Driving ..

Thank you, fellow guests, for getting up and making noise at 0500. We were going to sleep a bit longer but that is not to be. Our breakfast makings of cereal, bread and a toaster were fortunately delivered the night before so we got going.
Some of our advisers had put the wind up us about the dearth of services on the road so we made up rolls for lunch and got on the road.

Immediately we left Port Augusta the landscape changed. I have only travelled into the Flinders Ranges from PA in the past and the long flat stretch ahead is quite a long way from that. Then there are the dire warnings about road trains - the behemoth of road transport.  We have heard enough to imagine hoards of them blocking our way from one end of the road to the other. We soon come upon the first of them, a short two trailer truck who generously indicates when it is safe to pass. Nice bloke. The next couple are bigger with three trailers each and just as polite.  It seems we won't be appearing in our own version of Duel today.

Our first stop is Woomera, to have a look at somewhere to stay on the way back. There is less to see than we expect so we stop and "do" Woomera then and there. What we see in the various displays and the museum are interesting, but also a bit depressing. It doesn't help that no one else is around, places always seem 

better with a bit of a crowd.

Bowling alley, Woomera base

The base still houses a RAAF squadron, and was used of course for rocket and satellite launches for years, launches of which they are proud. There is a single picture of an atomic cloud but nothing else and only a few pars about the now closed detention centre which housed asylum seekers.  We cancel our plan to stay on the way back and are a bit relieved. 

The bowling alley by the way is still in use.

Back to the highway and the first of several roadhouses to come.  This is typical, enormous, with fuel, big cafe/restaurant, accommodation and camping out the back. Food is stereotypical takeaway but there is the promise of a cappucino machine. A broken promise. I have tea, Rob has what's on offer.

More driving, more wide brown land, more roadhouses then Coober Pedy in time to see an underground church, buy some opal earrings (which was not on the plan), hit the supermarket, watch the sun go down and get dinner then sleep ahead of the last big drive before a few days R&R in Alice Springs