Friday 28 November. Sheila was full of fuel and we were sitting in the front seats sipping tea and chomping on a hearty breakfast of Oreos. We had hurriedly made tea then jumped back into the van as the rain was lashing down. We were quite excited about the next few days driving. The longest straight section of road in Australia lay ahead of us and many nights camping in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles added a apprehensiveness to that excitement. If we break down out here it would be very expensive and time consuming to reach civilisation. We hadn't mentioned the possibility of getting a puncture out loud but we both were thinking it. The spare wheel was under the van and we weren't too confident about the tiny, toy jack and wheel brace, coupled with the pouring rain we kept our thoughts to ourselves. Within half an hour of driving, with water flying in through the top of the drivers door due to improper bending backness when the keys were locked in, we came across a river that had decided to choose a shortcut to the sea and jump the road. There were two tow trucks, one near our side and one a hundred meters down the road. We stopped and watched a 4x4 driving towards us with out much problem. The water was running quite fast but was only a couple of feet deep. The 4x4 made the journey slowly but surely and then sped off. A car from the other side started its turn. We decided that if the car made it we would try as the van is a lot higher than a car. The water seemed to have got deeper, it was spilling up onto the bonnet of the car. The car completed the 100m rapid and drove past us with reeds covering the vents for the fan under his bumper. We decided we would try. The tow truck man said 'stay in the middle of the road and don't stop' as it would be expensive if he had to tow us out. The first thirty meters was fine and not very deep. The road dipped and we could hear that the exhaust was under water. I was leaning out the window filming completely confident in Vicki's driving ability. The current in the middle was quite strong and was pushing the van like wind. The water was over the wheels but not leaking in too much. We started to ascend and heard the exhaust pop out from the water, thirty more metres and we were on dry land. We drove for a couple of hundred kms then stopped for fuel. Under the van was covered with weeds all knotted up in every bar, spring and wire. We drove the dead straight section over one hundred miles long, which many people have said is hell, but found it just the same as any other section of road in Australia there really aren't that many noticeable corners the whole way round.. We saw many strange species of tree on our Nullarbor journey. There was a weird dead looking tree that grew kettles. There was about fifty electric and steel kettles covering every branch. About an hour later we spotted a species that fruited bras then a shoe tree and a plastic bottle tree. Most strange our tree dictionary didn't list any of them. That evening we found an empty lay-by to camp. Due to the ever dwindling jar of buttons we decided to do Christmas on the cheap (but personal). We recorded several DVD's with Christmas messages on then added a song we had put together with slide shows of photos. The song was a rendition of the twelve days of Christmas from a tourists sights of Australia. Two welfare checks and a pissed up Aborigine. (not altogether accurate but we did have a lot of pictures of drunk Aborigines, and sad though it is, that is what most tourists see). Tourist rarely venture into Aboriginal communities and only see the bottleo que and park benches. We couldn't think of an eight so we had nine mile creek, ate kangaroo for dinner, seven deadly spiders….. The name Nullarbor in Latin means 'no trees'. We were slightly mythed as there were loads all around us. We were camping behind one now. We later found out as we drove further there is a huge section considered the true Nullarbor plain that was completely bare as far as the eye could see all except little scrubby bushes sat together forming a huge dull green carpet. A road train passed us (one of hundreds) and kicked up a huge amount of dust, grit and gravel. Sheila sounded like a percussion at the Sydney opera house. As we burst out of the dust ball behind the road train we noticed two cracks on the windscreen. These cracks got longer by the hour, slowly the cracks crept in opposite directions and now as I write this, sat all cosy in a real front room in Melbourne, they are half way across the windscreen awaiting repair. We were spooked by something one night. We were just dropping off to sleep in a deserted lay-by when there was an almighty hiss that came from the back of the van. My instant worse case scenario was that someone has slashed the tire to stop us driving off. Peering out of the top of the curtains we could see nothing, it was so dark. I went to put shorts on to investigate but Vicki wouldn't let me leave the van. We even thought about jumping in the front and speeding off, but what if the tyre was flat, best to just wait and see what happens in our safe metal case. We would be like a hermit crab, stay in the shell and attack any thing that tries to get in. funny how your mind runs away in unfamiliar surroundings. We woke up to a perfectly fine wheel and must have fallen asleep whilst waiting to ambush intruders. We drove through a town with a population of seven. All that was there was a petrol pump and two houses. We saw countless cyclists riding along. Most had panniers and tents on the backs but some had nothing with them. Sometimes there