A Travellin' We Will Go

[aussiegold]

joedrum » Sun Sep 22, 2019 7:40 pm[/url]":38b40upd]
That’s dark side to the max ...and probably needed completely....to get around in the conditions of this area...

quite right Joe. i am not a fan of desert , and this bloke and his missus had taken ten days to get from the west coast to the middle of OZ. not my idea of a trip but whatever turns your crank i suppose...... :smilie_happy:
so, next leg of the trip was 250 klms or so, to the township of Coober Pedy. most folk live underground because of the savage heat there. and more very strong headwinds all the way for us.

here is a typical house in Coober Pedy. they call them a dugout, because they would have dug them out to mine the ore
(for opals ) then make rooms out of them. if you look at the roof you will see ventilation pipes.

even the Churches are built into the side of the sandstone rock . have to say that there was nothing about Coober Pedy that appealed to me. k:

and i could not figure out what Chuck Norris has to do with the outback town of Coober Pedy. should have been a picture of Chopper Reid i reckon.... :music:

here is a pic of a mining truck. has a motor on the back that drives a big suction fan. a pipe is dropped down the shaft to draw the dirt up and into the collection tank. which is periodically emptied on the ground . mounds and mounds of the piles everywhere ... and open shafts everywhere .... its odd.

 

[Rednaxs60]

Very cool thread. On the bucket list.

 

[dan filipi]

Great pictures and descriptions. Interesting town that is. Living underground makes total sense. Wonder why that's not more common.

 

[Denver]

At semi tropical temperatures, rain instead of snow for winter.

Car port type roofs so you can always park in the shade.

Hot & sticky, lot of white vehicles, bldg's, to help reflect the heat. :heat:

The cooler temperature inside a mined area, would have its appeal, after you add enough light, & ventilation. :yes:

 

[aussiegold]

Denver » Tue Sep 24, 2019 3:33 am[/url]":3cbzudjp]
At semi tropical temperatures, rain instead of snow for winter.

Car port type roofs so you can always park in the shade.

Hot & sticky, lot of white vehicles, bldg's, to help reflect the heat. :heat:

The cooler temperature inside a mined area, would have its appeal, after you add enough light, & ventilation. :yes:

yes indeed,, summer temps can get to 45 C ( 115 F ) regularly and frequently above. very little rain, next to none actually, about 5 inches per year on average.
here's a little video of a road train. these trucks with trailers are around 55 metres long and average 90 tonnes in weight ( sometimes more )
they need a lot of room to overtake , so its best to hold a steady speed when behind , and as they come round i ease off the throttle. also , as a courtesy, when he is past you, a flash of the headlights to signal he can pull back in. this is usually recognized by the driver with a flick of both indicators to say thank you. the led lights in ths vid are a bit blurry but you can make it out as pulls back in.

 

[Ansimp]

Aw.. it’s only a triple, still with plenty of horsepower. :good:

 

[aussiegold]

so, we pushed on further north, more wickedly strong headwinds. poor ol bus struggles with them, but to be fair ,these were extremely strong winds.
at the next stop ( a roadhouse at the small town of Marla ) my eyes near popped out of me head. :good: :good:
there, in the car park, was a chunk of Aussie motoring history. the first , a 1964 sedan. an EH Holden.
and next to it, a 1957 FE Ute. :music: :music: :music: :music:
i had never seen one, have seen the sedan and the panel van but never a ute.... and these boys were driving them from Adelaide to Darwin.... :salute: :salute:

 

[mcgovern61]

Cool cars! :yes:

 

[Denver]

Rust free old cars all over the place.

 

[aussiegold]

And onward North we go, still being hammered by the relentless headwind. i have about given up, and become resigned
to this trip costing half as much again in fuel. Oh well, me and my big ideas..... :head bang:
By this stage fuel is 2.00 dollars a litre. and will go a bit higher as we get closer to the middle of Australia.
We end up stopping at a Roadhouse/outpost at a place called Kulgera. It is no more than a shop,small bar and
garage. a small dusty , gravel camping area off to one side. we are to become reacquainted with Kulgera on the
way back, more on that later..

