This is one of Col's thunderbox shots. A spectacular sunrise at Mt Finke!
Happy Birthday Fiona!!
There were a couple more suggestions for a group name. Everyone likes “In a Rut” more now that they’ve experienced the driving out here, but even more popular was “Red Dirt” by Stuart.
Bruce then came up with a song for this section “Googs Vibration”! Good one. Enjoy those ruts!
The dunes were pretty small north of Mount Finke, with the
largest being between the lake and mountain. It wasn’t long before we crossed
the Trans Australian Railway and came across the dog proof fence again. It's amazing to think that this is the same fence that is on the border of NSW and Queensland!
From here it is an easy graded dirt road to the Stuart Highway. We planned to stop at Tarcoola pub to meet some locals, but all the people had disappeared! There was this whole town, but no people. Pub, hospital, police station, school, church and post office. The houses had BBQs and chairs on the verandah, as if the people vanished instantly leaving everything behind. Peter was funny. He knocked on one of the doors. There was no answer, he then proceeded to tidy up their verandah, righting chairs. There seemed to be only one occupied house at the east end of town near the railway track, but we didn’t meet anyone. It was such a fun, spooky ghost town, that was most likely abandoned when the mine closed down.
Travelling east again, crossing the railway several times we
come upon another mostly abandoned town at Kingoonya. We were hoping to visit
these outback pubs. We had lunch at a rest stop just west of the town that
had a pit toilet, table and bins.
There was one house only with a sign of life and a couple of
dogs. The fuel bowsers looked disused and the general store had no floor left
on the joists. This town has died on and off since the Stuart highway was moved
east of here to Glendambo. There is fuel and supplies available at Glendambo. They have
a population of 33 people and 22 500 sheep.
Then we were heading north on the Stuart highway (where Stuart needed to get a photo), to Coober Pedy where we checked in to our underground motel. Cool! Fun sleeping in a cave.
After a quick shower we headed into town as there was no laundry here. Col stayed at the Laundromat with Jordan while Jack and I did the grocery shopping. Most in the group did a similar thing, hoping to have more sightseeing time the following morning. It was quite a late dinner but so delicious and happy, fun company and a little bit of wine at John’s Pizza. I hope Fiona enjoyed her birthday. Messages sent back and forth with our Friday night dinner crew. It’s a shame they’re not all here.
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