Heading out through Wilmington village in the morning we encountered peak hour - five cars went by before we could turn onto the highway!

Passing through the north end of a range of hills called the Remarkables with extraordinarily gnarled eucalypts, we bypassed the chemical factories of Port Augusta and finally felt that we were heading 'outback'. A sign on the Stuart Highway heading due north announced that Alice Springs was 1221 kms away and almost at once we were into red desert with grey-green saltbush and twisted, stunted acacias. The flat plain stretched away to the horizon; the road stretched in a straight line ahead of us. Occasional cars and enormous triple-trailered road trains shared our road. On the GPS, the directions told us out next turn to the right was 487 kms ahead.

The rain that passed across the country from Broome to the east coast must have dumped quite a bit of water in some areas. Salt lakes were half-full, roadside ditches were full of muddy water and water spread itself out in shining patches amongst the scrubby bush. The red dirt was covered in many places with a soft, bright-green cover.

At times we rose and fell gently as the land undulated; at others, it was flat, flat, flat. Sometimes the vegetation was low, and at other times scrubby trees and bushes dominated. We saw little animal life: not a kangaroo alive to be seen though an occasional one as roadkill was a feast for crows and the magnificent Wedgetail Eagles. In fact it is surprising how little roadkill there was - where are all the animals?? The animal we saw most of was the cat - ordinary moggies, obviously feral, out in the middle of the desert! And apart from the crows, not too many birds either apart from the occasional wheeling flock of pink and grey galahs.

Suddenly, some kilometres after the Glendambo Roadhouse, it seemed there was a painted pedestrian crossing, coming from and going to nowhere. In fact, it was the 'piano keys' of an airstrip, the other of the pair some hundreds of metres along the road together with a dirt taxiway/parking strip off to the side. Why build a dirt strip when you have a perfectly good highway to land on.

Approaching Coober Pedy, the land becomes dotted with large and small conical mounds of dirt - the mullock heaps of the opal miners. Some are clearly huge commercial operations while many would still be worked by individuals hoping to make their fortune.

And so into Coober Pedy town, just off the highway, and here to spend another night on our journey.