are 300km stretches with no petrol stations or any other civilisation. We saw one guy just wearing a pair of cycling shorts and no top.. Crazy. Just before we joined the Nullarbor we had phoned Brendan our friend from croc camp in Port Douglas. He and his girlfriend Allana had gone south from Alice Spring and were doing an opposite route to us. We had planned to meet up again as we would have to pass each other on our circum navigation. They were currently staying on the other side of the Nullarbor in Whyalla, South Australia. They had a longer time schedule than us as they are both Australian and have no visa worries. If they continue at the rate they are going they should be done in about five years, which will suite them down to the ground. We arranged to meet in Whyalla. The Nullarbor took us four days to drive and we arrived in Whyalla on the 1st of December. We had made it across the Nullarbor without mentioning the p word (puncture) and it had worked but we still didn't say the words until the circle was complete. We called Brendan when we arrived and met up, we went to a pub and gassed continually about what each other had done. We bought copious amounts of food and wine then headed 30km out of town where Brendan and Allana had found a free camp spot by the sea. We went down a very bumpy track much to Sheila's protests and arrived at a clearing right by the water. We could see land across the water as we were on the inlet that leads up to Port Augusta. We stayed with Brendan and Allana for four days. All of us being incredibly lazy, eating, drinking, reading and fishing. We made one trip back into town for wine, food and float replenishment but spent the rest of the time doing nothing. Bliss. We played lots of yahtzee and talked endlessly. We caught several fish. Vicki caught a puffer fish that blew up to the size of a football when trying to retrieve the hook. We let him go but he was so puffed that he just floated. After several farting noises it managed to deflate then swam off. I think that it normally puffs itself up with water but this time it was on land so puffed up with air, hence the floating. We caught lots of Australian Herrin and upon consulting Brendan's fish card it said we can keep up to sixty. We caught several then cooked them, very tasty. We tried to catch blue swimmer crabs whilst snorkelling. This proved to be fruitless. Me and Brendan would dive down to the crabs and try and make them attack a piece of cloth then when they had hold get them in a fabric bag. The crabs, who were very big and aggressive would just swim up past the rag of torment and try and bite your arm with there huge pincers. Brendan managed to put a big rock on top of one huge crab and we thought we had it literally in the bag, but when Brendan removed his hand from the rock to open the bag the crab lifted the rock swam out and persisted to snap his claws in the general direction of Brendan. No Crab pasta for the happy campers. There were also dolphins here and they came surprisingly close to us whilst crab hunting, I think they were quite possibly laughing at our feeble attempts. On the last day we had a huge storm. The skies turned black and rain the size of golf balls and strong winds battered camp. We parked the vans together and assembled several tarpaulins. The ground had turned to a clay bog but under our little camp we were all surprisingly dry and clean. Another vehicle drove down and pulled up. The guy went to sleep for several hours. When he awoke he had a flat battery due to leaving his head lights on. We jump started him after pushing his car over to the vans, through very deep slippery mud, because the vans were stuck both to the ground and our masses of rope and tarps. In our camp we had a pet lizard. He would be constantly roaming around looking for food. It was a shingle back lizard, who aren't the prettiest lizards in the world and have an arse that looks like a head and a head that looks like an arse. They are solitary creatures for most of the year but they mate for life and meet up once a year with the same partner to reproduce. On Friday the 5th of December we left our communal camp and headed for Cober Pedy. It was fantastic to meet up again with Brendan who we had practically lived with for a month in the woods at our croc camp, and to meet his girlfriend who is lovely. We will miss them and hopefully they will visit the UK at some point if they ever finish travelling Australia. We drove the drive to Cober Pedy in one hit it took all day as the journey was nearly 700km. Cober Pedy receives a ridiculously low amount of annual rain fall. As we approached this strange underground world thunder and lightning began and the rain started to pour. We had arrived on the only rainy day of the year. We filled up with petrol when we arrived then used the phone boxes to call home. The phone call was short as we kept getting hassled by Aborigine women. First, two came over and asked for money, then they left came back with two more also asking for money then they left and when about eight of them came back we left. They already had beers and cigarettes in full view which is more than we can afford. I haven't been able to afford a beer for ages. We drove to a camp site that was underground. There was a dirt road that led to the site about 1km long. We started to drive down the track and saw a 4x4 coming the opposite way skidding all over the place. We were sliding a bit so had to just keep going straight, if we stopped to turn round we would surly get stuck. The van slowed and the wheels span more and more. We kept moving forward as the 4x4 