Highlights from the Centre

It would probably take ages to take you through all of our road adventures of the past few weeks, so we'll just skip to the best parts. Driving in Australia is quite the adventure in itself!

* Driving the Oodnadatta Track: After a few days soaking up the nature in Flinders Ranges in SA, it seemed the unsealed road ahead open and ready for Daisy (we looked the other way from a few of the "4WD only" warnings, tee hee). Life was more and more remote as we headed north along the route of the old Ghan railway-- the new Ghan, which connects the country north to south, takes a more direct and definitely less scenic route. As town populations went from 1000 to the 100's and less, fuel became pricier and fruit more difficult to find (we raided one truck stop for all of its 4 apples and 6 bananas!). We spent a night in dusty Marree, where the Oodnadatta Track splits off from another famous Outback Track to Birdsville, QLD-- a place where the only residents are hanging out at the pub, and the only life on the street is a lonely wandering dog-- and wondered, if this was the beginning of the Track, what would the middle of it look like? The flies were getting unbearable but the sunsets were gorgeous. The next day we went further into nothing, where you'd wave excitedly to passing vehicles (if there were any) and the roadside was littered with rusted-out car wrecks and hardly a brushy plant. We hopped in and out of the car, exploring deserted rail stations, giant salt lakes, mysterious springs to swim in, and then the scariest moment ever-- we were almost at the legendary William Creek, town of population 10, on the biggest cattle station in the world (size of Belgium!) when we crested a hill and had to hit the brakes-- a river was crossing the road! We measured the depth with our ankles, and found it wasn't super-deep, but it was about 4 road lanes wide. Cold and with a bit of a current though-- and we had no idea how Daisy might fare. It was only 30 km to William Creek past there (to gas!) or another 150 km back to a detour. We were debating this problem-- we certainly didn't expect a flooded road in the dustiest, driest Outback ever-- when we heard the hum of a distant engine, and a big 4WD Landcruiser crossed the river easily toward us. The couple, a sweet older pair from near Sydney, inside assured us it would be no problem for us to cross, and if we did get stuck, they'd pull us out. With a bit of coaching to Adrian, he crossed the "creek" with no problem! There was lots of cheering and we left our separate ways-- though we don't know what we would have done without those people turning up at the very right moment. It was an easy cruise to William Creek, where we had a much-needed beer at the pub (of course a town with 10 people has a pub-- it's Australia!). And then our dusty detour was finished... it was back to the main highway (relieved!) to opal-mining capital Coober Pedy.

-Coober Pedy, SA- Opal mining town where half the population lives in dugouts (underground homes) while they mine for their fortune! The whole place looks like some sort of disaster zone... mounds of dirt everywhere from digging and many signs saying "watch where you're walking" so you don't fall in a hole!

- Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), and Kings Canyon: The big natural rock wonders of the centre were awesome when seeing them up close-- despite the hype! We did lots of hiking around them, though we didn't catch much in the way of beautiful sunsets. Our first night in Uluru rained and our subsequent sunsets and sunrises were pretty cloudy. Amazing to get to see these sights in person though. Check out the photos on Flickr.

-Etc: Chasing herds of feral camels grazing at the roadside (they're fast!). Dodging toads hopping in the road after dark in the rain while trying to get to our next stop en route to Darwin. Getting beaten by a knee-deep and very muddy river near Kings Canyon (Palmer River) while trying to take a shortcut to Alice Springs (we had to drive an extra 250 km instead). Would it really hurt to just pave a few more roads, or even build a bridge or two?

Go Fossick Yourself

We caught gem fever this week and headed west from Emerald to the funny little towns of Sapphire and Rubyvale for some fossicking. After hearing about this place from another backpacker, we had to visit. Visions of meeting old, white-bearded prospector types with picks slung over their shoulders at the pub, and of stumbling over a giant gemstone on a dried-up riverbed filled our imaginations. We’d heard cows ran free here, people were a little nutty, and the ground looked like a war zone. A crazy place! And it was all true (except for maybe the striking it rich part).

Our first night we stayed at a rest area on the way into Sapphire, under a giant orange full moon. A miner type (or so we guessed) burned a huge bonfire next to his shantytown trailer and tin-shed house across the street. It was all a little creepy (and we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) so we headed inside the van early that night. We were jarred awake by loud mooing sometime in the wee hours of the morning—Adrian looked outside and there were cows hanging out by the bathroom block (weird!). We went back to sleep and not long after, the mooing woke us up again—this time Dayle popped her head out and the cows were grazing and scratching themselves right next to Daisy! It felt like a bad tabloid story—When Cows Attack! Not a very good sleep that night.

We moved onto a fenced caravan park the next day (yay, no cows!) and ended up in the pool all afternoon—who can fossick when there’s a swimming pool! Tame rainbow lorikeets jumped around our campsite and ate bread out of our hands (so cute). We visited the Rubyvale pub in hopes of drinking with old prospectors, but the clientele weren’t as dusty and disheveled as we’d hoped. (It looked like a pretty normal country pub).

The next day we finally visited a fossicking park—where for $7 a bucket, you get a bucket of “sapphire wash”, fossicking tools, and a lesson on how to sieve and wash the dirt and find sapphires. It was so much fun we hit two different fossicking parks, never really hitting the jackpot but we now have little baggies of sparkly jewels! We learned that sapphires come in more than just blue—green, yellow, maybe more colours than that, and they’re the hardest stone next to only diamonds. The Sapphire Gemfields were never commercially mined, but we’re told they’re the world’s largest sapphire fields (created by volcanoes ages ago). People buy mining claims and live on them for a while, some serious and some dig for a hobby. We were told that there are many rich miners around who just don’t look it… and there’s still plenty to be found, especially yellow and green sapphires, which used to be tossed away and are now more valuable than ever. We took a mine tour and our guide (probably the mine owner) told us that if you find human bones under the ground, you don’t tell anyone, because the authorities will shut down your mine to investigate. He told us the Rubyvale pub had been blown up twice over disputes, and that claim-hopping is worse than stealing your neighbour’s wife. A serious business this gem-mining is!

We sifted through one more bucket after the mine tour and actually found something worth cutting—but our dilemma was what we’d do with it after it was all faceted and pretty, since the jewelry itself is kind of ugly here. We had an invitation to go “real” fossicking—with pick and shovel out in the fields—from a really sketchy-looking dude who came by with his girlfriend to say hello (and the girlfriend was bubbling with joy, convinced she had a giant green sapphire in her hand—which we took one look at and were pretty positive it was a broken chunk of a green beer bottle). We dodged the offer… figuring if we found anything cool, old “Joe” (or whatever his name was) would steal our riches and push us down the nearest mine shaft.
We tore ourselves away from the crazy world of the gemfields finally after four days (we’d planned to stay a day or two) and Adrian is still making fun of Dayle’s “gem fever” even now.

** You may have seen our gem fever photos already—they were up on Flickr long before this blog— maybe they make more sense now! And thanks for your comments everybody... we miss you :)