An easy 328 km in 3 hrs 15 mins. The first 2 and a half hours had me backtracking to the Stuart Highway then turning South. I have left the French tourists behind in their twin land cruiser Prado rentals, de rigeur for their outback adventure. Now the road landscape features triple trailer cattle road trains and a few bikers. I met a couple from Cairns heading to the rock and 4 from Victoria heading to Townsville the way I came.
Kulgera accommodation is basic, I have pitched my tent on grass…none of which is in the main camp ground……about to check out the showers…..ok that is a disaster because the men’s toilet is flooded with water and I tip toe around in my Scarpa boots. In some ways I am not disappointed because in a split second of pulling my helmet off I had given the ablutions a dubious recognition and now I feel more confident that my travellers intuition has kicked in. There is no mobile reception and I sign up got $4.95 of Go Roamin wifi. 4 guys on dirt squirts came in off the Finke turnoff and they seem happy to have blasted around for a week and a bit. A lady who has a 1500 Kwaka at home comes over to chew my ear and I can see she has no time for a paltry 1200.
It comes with the territory
After a quick pub meal that is best forgotten I crashed out in my tiny tent. The night was cool and got down to 5 degrees but I found that the snug sleeping bag and a pair of thermals kept me warm.
On day 13 I surface at 7am to avoid the coldest part of the dawn. Breakfast is muesli and coffee made by me. By 8:40 I am rolling down the highway at a balmy 16 degrees C. That climbs to 26 degrees C within 182 km as I pull into Marla. Glancing around I noticed the campground and, if my travellers intuition is right, it would be a better spot to spend the night.
Marla Roadhouse
It seems the ” Kulgera crowd” have worked that out and I spend a long time over coffee chatting to a bus tour group as well as 3 campers from Victoria. After finally kitting up I was about to swing my leg on the bike when Neil appeared out of the desert on a well loaded Honda. He was from Sydney and had spent a week on the dirt Oodnadatta track by himself. So we chatted for another half hour or so before he headed off for a coffee and I hit the road south again.
In between riding and chatting
Steampunk grasshopper
Safety signs on the road
The tail wind from the North has picked up and gusts across the road in places. It ensures that I have to concentrate on riding the 253 km to Coober Pedy where the temperature climbs to 31 degrees C in mid afternoon. The township has a lot of roadside signage about shafts, and mullock piles dot the horizon. I lapped the town on the bike and was struck by the acres of “steampunk” machinery, dominated by the grasshopper profiles of the “vacuum suckers”
Coober Pedy feels like an old town where all the pubs closed down. I could not see one pub that operated in the traditional sense. Some of the converted businesses looked confusing wit a two story pub profile but tenanted by newer businesses. I dropped into a well laid out Tourism Information Centre that listed an “underground camping” experience. It was 5 km out of town just after the sign that said ” keep out”. However I pressed on and after paying a $15 fee chose my underground cubicle that had been cut with a road header into the soft weathered sandstone. I found Coober Pedy something of an echo of the little old mining towns I have seen.i sense the opal miners are grumpy individuals, the obvious ones are men in their sixties, they sit alone at dinner tables but know the men at the adjacent tables. They are difficult to engage in conversation with and I contented myself with a steak and a beer.
Who can resist?
Underground wifi
Camping underground