passed us. We noticed the road ahead was very boggy indeed but had no choice but to keep going. I tried to get the wheels right on the edge of the road where there was a small bank and it would be less boggy. The van skidded and mounted the bank and suddenly we were off road driving but with less mud. We continued driving along the side of the road through the darkness until the road started to ascend then bounced back over the bank with an almighty clunk and continued wheel spinning and skidding until we met the gravel drive of the camp site. We weren't overly worried about getting stuck as it was late at night and we would just go to sleep. The morning sun would harden the ground almost instantly and all the moisture would be sucked down into the ever thirsty dried dirt. When we got to the camp site we found that vans had to stay above ground but we could camp underground with our mattress. We opted for staying in the van, although the novelty of sleeping underground was appealing other campers had informed us due to the rare raining there were small streams every where, plus dust keeps falling from the ceiling into your bed. The following morning the track was dry and we headed into the town for a nose around. Cober Pedy is the Opal Mining capital in the world and its whole existence evolves around this gem. This is a truly strange town, full of huge piles of broken up stones. half of the people living here live in dug out houses in the piles and the main employment is mining.. All around the town is a huge mass of flat desert with hundreds of piles of pulverised rock everywhere. There are strange machines littered all over the place some looking newish and others so rusty that they look like they have been here for a hundred years. The machines are called blowers and look like a flat bed truck with a crane off the back and a huge metal oil drum hanging of the end of the crane. They are an iconic image of the area. They are actually just trucks carrying a huge fan and engine on the back then a huge tube with the oil drum in the middle. The miners put extensions on the giant vacuum cleaner and send the tube down the mines and all the rocks are sucked up. When the rocks meet the oil drum they fall out of a hatch at the back forming the piles of stone. This seems a very primitive machine but apparently it is very effective. Our first stop in Coober Pedy was the big winch that sits on the highest pile of stones in the town. We looked out over the town and felt like we were on mars. There were houses in every pile and the large one that we were stood upon had several houses and shops. Brendan and Allana had visited Cober Pedy a month or so earlier and had told us about the lookout. They had been approached by a guy from Hong Kong who had claimed to be a miner and wanted to show them some Opals for sale. They were taken to this strange house with allsorts of junk in the garden but had attempted to be made into art. Huge piles of shopping trolleys and computer monitors were piled precariously. Giant carwash brushes were hung from the side of this half buried house. There were strange sculptures of what looked like giant termite mounds everywhere. After showing Brendan and Allana opals for sale and them not buying, he decided that he would get something out of them and had an English lesson. He thrust a book in front of Brendan and demanded for him to tell him the meaning of the words he had underlined.. As you can imagine we really wanted to bump into this guy and see his underground house and dodgy opal shop. Sure enough a little guy came hurrying over and introduced him self as Peter and said he was from Hong Kong. He said he was a minor and to come to his house. We followed and he showed us his wacky sculptures then a big deep hole in the ground with a winch next to it. He proclaimed that this was his mine and he goes down every day. He took us into his make shift shop and constantly said the phrase 'you buy this for wife…or this…or this' when we told him that we would look at some other shops then maybe come back he completely ignored us and was muttering to himself. We left the house without giving an English lesson. Next we went on a tour of a mine and a 1920's underground house at The Old Timers mine. We went fossiking or as the locals call it noodling which is sifting through the debris of the mines looking for small pieces of opal. We found several pieces. We watched a mine machine demonstration that showed the blower working. We each held a rock by the vacuum tube and it was ripped out of our hands. There were several other demonstrations of various machines. After our tour we went to an underground bar for refreshments. After a couple of cold ones we went opal shopping. We looked in the many opal shops in town but opted to buy our opals direct from a miner (not the Hong Kong guy). We went for a pizza then stayed in a different camp site nearer town and minus the dirt road. We had looked at so many opals that day that in bed when I closed my eyes all I could see was flashes of blue, green, red and dreamed about opals. I had placed the half eaten pizza under the van, as not to stink the van out, in a bag to eat for breakfast. We were woken up at dawn by two stray dogs who couldn't believe there luck. In the morning we drove to The Serbian Church, which was underground, to have a look inside. We arrived to find it was closed, on a Sunday, maybe god was having a private function. We left Coober Pedy and its strange landscape and headed back down the Stuart highway for our long drive to Port Augusta. This would be our last stretch of desert driving