As we keep burning up the red centre toward our first major goal being Uluru we pulled over to a lookout to find an amazing sight of a lake. Like aliens had been there, at the lookout past the fence line was a strange assortment of rock piles. As we had a little time on our hands we decided that it was only fair to build one of these rock piles ourselves to add to the illusion of aliens..
After our engineering degrees were complete, we made it another 200 odd kilometers along the road to find ourselves at Agnus Creek. Here you may as well of said throw us in a TV 4×4 show. The sunset along the desert country horizon while we cooked damper in a camp oven on the open fire was spectacular and ever so relaxing. Once we were satisfied with a serving of crisp yet fluffy damper (with butter and golden syrup of coarse) we made our way to bed knowing in only a couple of days Uluru would be before our eyes…
As we left the small roadhouse of Pimba we found ourselves back on the Stuart Hwy and into a minefield of rubble piles and scattered “Blowers” (Machines to “blow” out the soil from the holes of the miners). Not too far from these sights was the town of Coober Pedy. Many would call it a ghost town as 70% of the population is housed underground. We soon discovered the reason for this is the unbearable heat, desert like conditions and thousands of flies!!
Here we went on a private tour around Faye’s Underground Dugout she once called home. This was a quaint little house and a good example of what life would have been back in the day, when she had first helped with the establishment of the town and hand dug (with two other girlfriends) her home. Note the indoor living room swimming pool! They also took us down Faye’s mine for part of the tour and showed and explained how opal mining worked and even pieces of opal that were still in the walls of the mine!
We then found a local campground where we were able to set up camp and reminisce on the days events..
Interesting Road Trip Viewing:
On the way back out on the main drag we came across the beautiful site by the name of The Breakaways. This “backdrop” shot was used in a few commercials and even made an appearance in Mad Max III.
