Something in the Eyre (er…Air)

Wednesday 27 July:  A flight over Lake Eyre and the Painted Hills was the prime motivation for taking this trip by car.

Lake Eyre flights can be had from Marree, William Creek or Coober Pedy.  The first two are closer to the Lake but are only accessible by tracks which might have been too much for our 2 wheel drive Magna.  Coober Pedy has the advantage of being on the main road north (the Stuart Highway).  The downside is that flights from Coober Pedy spend less time over the Lake because of the flying time there and back.

Flights over the Lake are by small plane (Cessna 210) which can carry 4 passengers.  One advantage of the 210 is that it has no wing struts to get in the way of photographing.

We had booked the flight well in advance and, at that stage, we were the only two passengers confirmed for the 27th.  When we arrived at Coober Pedy and contacted the airline (Opal Air) we were still the only two passengers confirmed.  As a full plane is desirable to reduce costs per person, it looked as if this was going to be an expensive flight.  Bugger.

But – on arriving at Coober Pedy airport we found that there had been a sudden rush in bookings – so much so that two aircraft were now required to convey the total of eight passengers.

Our pilot for the flight was Liam, who took us through the mandatory pre-flight checks, explaining that we wouldn’t be needing the fire extinguishers or the emergency beacons on this particular flight.  Everyone’s a comedian….

Flying time to the Lake is about 1 hour, the plane then descends low over the southern end of Lake Eyre North for about 30-45 minutes before landing at William Creek. The flight back is over Anna Creek Station (the world’s largest cattle station) and the spectacular Painted Hills.

Here are a few photos from the flight but attempting to convey the immense size of the lake in photographs is simply not possible.  It is too vast.

Our aerial taxi

Heading for the Lake – View from 3000 feet

Approaching the Lake
A larger version of this photo can be seen here

Passing over one of the many islands – the small dots are birds!

Leaving the Lake

William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track – population 2 (+ a dog)

Climbing from William Creek – Oodnadatta Track heading north and the old Ghan railway alignment to its left

Line of parallel dunes – currently covered in vegetation after the unusually wet season earlier in the year

Approaching the Painted Hills

Touchdown (almost!) at Coober Pedy

Some statistics….

• The southern end of Lake Eyre North (the part we flew over) is the lowest point in Australia, at approximately 15 metres below sea level.
• When Lake Eyre fills (on average 3 or 4 times per century), it is the largest lake in Australia and 18th largest in the world.

Posted from Yulara

Around Coober Pedy

Friday 29 July:  We’re here!  Uluru, that is.  We arrived at about 1 PM from Erldunda, stopping for the mandatory photo stops.

Anyway – more of that later…

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Thursday 27 July: Filling in time before our flight over Lake Eyre and the Painted Hills, we spent the morning exploring the town.

Because of the summer heat which can be into the high 40s, many (most?) inhabitants of the town live underground in dugouts.  These can be very palatial and as comfortable as any home in a major city.  The dugouts are built by boring into the side of a hill with a large tunnelling machine.  Our motel room at the Desert View motel was built in this way.  Because of the thickness of the sandstone “walls”, it was the quietest motel we had ever stayed in.  It was also the darkest once the lights were turned off.  Pitch black!  The size of our dugout was about 5 metres wide by 25 metres deep.

Entrance to our motel unit

Inside the motel unit – the bedrooms are in the dark space beyond

The Underground Bookshop – outside….

…and inside

The Catacomb Church

The locals have a sense of humour

We’re still sorting though the several hundred photos from the Lake Eyre flight – hopefully post some tomorrow.

Posted from Yulara

Port Augusta to Coober Pedy

Tuesday 26 July: Today’s trip would be through completely new territory.  Until now we had covered areas that we had travelled previously, even if some parts (Dubbo to Broken Hill) were last seen over 20 years ago.  This would also be the longest distance that we had to cover in a single day for the entire trip – about 540 km.

We got away about 9 AM and were on the Stuart Highway heading north about 5 minutes later.  The countryside started off as low mallee vegetation which slowly became more sparse, eventually merging into ‘Nullarbor-type’ country with low cushion plants and no trees as far as the eye could see.  However, even in this sparsely vegetated country the land was not completely flat – it would drop away into relatively deep valleys and salt lakes.

Salt lake south of Pimba
A larger version of this photo can be found here

Another salt lake south of Pimba

Our first break of the day was at Woomera, about 180 km north of Port Augusta.  Woomera isn’t on the highway but is only a short diversion of about 7 km from Pimba. It’s a much larger town that we expected – probably home to about 2,000 people.  It has all necessary facilities and some that might seem odd in such an isolated place – e.g. a bowling alley, dating from the American presence during Woomera’s heyday as a rocket test facility.

Morning tea done and a few photos taken at the ‘Missile Park’ we were on the road again.