Here is a sign out the front of the roadhouse , with the obligatory distances to towns and cities . sure had seen
better days.. :yes: :yes: another oddity , was an old clothesline out the front, with shoes and boots hanging from
it.. footwear from all over i suppose..

And more surprises in the bar... pinned to the ceiling in the small bar are hats and bras , mostly signed, dated and
the donors name on.... i have no words..... :headscratch: :headscratch: :headscratch:

 

[Ansimp]

:good: opcorn: opcorn:

 

[aussiegold]

From Kulgera , it's 75 KLMs to the turn off to Uluru/Ayers Rock. then approximately another 200 to the rock.
there was this " bucket list " idea i had, to get some photos of my blue 75 with Ayers Rock as the
backdrop.

Just up the road from Kulgera is the Northern Territory border. The Territory used to have no speed limit on the
open highway between towns. now it is 130 KLMs . ( rest of the country is usually 110. )

It was while we were at the Border stop, the early Holdens caught up with us. It was really good to see these old
beasts on the road. :rocks:

It may seem this thread is a little light on pictures of the terrain in general, that is because there is not a lot to
see. but it drives home, just how vast this country is. here is what most views are. first to the left and then to
the right.

We turned left at Erldunda Roadhouse and for the first time we were not battling strong headwinds. About halfway to
the Rock, there is a roadhouse/campground called Curtin Springs,. which is also a working Cattle station. which
is a tad over 1 MILLION acres in size.

they have a pet emu, which was rescued as a chick along with 3 of its siblings. when the time came to release
them, this one decided to stay.

 

[dan filipi]

That Emu knew the good life when he saw it.

Countryside is So flat and straight road seems endless. There is a road I think in Montana I drove like that. 100 miles no services.
That was in my teens or early 20's, probably one long strip mall now lol.

 

[saganaga]

I'm really enjoying seeing the rural parts of Australia.

 

[aussiegold]

dan filipi » Sat Sep 28, 2019 12:43 am[/url]":llbjyatr]
That Emu knew the good life when he saw it.

Countryside is So flat and straight road seems endless. There is a road I think in Montana I drove like that. 100 miles no services.
That was in my teens or early 20's, probably one long strip mall now lol.

Haha, well the fellow feeding the emu, couldnt say if the emu was smart .... or just lazy.... or dumb.... :BigGrin:

services, once you leave Port Augusta , have been on average 200 KLMs apart. about 130 miles. and no mobile phone coverage between roadhouses. and sometimes only one major phone company service.

the country out here is mostly flat. as we get closer to Ayers Rock we learn that there actually 3 large rocky monoliths in the area.
all three are composed of very different rock. its strange. the first large one is called MT Connor, and is visible from the
highway . it is on Curtin Springs station and is not accessible to the public. they do run tours to it though. here is Mt Connor
it looks a bit like Ayers Rock.

Curtin Springs was a good place to stop for a day or two, to get cleaned up and had a very good ( free ) campground.
and whoever made the sign in front of the shop, has a sense of humour. arty: arty:

while we were there, a couple of semi's pulled in , with the biggest dump truck bodies i had ever seen . they were bound for Darwin,
built in Western Australia.

 

[Ansimp]

They look like tipper bodies to me. :hihihi:

 

[aussiegold]

Ansimp » Sat Sep 28, 2019 1:13 pm[/url]":37z9u79n]
They look like tipper bodies to me. :hihihi:

haha,, they could well be tipper bodies, i had a hard time imagining the size of the mine machinery the were used for.
( and i've seen the Super pit in Kalgoorlie ) :BigGrin:

 

[joedrum]

Wow it takes some big tires to hold that dump load ....

 

[julimike54]

Those trucks get bigger and bigger :mrgreen:

 

[mcgovern61]

Enjoying this trip!! :thanks: