18 July - Day 5 - Coober Pedy

We left Port Augusta at 8:15 this morning. After refuelling we were soon on our way into the Great Australian Desert. The countryside changes very abruptly and after a half hour or so we started seeing groups of emus roaming about. In fact we had quite a scare when one of them decided to cross the road right in front of us. Luckily we missed it - I imagine a full grown emu would make quite a mess on impact. The Stuart highway is a very good road but it is important to be on continual lookout for wild life and sheep and cattle which seem to graze uninhibited on both sides of the road. This leg of the trip is 540 km straight through a dessert landscape. Surprisingly we saw quite a few large bodies of water including Lake Hart which is huge. Our first stop was in Pimba which is located on the intersection with the road to Woomera. We refuelled as Spud's Road House and then made some fresh salad sandwiches in the caravan. The next roadhouse was located at Glendambo and although we had enough fuel I felt inclined to grab fuel wherever it was available. Some kilometres out of Coober Pedy we started seeing the mullock heaps which are an indication of the extensive opal mining in this area. We're here for a couple of days so we'll go back and have a closer look and take photos. We arrived at the Opal Inn Caravan Park in Coober Pedy at just after 3 pm and set up the van. Internet access is a bit of a problem but I will post photos tomorrow.