Rise and shine and that we did even before the first sunrays hit our breakfast. With the first streaks of red we raced away from the Flinders to get a grand view of the sun breaking out of her sleep over their mountains’ majestic ridges.
**** This post came to be through a Groovy Grape Tour in 2014 provided free of charge to cover it in blogs posts. I wasn’t paid.****
Posers that we were, we included road photos in the wait and got some stunning sitting and standing pictures in the middle of the lane –of course always listening for any approaching car. The sun had us waiting quite a bit but it was definitely worth it when the grass tips and east facing mountain slopes were tinted in a golden light. The Flinders are a definite must see when coming to South Australia.
The sun was out and we on our way, embracing a beautiful day with pretty clouds overhead. They did not fool us, though.
We knew it was quickly getting warmer and warmer the closer we came to the centre of Australia. Before that, we had a couple of stops to stretch our feet and appreciate all that Australia had to offer.
We walked on a dried out salt lake (the last time I was here, it was still wet and I couldn’t go near), saw a rare blooming sturt desert pea and took pictures fleeting trucks racing down the highway. One of them even had a house on its back! The things you see on the Stuart Highway…
After a long drive, pyramid shaped hills were increasingly dominating the horizons to our left and right and we knew we were close to Coober Pedy, famous opal mining town.
The hills were actually all the rubble from the digging and entering those lands would have been super dangerous. So we drove on and soon made our way out of the heat and into the cool underground museum.
Here, we watched a short film of the history of Coober Pedy (or as the original name was, Kupa Piti) and the opal mining process and went down deeper into the former-mine-turned-home as we proceeded in amazement along the stone corridors that needed no stabilising – the natural gypsum held everything in position.
Another attraction that Coober Pedy held for us had a slightly sad twang to it. The town’s kangaroo shelter introduced us to a couple of orphaned kangaroos – both adult and baby ones.
The shelter’s owners, however, have been taking great care of the hurt joeys and we were deeply moved by them devoting their life to help save injured kangaroos.
We even got to pet and feed them. This time, however, the little joey was not too keen on kissing strangers. Well, I have had my share so wasn’t too sad. For those lovers of aboriginal art and didgeridoos, the shelter owners hosted an art gallery which even delivered to the respective home countries.
How convenient. After feeding the roos, we needed some nourishment ourselves, which we found in John’s Pizza Bar and Restaurant and then quickly headed for our underground dorm beds to rest our heads from all of the day’s impressions.
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