During the night, one of the couples on our coach decided to give their friends a call in Adelaide just to let them know that they were in the country and enjoying the tour, and their friends immediately leapt in a car and drove nearly three hundred miles just to see them and say hello before we moved on first thing in the morning. There was only ever going to be a small window of opportunity for these people to turn up in Berri and give their mates a hug before ...

Back in 1995, my coach tour of the country headed through South Australia on its way towards the red centre and Uluru - and many of the small towns we visited on the way are worth mentioning here before I move on to Adelaide. The following account of the journey from Berri to Coober Pedy is taken from my diaries of the time, and updated for this book. True to his word, our driver - Mike - got us all to introduce ourselves to each other on the coach as we headed ...