SOUTH AUSTRALIAN TRIP 2005

Tuesday 8 November to Monday 14 November

Coober Pedy to Arkaroola

Blog 2

We headed for Coober Pedy along the bitumen road of the Stuart Highway that joins the south of Australia to Darwin and pretty much follows the route that the explorer Stuart took as the first white man to make the journey. The highway was only completed in 1987, to Coober Pedy. A long almost straight run, the countryside had very few trees, some sheep and cattle grazing a few eagles but not much else. The temperature went to 370C. On the way we saw Lake Hart from the road lookout.

Coober Pedy is an Opal mining town and looks just like that. Mines with mullock heaps, underground houses, exhibits, shops and the aborigines sitting around the streets. We had a great dinner at the Old Miner's Underground Dugout Café. Thank goodness for the air conditioning in the van.

Instead of looking at the mines etc which we had seen before at other opal mining towns we decided to drive out along the Oodnadatta Road to see the Moon Plains which do look just like the Lunar landscape. These Moon Plains have been the back drops in many movies. We have driven hundreds of km over the past few days where there are virtually NO trees.

We drove past the Dog Fence which is the longest fence in the world. It runs from Surfers Paradise QLD to The Bight near WA to keep the dingos out. Cattle run to the north and the dingoes are kept out of the south of the Dog Fence where sheep are run. The Dog Fence is 3 times as long as the Great Wall of China and is still maintained today.

The next stop was the Painted Desert which is most beautiful country that has eroded away to expose layers of sedimentary sandstone in spectacular hills of colour that give it its name. The beautiful colours are so varied and bright that they don't look real. The views from Mt Batterbee Lookout were exceptionally haunting and beautiful.

Since we were already on the Oodnadatta Road we decided to drive the rest of the way to Oodnadatta, population of 240, and its famous Pink Roadhouse.

Oodnadatta was a terminus for the Great Northern Railway from 1891 until 1927 and a base for huge teams of camels supplying outposts as far away as northern Queensland. On the way back along the Oodnadatta Road, unsealed dirt road but very good, we stopped off at the Breakaways Reserve. It was about 5:00pm in the afternoon and the light and the colour were fantastic.

The Breakaways are colourful hills that have broken away from the Stuart Range. From the lookouts at the Breakaways a view of The Castle and the Panorama Hill can be seen. The land is quite desolate but so beautiful.

We drove to William Creek, (famous for being in the smallest Australian town) along the William Creek Road, where we had lunch at the William Creek Pub. Quaint little pub with lots of interesting things up on the walls but the publican was quite a miserable guy.

From there we started our journey along the famous Oodnadatta Track. It runs along a String of Springs that comes up from the Great Artesian Basin. This is a path well known by the aborigines for thousands of years. The track set the path for the original Telegraph Line and the Old Ghan Railway. Many of the ruins along the way are from the old railway stations and old telegraph relay stations. We had a wonderful day exploring all the stops along the way. There was very little traffic, the weather was perfect, blue sky and not too hot.

This magical Oodnadatta Track takes in Australia's smallest town, the largest operating cattle station in the world, the Anna Creek Station (owned by the Kidman Group), the longest man-made structure in the world, The Dog Fence, and a lake the size of Holland, Lake Eyre. Who could ask for more in a day?

After William Creek, Strangways Springs and Beresford Bore are relay stations of the Telegraph Line. At Beresford Bore there is a dam from the pumped Artesian Bore, a huge cast iron tank that was used to re-water the early steam locomotives. Lots of trees and bird life and we even saw a dingo. The old workers homestead is still there and seems to be still used by campers although probably illegally.

Coward Springs was the first place where we actually saw Artesian Bore water bubbling up. There was a natural spa which was lovely and warm and a pond/lake where the water was coming up from underground. Date palms and lots of plants provided a habitat for a huge number of birds particularly galahs and white cockatoos. The noise was so loud.

A 4km detour off the Oodnadatta Track led us to the Bubbler. In the middle of the most barren and salty region we came across water bubbling out of the ground surrounded by greenery and a bubbling brook with moss growing. It was most beautiful.

The next amazing stop was the Blanche Cup Springs. A path led to a rocky dome at the top of which was a pool of water surrounded by water plants with a salt ring on the rock around it. It was an amazing sight. All unexpected beauty. The Oodnadatta Track went straight past Lake Eyre South. The lookout gave us just a glimpse of this HUGE salt lake. Again a most spectacular sight.

We spent the next few days based at Roxby Downs which is the mining town for the Olympic Dam Mine.

