Day 195. Kings Canyon to Coober Pedy

On the road again...

Unbelievable! Up early again. And here I am thinking we were suppose to be on holidays....

But yes, it was another early morning. We had good reason too, as we were leaving the Northern Territory today and heading into South Australia. Our destination - well we weren't quite sure, but if Scarlett travelled well we were going to try go all the way to Coober Pedy.

Two dead camels

We were on the road by 7:30am, and headed out as the sun came up over the horizon. I'm a little wary these days of travelling so early or late, as we have seen some serious road kill in our travels. For example; On the way out to Ayers Rock we saw two dead camels on the side of the road, and the story goes that the car that hit them was a write off and the people in the car were air lifted to hospital in critical conditions! Not nice!

A herd of feral camels in the middle of the road!

And they are off and running!

And it goes to show that I had good reason to be wary. This morning we sawlots od dead animals, including; a dead eagle, a dead owl, a dead dingo, and another dead camel. But wait! There's more. What should we find as we came over a crest? A herd of feral camels sunning themselves in the middle of the road. We practically had to come to a dead stop before they decided to get a move on, and Scarlett loved seeing the little babies!

Poor Scarlett. Forced to watch movie after movie today...

 About three hours later, we finally reached the Stuart Hwy. We took a quick break, filled up with diesel, grabbed a bite to eat, and hit the road again. This time Bec was behind the wheel and she was going to do a two hour stint; allowing me to take a break in the back with Scarlett and watch a movie.

About two hours later, and we were pulling over at a rest area for another break, and we took the opportunity to grab some lunch. Bec pre-cooked a pasta salad for lunch, and it was Divine! Just wonderful! It certainly pepped us up ready for our next leg. I again jumped behind the wheel, while both Bec and Scarlett settled in and had a sleep for a couple of hours. ZZzzzz......

And Bec's in the hot seat as we cross the border into South Australia

Again we pulled over for a driver swap, and I ended up putting an extra jerry of diesel in the Pajero just to be safe. By this time we were only 130km out of Coober Pedy, but we were all starting to get a little tired. We ended up asking Scarlett if she wanted to continue on to the caravan park at Coober Pedy, or to stop for the day and camp in the rest area that we were in. She wanted to find more kids to play with, and said lets keep going; so that's what we did!

The Opal mine moonscape that surrounds Coober Pedy

We arrived at the Big 4 Oasis Caravan Park in Coober Pedy right on 5pm. It ended up taking us 9.5hrs to travel the 780kms from Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory. This would definitely have to be the biggest day we have ever had on the road to date, and we were all feeling it by the time we got here.

Finally! Coober Pedy

To be truthful, Scarlett was a little champion today. It was a very long day, and she behaved extremely well. Tonight however she was still 'wired' and wanted to continue playing, but Bec and I were exhausted. We let her stay up and watch 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', but she went straight to bed after it.

Tomorrow, Bec has us booked in to do a half day tour of Coober Pedy and the Opal Mines. Scarlett is really looking fwd to finding an Opal to add to her rock collection, so hopefully we find one or two!

You just never know what you might find...

PS: Very tired tonight! Sorry if my blurb is boring, but I'm struggling and having fun just trying to process anything at the moment, and that includes doing this blog...