Mural – Woomera

British ‘Black Arrow’ Rocket

We stopped again at Glendambo a further 100 km north. This is not really a town – it comprises a couple of service stations and a hotel/motel.  We topped up the fuel here but also wanted to check out the accommodation as this is a potential stopover on our way back south in  a couple of weeks.  The motel units looked fine – not flash but quite modern.  We probably will stop here later.

Window reflection – Glendambo

From Glendambo, Coober Pedy is a further 250 km. Apart from a lunch stop and the occasional stop for a photo, we covered this stretch more or less in one hit.

Seen during lunch – Pussytails
(Ptilotus exaltatus)

Also seen during lunch – Sturt’s Desert Pea
(Swainsona formosa)

Coober Pedy hove into view at about 3:30 PM, which gave us a bit of time to wander around.

View over Coober Pedy

On Wednesday 27 we took a flight over Lake Eyre and the Painted Hills on Anna Creek Station. We’ll post some photos taken during the flight as soon as we get time to sort though the several hundred that we took…

In the meantime, here’s an aerial view of  Cooper Pedy taken during the flight.

Coober Pedy from the air
Opal mines and test pits in the foreground
A larger version of this photo can be found here

Posted from Coober Pedy

Broken Hill to Port Augusta

Monday 25 July 2011: We bid farewell to Yellow Gum Cottage just after  9 AM and about 45 minutes later crossed into South Australia.

The Barrier Highway follows the main western railway line south west to Peterborough, so for this part of the trip we were covering the same country that  we passed through in 2009 on the Indian Pacific.

One thing that we weren’t aware of (or had forgotten) was that South Australia prohibits the import of all fruit and vegetables.  Not long after crossing the border we passed the first quarantine sign advising that a fruit/vegetable disposal bin was a mere 212 km ahead!  They’re very precise, these South Australians…

There are several small settlements along the way – we stopped briefly at Olary for morning tea and we remembered Yunta from 1989 as the turn off to the northern Flinders Ranges on our first trip to Arkaroola.  The quarantine bin did indeed appear after 212 km at the interestingly named town of Oodla Wirra.

After lunch at Peterborough we headed north through Orroroo and Wilmington before descending from the central Flinders Ranges through Horrocks Pass to Spencer Gulf and Port Augusta.

Basic railway facilities at Olary compare with….

…. this more substantial building a bit further down the highway at Manna Hill

The giant River Red Gum at Orroroo

Kangasaurus Ahead!

Rain Follows the Plough

Or so the theory went in the early to mid 1800s.  The failure of the theory can be seen in the ruins of abandoned farms and homesteads that are common north of Goyder’s Line – a line delineating the limit of successful agriculture which was developed in 1865.  One of several ‘Goyder’s Line’ memorials can be seen just north of Orroroo.

Goyder’s Line Memorial near Orroroo

An abandoned homestead at Oodla Wirra

Posted from Coober Pedy

Broken Hill

Broken Hill Sculpture Symposium

In April/May 1993 a group of artists from Australia and across the world got together on a hilltop 10 km from Broken Hill to create a series of sculptures using slabs of local sandstone.

The sculptures are certainly in a spectacular location but some of them don’t seem to be holding up well against the effects of wind and temperature fluctuations.  This is causing some flaking of the sandstone and this makes the design of some of the sculptures difficult to make out.

The best time to visit the site is definitely in early morning or late afternoon when the low angle of the sunlight enhances the honey colour of the sandstone and makes the designs more easily distinguished.

Bajo El Sol Jaguar (Under the Jaguar Sun)
Antonio Nava Tirado; Mexico City, Mexico

Motherhood
Badri Salushia; Georgia

View from the hilltop

Around Broken Hill

Sunday 25 July: One of the problems of visiting on the weekend is that many of the venues that we would have liked to have visited were closed.  Despite this, we found Bell’s Milk Bar – a throwback to the 1950s complete with juke box and old fashioned soda fountains and milkshakes.  Somewhat incongruously, they have a WiFi hot spot which is where we posted the previous entry to the blog.

Later, we visited the Regional Art Gallery (featuring the 2011 Outback Art Prize entries) and the Miners’ Memorial overlooking the city.  The memorial lists the names of all miners who have died in mine accidents since the mines opened in the 1800s, some as young as eight years old.

Miners’ Memorial

Park Bench – part of the 2002 Landscapes and Backgrounds Contemporary Public Art in Broken Hill

An old Holden at the side of the road

Silverton

After lunch we headed out to Silverton, about 20 km north of the city.

Like many outback towns, Silverton developed quickly and declined just as quickly.  Many of the stone buildings still survive but there are just as many ruins.  These days the few remaining inhabitants are primarily artists who make a living from tourism.

The area and many of the buildings will be familiar as they have often been used as sets for TV dramas and film, notably Mad Max II.

1885 Methodist Church with the 1886 Catholic Church in the background

Unidentified ruins

Former ticket office and platform of the Silverton Tramway

Just north of Silverton are the extensive Mundi Mundi Plains with extensive views north to the Barrier Range.

Mundi Mundi Plain with Barrier Range in the distance

Posted from Port Augusta