Day 3 Wilmington to Coober Pedy

What a lovely quiet campsite, just the twittering of the birds to wake up to this morning. It was a very cold night, below zero and ice on the windscreen, but we were warm and toasty in our sleeping bags and doonas. Clever Brendan carefully placed some leftover house sarking/foil insulation (“See Michelle, I told you I was saving it to use for something one day!”) underneath our beds, keeping the cold and damp out.
We left Wilmington, and drove through scenic Horrocks Pass, over rolling hills, past majestic twisted ghost gums, and ½ an hour down the road arrived at Port Augusta. After visiting the supermarket and stocking up on supplies for the next week, we visited one of the places on my list, and it did not disappoint. The Australian Arid Land Botanical Gardens (free admission) were established in 1993, and cover 250 acres. There are several loop walks possible taking you through bushland, woodlands, sand dunes and desert areas, all providing views over the spectacular Flinders Ranges.

The kids especially enjoyed seeing some of the rarer plants and reading the boards about plants such as the “poached egg plant”, the “needle bush” and the amazing array of medicinal plants used for a variety of ailments. Some of the flowering gums were just stunning with their bright green leaves, dark red stems and amazing huge pink and green gumnuts bursting with different colored flowers. The birdlife was also plentiful – it was a very special place to visit.

 

One of the reasons I wanted to visit was in the hope of seeing the Sturt Desert Pea in flower – this amazing plant pops up out of barren looking ground displaying its huge vivid red petals and glossy black centres. I was pleased to see it growing in abundance.

Sam spotted a ‘Sleeping Lizard’ sunning itself beside the path.

After Port Augusta the landscape changes drastically from woodland to flat plains, red dirt, very scrubby low groundcovers, and not a tree in sight in any direction. We veered off the main Stuart Highway by 6kms to visit the interesting town of Woomera.

Woomera was established in 1947 for the launching of British experimental rockets. The testing range extended across 270,000 square kilometres. Today the whole town is administered by the Department of Defence, and still services the testing range. Open to the public now, there is a caravan park and hotel, post office and chemist. We spent some time looking around the missile park and old planes and rockets – very interesting.

 

Then it was back in the car for the long drive to Coober Pedy , just stopping at the Glendambo Roadhouse for fuel. We didn’t arrive in Coober Pedy until 6pm in the dark, and were happy to quickly set up the caravan in the Opal Hotel Caravan Park (small, dirt only sites, surrounded by a large fence), and make ourselves some dinner.