what's that coming over the hill...

...is it a monster truck? and then some

Heading west back across the Nullarbor on Sunday we heard the radio conversations from a wide load convoy ahead of us - "Caution, 8.5m load approaching  please pull over"....."repeat that?"..." EIGHT AND A HALF METRES"  - you heard it right. We caught up to them just before the services we were planning to refuel at and they really were that big - 2 CAT mining trucks on low loaders, hanging over the verges on both sides of the road. Stopped to let them get ahead and thought we might not see them again, but ran into them again 50km up the road. Pilots told us to overtake as they slowed going up the next hill, so we were there in 3rd gear doing 80 with 2 wheels just on the tarmac, the other 2 way over in the dirt, and all you could see from the passenger window was the side of the massive tyres. Very scary.

Pulled in for the night another 60km up the road and watched them roll past head on. Big beasts indeed.

March - Coober Pedy and Outback South Australia

I was surprised to find that Coober Pedy had grown since my last visit 30 ish years ago. The Stuart Highway is now sealed all the way and the town only has a few gravel roads this time, more motels and tourist parks as well as two supermarkets! The tourist trade has flourished as more people are now travelling through to/from Alice Springs and Darwin. Many people still live in ‘dugouts’ or underground houses as the temperature is at a constant 24C no matter what it’s like outside. It was 41C when we were there and it gets even hotter in mid summer!

  

Given the nature of the landscape, many films have been shot here including Mad Max III Beyond the Thunderdome, Pitch Black (the ‘landing craft’ is still there)

  

And our favourite, Priscilla Queen of the desert (at The Breakaways)

There is also the Dog Fence that stretches 5,600km from the Great Australian Bight in SA to the Darling Downs in south eastern Queensland and is twice as long as the Great Wall of China. It has proved very successful in keeping dingos out of sheep country which is south of the fence, north being cattle (and dingo) country.

We also visited Woomera, established in 1947 as a site for the launching of British experimental rockets. The Defence Department did operate a communication facility and testing range which is still a prohibited area. NASA also operated a Deep Space Tracking station here between 1960 and 1972.

On the way back down, we ‘popped’ in to see friends (Lyndal and Denys) at Roxby Downs, 450kms away. We were hoping to do the tour of the Olympic Dam Mine, but we were the only ones booked on the tour and they needed 8. As both Lyndal and Denys work at the mine, they took us for a drive around the outside and showed us some of the plant and told us about some of the operations. The mine is still underground but there are plans to expand it to open-cut, which will eventually make it the biggest hole in the world! (L&D - thanks again for a great evening)

Thirty kilometres from Roxby Downs is the historic opal mining town of Andamooka. It’s much smaller (and nicer) than Coober Pedy. We visited some of the historical cottages – these are only semi-dugout unlike Coober Pedy which are all underground.

It was then back down to the Eyre Peninsula, home of the largest commercial fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere,

And some free camping by the beach, and to try our hands at fishing once more before we head back across the Nullabor to WA.

Saturday morning

Surveying last nights handiwork over farmer's market  hot smoked sea trout and scrambled eggs. That's about 6kg less we will have to tow back across the Nullabor...

Friday nights...

I do miss Friday nights with Lee at the wharf. Sitting by the Thames watching the sunset at Camino,  bottle of chilled fino sherry and salted almonds, talking bollocks.

Having to slum it sitting by the southern ocean on the Eyre peninsula with the BBQ waiting for steak and a fruity shiraz that we picked up a couple of weeks ago - the chilled rose has already gone - listening to Maria talk bollocks. It's just not the same...we are facing the wrong way for sunset.

Serve at room temperature?

What does one do to serve red wine in 36 degree heat? One drinks chilled rose until the sun goes down then swaps :-)

In coober pedy for a couple of days. It's not a big place but figure that you can only actually venture out mornings and evenings, with afternoons spent wallowing in the pool.

Excuse me while I go and pour some cheese onto this cracker....

