Day Four - Heading Bush

Sunrise at William Creek
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I awoke before dawn excited to see the sunrise in the open desert, unfortunately it takes the sun a long time to come up and we were well into packing up by the time the sun finally came up over the horizon. Before we left William Creek we noticed an interesting sign indicating a golf course, check out the photo. It would be kind of a cool idea to reverse the typical course and have everything be sand with grass traps, no?

Our first stop was Lake Cakibarrawirracanna, the longest named lake in the country. It was pretty but I think that it might be more of a destination for its catchy name than for the scenery.

Anyone up for a game of golf???
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Next was the dog fence, a fence that runs across the entire country in an attempt to keep the dingoes out of areas where they could harm the livestock. I guess that sheep make tasty treats for dingoes and the farmers got tired of loosing stock, thus the construction of the dog fence.

On the way to Coober Pedy we passed the Groovy Grape tour stopped along the road. They flicked us off as we passed and we all thought it was rather extreme of them until we came upon another car coming towards us that informed us that they had ran out of gas! Ha! It made me glad to have Joe as our guide as I couldn't imagine something like this happening with him.

Lake Cadibarrawirracanna - the longest named lake ever!
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Coober Pedy was a very interesting town. The majority of the homes are underground! We went on a tour of what one typically looks like, check out the photo. The main industry of Coober Pedy is mining for Opals, so it makes sense that they would live underground, it's part of the lifestyle! We were taken on a tour of a mine and shown how they use the explosives. Before the more strict rules were enacted our guide told us that families would sit around watching TV and making explosive charges for their parents use! What an interesting thought. Many of the hotels in the town offer you the opportunity to sleep underground. This would not be my choice as I like fresh air and light in the morning. I guess if you prefer it PITCH dark this would be the room for you!

The endless dingo fence
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Then it was on to the painted desert for sunset. It was a beautiful, quiet place where we stopped at the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding landscape. The variety of colors were really amazing and the way they changed as the sun went behind the hills was captivating. What was even more interesting to me was looking at the small rocks on the ground. The variety of colors and types were amazing. The rocks were all sorts of sizes but the closer you looked the more you realized that there was just an infinite combination of colors at a micro scale. It was like you could hold all of the color combinations in the palm of your hand if you picked up a handful of small rocks!

The many dangers of Coober Pedy
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We set up camp off the road not too far from the lookout point where we had stopped to watch the sun set. I definitely prefer the times when we don't camp at campsites (other than missing out on a shower) and excitingly it was Mexican night! yay! Funny how I can remember when I had certain types of food, my stomach definitely rules when it comes to my memory. Ha!