Our first stint on the road lasted about 3hrs, was a mere 306km and took us to the picturesque Mt Remarkable National Park. We camped at a fairly small section of this park which is situated right at the south end of the Flinders Ranges - an area we'll be seeing more of over the coming days.

It's a very honest system as you pay the correct money into an envelope (camping fees & park entrance fees) then slip the envelope into a secure box - keeping a slip for the dash of the car. We pay-up and pitch up on gravelly ground. Slightly worrying but actually fairly comfortable! Our first quick walk of the park puts us in the path of roaming Emus and Kangaroos but they turn out to be timid and more wary than you. The 'Roos stop what they are doing, stare at you for a minute then hop along on their merry way!

It's now time to get used to camping and camp foods (which we're well stocked up on!) and we cook a lovely pasta & sauce for dinner on our portable stove. This is the life!

It's still fairly cold in the evenings too so plenty of teas, soups & hot chocolates are required!

Now we've got to get back in the spirit of the adventure - which we don't find too hard - and we do so with a lengthy and tiring 4km walk through the bush and up a hill to viewpoint of the southern ranges. After this walk we drove about 20km to a town called Port Germain - famous for it's long wooden jetty, the longest in Australia at 1.3km. Thats right, we walked to the end! But we were rewarded by 2 or 3 Stingrays frolicking at the end of the jetty. It's so long because when the tide goes out, it goes out 1.3km!

Back at the campsite we took a shorter, 2.5km walk in order to get a great view for the sunset and it was well worth it. Beautiful views out to sea and around the the mountains. A welcome end to our first full day in the bush!

Something else we've got to get used to is packing up our new home every couple of days and moving on to somewhere new! It didn't take us too long the first time but there's no need to pack away properly when we're only going to be unpacking again in a few hours!

Next stop was Wilpena Pound in the heart of the Flinders Ranges. The whole journey took about 3hrs but we stopped for a break in a town called Quorn which was lovely looking and could've easily been in a western film. Picked up some fresh burgers and sausages and plenty of information before completing the journey. The whole drive was brilliant - so scenic and our first glimpse of driving in the desert too. Long long long straight roads with superb backdrops and nothing within sight when looking left or right. This is what we'll be experiencing for the next few weeks at least.

Wilpena Pound is a great campsite with a shop, toursit info and petrol station as well as being well situated for sight-seeing and bush walks. The one worry here is the water. There's signs up that read "Check the colour of the water before washing as the yellow can stain"! Apparently its good to drink though!

Had our camp all set up and got the bbq out but unfortunately the coals we've bought are terrible and just don't do the job so we fried our lunch instead! Didn't bother trying the coal again for dinner so we just had a campfire and managed to manipulate it into a mini stove that we were able to use as a makeshift bbq and it worked much better than earlier!

A hot day followed and we chose a 4hr, 8km walk right into the pound that gave us some excellent views. The mountains are formed like a huge, stretched bowl - almost like an oval amphitheatre, an impressive sight.

The campsite is very sparse and, therefore, extremely peaceful. Only the birds, especially the whining crows, to listen to and a few kangaroos that are almost too friendly - often approaching our tent while we sit and read or eat.

We decided to take a drive to some of the attractions. This included a 1.5km walk to Arkaroo rock paintings - historic aborginal works of art then a scenic drive through the hills. Well, it would've been scenic if we weren't being vigorously virbated on the corrugated roads! This was supposed to be good for 2wd's but clearly we would've been happier in a 4wd! Poor Dora got a bit bashed about today. Especially as our planned drive took us on another of these roads - the second even more suited to 4wd's. The route's were a great sight but we were too concerned about the car to fully appreciate the towering rock formations and great views.

Finally made it back to our campsite after 165km of driving around - about 60km of which on rough, unsealed roads. Our upcoming 750km journey to Coober Pedy was also mainly on unsealed roads (about 550km worth) and we were very worried that they'd be like our first experience on this type of road so we asked at the info office and they were reassuring about placing a 2wd sedan on the "Oodnadatta track" saying "You'll be fine. Some areas are slightly corrugated but you should be able to maintain a good speed.".

We were momentarily reassured - Dora had been starting to make noises through her exhaust which, shortly after our long drive had started, began to get a bit louder. She must've taken a bump on our scenic drive. We stopped off at the last 2 towns that had garages before hitting the track in the hope they could take a quick look at our car but they were too busy so we just crossed our fingers and went for it.

The track was indeed a bit better than we'd expected and on the less gravelly sections we were able to maintain about 100km/h. We got to the first town on the track - Marree - with no problems and only a little hot, had a break then set off on a 204km section to the next town - one of the smallest in Oz (population 10), William Creek. The road was a bit more variable on this part and Dora started taking some knocks underneath that felt like it was the bottom of our seats that were being hit with a sledgehammer and, inevitably, the exhaust was getting louder.

We were about half way between Marree and William Creek and probably the furthest we were going to be from anywhere or anyone (100km) on any part of our journey when we came across some roadworks!! Ginormous diggers were taking up the road so, snapping out of my tranced state and definitely not thinking straight, i followed a track to the side of the road until i realised that it was sand! By which point it was too late... we were stuck!! Fortunately, in the middle of nowhere, about 6 burly construction workers managed to push us out and we were set on our way again. Admittedly, i wouldn't have gone off the road if the construction workers weren't there but it's a damn good job they were!

Made it to William Creek and had another break. Starting to feel more tired and frustrated by the roads now but continued on the last 160km or so to Coober Pedy. This section was the worst, for more reasons than one! Firstly, the road started out extremely corrugated and we couldn't go more than 5km/h - that lasted for about 2km. Next up was the sandy roads where i couldn't decided whether Dora's steering was playing up or whether it was because of the amount of sand on the road - that lasted for about 30km. The next section was ok until about 40km to go - within touching distance of civilisation - when the inevitable happened. Something we'd avoided for so long and thought we were going to get away with even after seeing about 100 blown tyres by the side of the road. You guessed it, we got a puncture! It was a long, hot drive and we really didn't want this!

Luckily we had a spare and the means to change it. Our adventure was soon over. We found our way to our hostel in Coober Pedy after driving much slower for the last 40km because we only had one spare and had only seen about 5 vehicles all day (not including the construction workers). What a day.

Arrived at our accommodation at around 17.30. This was made all the more welcome by the unbelievably drastic temperature change when walking down a flight of stairs into our room - underground.

Coober Pedy is a mining town developed because of the Opal mining. The underground houses took shape when a miner had finished digging for opal - he would then turn his mine into his house due to the cooler living that came with going underground. Much better than staying up above in the extreme temperatures of 40+ degrees. This gives the town a very strange feel, unlike anything you'll ever come across anywhere in the world, i'm sure.

Dora was happily repaired. A new tyre and a new muffler. It turns out we were quite lucky as the exhaust pretty much fell off in the mechanics hands when he changed it!

Only a week since leaving Adelaide and already so much to take in!