F#%*ing worthless caravan dealers

In particular the Muppet that used cheap crimp connectors to attach the electric brakes when they fitted the wheels to our van. Towing up to woomera today the final connector broke away so we had no trailer braking for the last 100km. It's bad enough when they are the only connectors most people can buy in the local equivalent of halfords, but its inexcusable that a manufacturer/dealer should be using such shit on a newly supplied vehicle.  Seriously inclined to lodge a formal complaint with whatever form of trading standards exists over here, and the importers

And the real pisser is that I have decent, manufacturing crimps from rs components in the post to me from Perth, but they hadn't arrived at the post office today in time to collect them on our way up here. These are the ones motor manufacturers use that grip the insulation as well as the conductor to support the load and avoid fatiguing the wire, and they are about 20% of the price of the shit ones if you buy them by the 100....should be there when we go back down next week.

Halfway-ish

Week 26 on the road and we've completed the eastern loop back to port pirie where we stopped in September on our drive east.

We've done 25,000 kms already, and probably have another 15 to do going back west and through the north over the next 4 months. That's a lot more than initially planned, partly because we changed our itinerary, and partly because weve found we do more running around without the van on the back. You really do get into the mindset of "popping down the road" to see somewhere and its a couple of hundred kms round trip.

Overall we're having a ball, and so glad we are doing it. well over budget but wouldnt change the approach we have taken and would do exactly the same again if we had to - itinerary, choice of vehicles, timings, and would advise anyone thinking of doing it to jump in and get rolling.

I find I am enjoying the historic and current industrial sights as much as the natural. Mines, sugar mills, brewery and distillery tours, and of course the wineries....boy do we have some bottles to get through in the next few weeks. But given they go to all that effort to grow the grapes and make the wine and pour it for you at the cellar door it just seems rude to drive past and not sample.

Couple of days here catching up on jobs and visiting the lead smelter, then we are off up to coober pedy and woomera for the rocket museum, and seeing Knees' relatives Lyndal and Denys on route. We met them in Greenwich a couple of years ago when they were visiting and as a former truckie Denys' views on 5th wheel vans and utes were listened to. So its all his fault we got a Tigger :-)

February - South Australia, wineries, Adelaide and more wineries

Here we are in South Australia. First stop was the Coonawarra wine region, near Penola. It was quite a surprise to find that the area was completely flat and consisted of a strip of red dirt (terra rossa) 15kms long by 2kms wide. It was very easy to get around but we only managed 15 of the 26 wineries, which is still good going J

Just north of Penola are the world heritage listed fossil caves at Narracoorte. It’s quite amazing what has been found, including a leaf eating kangaroo and giant wombat!

Back to the coast and a bit of free camping at Kingston, home of the rock lobster industry and Larry, the big Lobster

We continued up the coast and through the Coorong National Park to McLaren Vale and more wine tasting before we hit Adelaide. We saw the sign below and had to include it for Clive :-) 

  

We only spent a few days in Adelaide before heading for the hills, through Stirling, and Hahndorf (in the pouring rain) and on into the Barossa Valley. We met a retired couple at one of the wineries in McLaren Vale who also happened to be staying at the same caravan park as us, so over a few nights of reminiscing (we have a lot in common) and bottles of wine, they invited us to stay on their block in the vineyards in the Barossa, so that's where we are now.

We did the historic tour of Penfold’s and saw their top notch wine (Grange) in barrels. The cellar below is valued at AUS$35m!

So far we've visited some of the big names such as Wolf Blass, Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek, Peter Lehman, Langmeil (beautiful wines – all to our taste!) just to name a few as well as some of the smaller wineries that don’t have a cellar door and sell through larger outlets such as Chateau Tanunda and Artisan. So many wines and so little time!

We also visited the Barossa Brewing Company today and covered about 17kms on foot, as it was a nice but windy day and neither of us wanted to drive!

We’re heading off through the Clare Valley tomorrow, and more wineries, before we start our trek inland to Coober Pedy next week.