he was within 50 metres of a layby, though it meant reversing down the road and then down a steepish slope to a nice flat and safe area to change the tyre. We used my jack as it was hydraulic, and a bit easier to use.

The 30 or so kilometres ahead of Coober Pedy presents with fields of white moonscape of white cones – the dirt and clay brought to the surface from the efforts of the opal miners. The vastness of this is astonishing – a hundred years of work by prospectors looking for the big opal find. We had an extra day in Coober Pedy, and in the morning we did a tour of a fairly large mine. It was fascinating seeing the work and effort that goes into the quest for the elusive and beautiful gemstones. In the afternoon we did a tour. Our guide was a thickly-accented Bosnian, but he was quite knowledgeable as he had spent many years fossicking and mining. Like all tours, you spend considerable time at buying-opportunities, but we were able to repel the overtures of the sales folk. The drive took us North of the town through some abandoned mine fields and out to an area called the Breakaways – a beautifully sculptured range of mountains – and to see the dingo fence.

Our plan was to have some pizzas following the tour and we invited a Swiss couple who had been on our tour. Even though they were multilingual, they struggled with the Bosnian’s brave attempt at English – even more than we did. They were a pleasant couple, though their elegant and ordered Swiss view of the world struggled with the sight of Aborigines: “Vy canst they be vorking likes everyvon else”. We tried to explain how their dispossession and inequity worked against them, but I don’t think we got through. Similarly they struggled with the idea of refugees and I think they rather liked the idea of indefinite detention. For all that, we enjoyed their company, and their bravery in tackling a very long journey a long way from home in a rented motorhome driving from Cairns to Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Uluru and Alice Springs and finally Darwin over 12 weeks.

Sparse, but with its own beauty.
The road South of Coober Pedy is very flat, but it is amazing in what is essentially a landscape without any defining features, there is such diverse vegetation. Very few trees, but enough scrub and grass to support the huge cattle and sheep stations up this way.

Glendambo is another dry and dusty camping area, but it does have a pub and two fuel stations. We had a pub dinner and joy of joys, they were televising the Cats v Swans game. By the end of the game I was the only really interested viewer. John stayed on, a measure of good friendship. The only others in the room were a couple of bored bartenders who rolled their eyes as we rose to go, indicating their tired pleasure that we were going.

Not much wifi here in Glendambo. Dial-up speed for $10 an hour – no thanks! Port Augusta beckons tomorrow.

Cheers

(*) Our prime minister Mr Turnbull encouraged Australians to be innovative and agile.