While we were waiting to do the mine tour we explored Andamooka which is an opal town about 34km from Roxby Downs. It is a haphazard town where none of the streets have names.

We decided to take the 4WD track from Andamooka to Lake Torrens, another huge salt lake. We were following a mud map from the tourist information centre in Roxby Downs and it was very difficult to determine where the road actually went. After 20km of driving over stony creek beds, up and down steep hills we see a town on the hill and as we got closer we realised that we were back in Andamooka!!! We had no idea we were going in a circle. We laughed a lot, had a great drive in the track but never did get to see Lake Torrens!!!! We bought 2 pieces of the local opal with paintings on them by a local artist. Another great day.

Roxby Downs has a population of more than 4000 people with lots of young families. It apparently has the highest birth rate in Australia. The average age for the population is 22 years.

The next day we went on a tour of the Olympic Dam Mine. The mine site is massive. It is the 4th largest copper mine in the world and also mines uranium, gold and silver as they are all contained in the same ore body. The site is not only the mine but the site of extraction of the various metals and purification of the copper. It employs miners, mining engineers, metallurgists, chemists, technicians, maintenance people and other things are contracted out, including the truck drivers, explosive experts etc. Just the size of the operation and the organisation needed for it to function is overwhelming.

After the tour finished, we headed back onto the Oodnadatta Track and stopped for lunch at a Sculpture Park along the road. Fantastic large sculptures, the place is called Plane Henge because one of the large sculptures is made up of 2 planes. The sculptures in that environment were impressive and some of them were interactive.

At the end of the Oodnadatta track is Marree where there are monuments to the Afghans and their camels. We also saw some of the old carriages of the Ghan and it was the site where the gauge changed so people had to change trains and move all the cargo before they could go on to Alice Springs.

We headed south to Leigh Creek where we stopped for the night. Leigh Creek is a coal mining town that was moved from its original spot in 1984 as the original town was in the way of the mining. This brown coal field supplies Port Augusta with its fuel which in turn supplies most of South Australia with its electricity, including the Olympic Dam Mine site which has an electricity bill of $43 million a year!!!!

From Leigh Creek we headed towards Arkaroola on a dirt road through the Gammom Ranges of the North Flinders Ranges. It was no longer desert country and the hills were quite red with some trees and shrubs. The many dry creek beds were lined with beautiful large Red River Gums.

We stopped at Iga-Warta Aboriginal Community for a coffee and chatted to the locals for a bit and then moved on. Along the way there were some horses and 2 donkeys on the road so of course Mike stopped to take a picture. The horses left immediately, one donkey slowly but surely headed straight for Mike and the other donkey just watched not knowing whether to run with the horses or look after his friend. A very funny interaction particularly the look on Mike's face as the donkey came towards him. We drove through beautiful Italowie Gorge and arrived at Arkaroola Village at about 4:00pm.

We took a 4.5h Ridgetop Tour in an open 4WD truck. The whole trip was absolutely SPECTACULAR. The sky was blue and it wasn't too hot, for me anyway. It was just as the brochure said; an unforgettable encounter with the timeless terrain and unique natural beauty of the Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary.

Arkaroola has a 1,600 million year geological history. There were red granite mountains with Spinifex covered hillsides, pine trees, mulga trees and of course red river gums in the Arkaroola Creek bed. There was native lemongrass, native curry plant and the fruit salad plant. Our guide, Wayne, told us about the geological features including the Freeling Heights, Mt Painter, Lake Frome, which is another huge permanent dry salt lake used from the satellite maps as a reference for their white colour. (Apparently Lake Argyle is used as their blue reference). The trip razor backs the mountain ridge and is definitely a 4WD track. We stopped at 3 lookouts; each one higher than the previous one and ended up at Sillers Lookout. We stopped here for morning tea and a chat with all the others on the trip. Absolutely spectacular. There is also some Uranium mining done in the area.

On the return journey we looked at some of the rock samples that were collected in a particular spot. Great stuff but we wont remember what they all were!!!

Reg and Griselda Sprigg bought this Arkaroola property of 610sqkm in 1960's and converted the sheep station that it was, to the wilderness sanctuary that it is today. They eradicated most of the 90,000 feral goats and camels which were destroying the environment and consequently killing the native animals. Dr. Reg Sprigg was a geologist, marine geologist and conservationist and set up the tourism village that exists today. Reg studied this area here with Sir Douglas Mawson (famous Antarctic Explorer) when he was a student. He led an amazing life, did many things and seemed to be a bit of a scallywag.