To the Outback - Part 1

Term 2 came to a close on 29 June, after a busy finale with mid-year reports to write and parent-teacher interviews. Sarah and I then went for a meal at the Border Inn to celebrate making it half way through our Oz experience. We went here for our first meal when we arrived in Echuca on my birthday, 30th December last year. It was a time to reflect on the first half of our journey and wonder where those 6 months had gone, as it seemed that they have flown by.

In Echuca itself the implementation of the third set of traffic lights appears to have gone well and both locals and visitors have accepted these multi-coloured traffic controllers as part of everyday life in this picturesque Northern Victorian outpost. Indeed it seems that they have always been here and perhaps, over the course of time, will be accepted as a vital part of the community of the city. Future town planners could even consider adding further traffic lights at road junctions, as the city expands, which will give the opportunity to future generations to become aroused by the wonder of modern technology playing an integral role in the control of vehicular access around this settlement. Who knows?

As July arrived so did the rain and the cold, as my footy team played in appalling conditions to a very unfortunate defeat. Unluckily I had to come off half way through the second half with a twisted ankle, which fortunately, despite some pain, did not ruin our forthcoming trip to Adelaide and the Outback. We drove down to Melbourne Airport on 2 July and after a really easy and efficient process in parking the car, at the long term car park, we were off on a relatively short hop west to Adelaide. When we got there, in the rain, we picked up a hire car and drove for an hour to a town called Tanunda, which is in the heart of the famous wine producing region of the Barossa Valley. We stayed at the Caravan park, which was cheap and quite centrally located. The following day we started by driving to the outlying wineries with the intention of finishing with a walk around those in Tanunda itself, in the afternoon. In true Croatian and Scottish fashion we were drinking before 11 am! As afternoon arrived we dumped the car and walked (or hobbled, in my case and staggered, in Sarah's case) to the Tanunda based wineries. As we were about to leave the first one we visited here we got talking to some people (2 Aussies and a Pom) and stayed for the rest of the afternoon sharing some of the Barossa's finest tipples. A relatively early night followed.

The following day was going to be a biggy in terms of driving and distance. We set off to drive north and to the Outback. Around midday we arrived at a town called Port Augusta, where we refuelled the car and ourselves before hitting the Outback. As soon as the last house passed us in Port Augusta we were driving in the Outback heading for the mining town of Coober Pedy. The drive in the Outback, although long, was far from boring as the scenery was always changing from areas with many small trees to areas with many shrubs, through flat land to hilly parts, through parts with lakes (of water and just dried salt) through parts with a few hardy plants, to areas with absolute nothing but red earth and dust. It was really different. We eventually arrived in Coober Pedy just before dark, the journey had taken us 9 and a bit hours and almost 900 km. We were staying in a cave. Who said romance is dead? Me protect woman in cave! Seriously, many of the places in Coober Pedy are underground because of the immense heat in the summer months where temperatures approach 50 degrees. Also the winter nights do get cold out in the desert as we were due to find out. To be continued.