Left Coober Pedy early in the morning and hit the road. The plan was to get to Uluru, a drive of about 700 kilometres. Although the road was long, it was flat and easy. We passed through Marla Roadhouse, (the start of the Oodnadatta track), then crossed into the Northern Territory and hit Kulgera Roadhouse - the first and last pub in the NT. As it was getting late in the day, we thought there was no point pushing on to Uluru that night. We had heard it was diffi...

We arrived in Coober Pedy early Sunday afternoon, and were a bit dismayed. The roads were uneven and badly paved - those that were paved at all. Half the roads in town were dirt. The main road had a myriad of signs advertising various businesses, but it was obvious that many had closed down years ago, and were covered with graffiti and signs of vandalism. Those that seemed to be still in business were also mostly closed. This may have just been because it was Sun...

Beautiful sunset over Andamooka that evening. Had another surreptitious coffee the next morning before bidding a reluctant farewell to Andamooka. As we headed back towards the Stuart Highway the first port of call was Roxby Downs, the town that belonged to the Olympic Dam mine. The company had built this town for its workers, and it was well built, clean, with all the services you could ever need. But apart from that there was not much to it, and not much to see...

Left Port Augusta and hit the outback proper. The scenery alternated between small trees and bushes, to open plains dotted with grey-green tussocks of grass, to salt plains and dry salt lakes. As we drove there were signs warning about wandering animals as we were actually driving through unfenced cattle stations. However we didn't see anything but a few emus, one with two small chicks, and a couple of very confused looking sheep. Stopped at a rest stop on the w...

Had a much more leisurely morning yesterday, spending some more time with Steph and her house mate over a pancake breakfast and coffee from our own machine. But we were eager to start the adventure proper, so soon bade them good bye and hit the road. Not nearly as difficult getting out of Adelaide as it was getting out of Melbourne. The first place we stopped was Port Wakefield, which the signs had been pointing to for miles out of Adelaide. We expected somethi...