The industrial sounds of Coober Pedy woke us at around 7.30am this morning, although it is perplexing to contemplate why you would wait for the sun to rise before setting off underground to mine for opal. Surely your hours of work make no difference when you spend your life underground?
The main street was still awash with ochre-coloured mud from the drenching the town received just prior to our arrival yesterday, giving the place even more of a frontier feel. All the vehicles we passed sported splashes of mud (some more than others), as did most people attempting to dodge the puddles.
Coober Pedy is a strange place, where frontier mining town meets the twenty-first century tourism industry. Gourmet ‘coat of arms’ pizza topped with smoked kangaroo and emu salami is on offer next to a working mine in the centre of town. Corrugated iron and weathered timber provides shelter for a miner and his possessions, while travellers enjoy a cappuccino behind tinted glass and stainless steel shop fittings. Rusted vehicles and mining equipment are scattered across the hills that overlook the main street, along with motels and caravan parks.
After a top-up of diesel fuel and a clean of the car’s windscreen, we resumed our journey northwards towards Alice Springs. The lunar landscape that defines Coober Pedy is unlike anywhere else we have experienced. Barren (and seemingly lifeless) undulating gibber plains are drilled with holes, and the white clay soil deposited in distinct conical mounds beside the mine shaft. This goes on for many kilometres to the north before eventually giving way to the beautifully inhospitable gibber plains that made progress so miserable for early explorers in these parts.
The gibber plains alternated with rolling sand dunes that were heavily grassed after recent rains. Standing water was everywhere to be seen and normally dry, sandy creek beds actually had water flowing through them. This pattern of dunes and gibber continued through to the Marla “community” where we stopped for morning tea.
Marla is an extended roadhouse on the Stuart Highway, south of the Northern Territory border. It also marks the northern end of the Oodnadatta Track, which winds down past Lake Eyre to Maree in the south east. Currently much of this track is closed, as are many of the tracks into Birdsville and Innaminka, due to unseasonably heavy rains for this time of year. It doesn’t take much rain to turn these outback “roads” into slippery, potentially boggy experiences that are best avoided rather than risk being stranded in such a remote part of the country until things dry out.
Marla is a roadhouse serving fuel. It is also an authorised Post Office, a Commonwealth Bank branch, a bar, supermarket, caravan and camping ground. It provides clean toilets, a grassed and shady picnic ground for passing travellers, and an area for the truckies to park up for a rest. It also hosts a community notice board with ‘for sale’ advertisements alongside the latest track conditions report and a current warning that Cadney Park roadhouse to the south is out of fuel.
We pushed on further north towards the border. An eagle was disturbed as we drew closer and took flight from the long grass beside the road not far in front of us. Another was spotted not long afterwards, on the opposite side of the road enjoying a bite to eat.
Our lunch stop was a rest area and information centre on the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory. The last time we stopped here the bush flies were so thick, it felt like the sun was being blocked out – it wasn’t possible to open your mouth to speak without risking ingesting a few. Fortunately, there were none around today and a repeat performance of Marcel Marceau ordering lunch was not necessary. The information boards on display provided all manner of facts, including the one that roads trains are typically 53.5 metres long (some could be longer) and care needs to be taken when passing them – don’t we know that!
We continued northward into the Northern Territory, where the alternating gibber plains and sand dune country gave way to scenery broken up with rocky outcrops and escarpments. In parts it reminded us of scenery in the Kimberley region. We then started moving through mountain ranges that ran from west to east. Gorges were cut through these ranges by ancient rains, leaving distant silhouettes of mythical serpents on the horizon as we journeyed toward them.
We passed the turnoff west to Uluru, where another roadhouse conveniently watched over the T intersection. It had clearly been very wet, as the enter and exit points to the roadhouse had muddy puddles nearly deep enough to mandate 4WDs only. We continued north and eventually sighted the MacDonnell Ranges and “The Gap” that provides access to Alice Springs, which is situated largely on the northern side of the range. The Todd River is to blame for the gap, although the Todd is more famous for rarely having any water in it. Unusually, there were still areas of standing water in the sandy river bed as we approached.
Cold nights are forecast with 3C tonight, 1C tomorrow and 6C the following morning. To balance this out, the days are getting up to 22C with clear skies before we leave in a few days. Hopefully this will be enough sunny weather to help the Tanami Track dry out before we head out that way later in the week.
So the milestones achieved today included:
- driving through another state and entering the Northern Territory,
- watching the temperature on the Prado dash reach a peak of 16C – almost the cause for celebration!