Adelaide to Alice Springs - Day 3

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This was a long drive. 980 Km!!

We got up at 5am, just not to lose the good practice and we stopped by the road to see the sunrise.At that time of the day even a dodgy petrol station in the middle of the desert looks good. :-)

Just in case that picture wasn't good enough I managed to get the services of the model for the next issue of the "Australian Truck" magazine and after seeing the driver leaving the truck to fetch a coffee we took that window of oportunity and I managed to take a good shot, just good enough for the next central page of the magazine.

As you can see on the bottom of the truck, this is a road train. This is something very common in the outback but we europeans have never seen before. In Europe, trucks thend to have only the cabin and a trailer, these road trains have the cabin and then 3 or more trailers. They may be 60 odd meters long hence the name train.

The sunrise was pretty good though

The landscape was remarkably similar all the way

 
and we started seeing some salt lakes along the way and as part of the itinerary we stopped at Lake Harts in order to take a few pictures.

Entrance to the lake. There were no flies in the tunnel!!

Sometimes in many photos we are kinda winking or with our eyes semi-closed...it's not becauseof some nervous system breakdown or because we are flirting with the photographer. It's because there are 2 or 3 flies trying to land on your eyes, nose or ears! and there were so many of them...

Except in the tunnel, what a relieve...2 minutes with no flies before coming back to the bus

After a while you tend to learn what are the best and worst places for the flies. These flies in particular seem to dislike cool places, the hotter the place, the more flies you get.

The Australian road signs never stop surprising me!

I bet the flies count was about right.

As it was a very long drive, the previous day we all made some sandwiches with the aim to eat them in the bus, we were meant to put our names on them so they wouldn't get all mixed up but I just coudn't resist giving mine a little it bit more personality than a boring name. :-) and I almost felt sorry when the time to unwrapp it came...

Then came what I think was the best part of the day, we reached our destination, Coober Pedy

This town is in the middle of nowhere, literally, it's desert all around it for hundreds of km but there you can find lots of opals, is one of the most important areas for opal mining in the world. That, brings some risk for the tourists though

After the first world war, many soldiers decided to come and try their luck in the trade, when they got to Coober Pedy they realised how difficult it was to get there, let alone bring any construction materials with them and as they had a lot of experience digging trenches in the front lines they dug out their houses instead of building them up. Most hills in this town contain one or several houses, they are all dug out in the rock and we were about to have the experience to spend the night in one of these underground bunkers/houses!

When the lights go off it gets pitch dark, you can't see your hand in front of you and you can't hear anything from the outside it's the perfect place for a good night sleep.

I must admit it was one of the best night sleep I ever had. Zero noise, Zero light and constant temperature of 24-25C

But before going to bed though we went to visit the local museum. You would think that a local museum in a place like this wouldn't have much to offer but you would be wrong. It was quite interesting actually, they showed us what it is like to mine for opal and the history of the place since the first time they discovered opal in the region until present day.

They also showed us what a dug out house looked like in the old times with the first miners and what they actually look like today, because in this region they don't build houses, they dig them out! which offer several advantages over building it.

First, they don't have to import building materials which reduces the cost quite considerably, and second, it keeps the house at a constant temperature of 24-25C although you need to create a few shafts for allowing the air to renovate and circulate throughout the house. Too many of them and it gets cold at night and too noisy so the numbre must be right.

Old dug out house

New dug out house

After the museum we went to have dinner and then some of us went to the local pub

And this was no ordinary pub. It was dug out as well! and the exit was a good climb!

It looks amazing but in the middle of this desertic area there are millions of insects. This was the first mantis I've every seen. It was by the door of the bunker.

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