18-Jun-2007

Coober Pedy and Erldunda

Sunday - 13^th June 

Departed Ingomar Rest Stop at 8:45 and headed north for Coober Pedy.  Checked into the Stuart Range CP.  Set up then took the afternoon tour of the area, with Dave the tour guide.  The tour takes you all over, out to the golf course, to the mines, the Breakaways, around the various points of interest in the town and to the spectacular underground Serbian Church.  A very informative and enjoyable tour and well worth the cost.  There has been significant winter rain and the plains around Coober Pedy are green to the horizon. 

Monday - 14^th June

Judy and I had a round of golf at the Coober Pedy golf club, not a scrap of grass in sight, they even give you a little piece of artificial turf to put your ball on when chipping on the fairway.  The greens are sand mixed with sump oil and you scrape a flat path to the hole with a scraper so that you can putt on a smooth piece of ground.  It was great fun.  We then returned to some of the places in the area that we had spotted on the tour to do a bit of more leisurely photography.
Park is relatively new and gravel, with power and sullage at sites but no water.  Coin operated showers give varied results, sometimes long hot showers, other times short tepid ones.  There is a coin operated water dispenser in the entrance drive and we put about 140 litres in our tanks for 20c.  The council run a filtration plant to filter the bore water and the result is quite good.  Plenty of trees have been planted and in a few years they should be providing good shade. 

Tuesday - 15^th June

Departed Coober Pedy at around 9:00am heading north again along the Sturt Highway.  Had a tailwind this time (headwinds everywhere else) and when we topped up at Marla we found our petrol consumption had dropped considerably to under 18l/100k from previous 25l/100k.  Which was good because the petrol prices had hit $1.335/litre.
Saw a few very large Wedge-tailed Eagles feasting on road kill.
Kept going north and overnighted at Erldunda CP.  Had a convivial few drinks with Rob & Judy and John and Gail who had camped next to us at Coober Pedy.
Park was crowded and we got a gravel spot but long enough to stay hooked up, amenities good.

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