Coober Pedy, to Marla, 3rd May, 2024

 As I said last night ran out of time to cover yesterday’s 2nd tour so here goes. 2nd tour in the afternoon driving out west to see the Breakaways ending up watched the sun go down. But I did notice that our driver suddenly said come on hurry up we have to get out of here. I took it he didn’t want to be out here once the sun disappeared as it would have been very dark. This was going to be one of my highlights and it was just that, amazing. Had to take a tour as couldn’t drive that far out west by ourselves. John McDouall Stuart was the first European to discover this area in 1859. Now named after him the Stuart Range  includes the Breakaways. They get their name as the range is made up of many individual hills not like a long range all in one. ‘Get it’,had to drop that in as this is what our driver said after he told us something. ‘Get it.’ George was an excellent tour leader very funny with a dry sense of humour. A real fun tour just twelve of us, lots of laughs. Don’t forget you can tap on the photos to make them bigger and better colours. If on the phone tap, turn phone sideways.

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Before I start on the Breakaways I will try and explain better than yesterday about the huge mining that goes on in Coober Pedy.

  

The above is what they call the blower machines, but in fact they work the opposite way they are sucking the dirt into the drum  which you can see  up high at the back of  the truck. This drum drills a big hole into the ground and the machine sucks up the dirt into the drum and the sucking motion holds  the dirt in the drum before it is carried over and emptied into the back of the noodle machine.  (which I talked about yesterday.) photo two down.

Like above. Every pile you see on the ground there will be a hole this big (the width of the sucking barrels about 2 feet in diameter) which goes down 30 meters. 

As the driver said if you fall down one of these you will never be found. they are everywhere for miles across the land. All the piles have come out of the noodle machine 

This is the noodle machine. The dirt/stones get put into the yellow bin filtered through the middle tube dividing the fine stuff from the bigger stones. Then the opals and fine stones will come through the white box where men sit in the dark under  black lighting which makes the opals shine in the dark and the men physically remove all the ones that shine one piece at a time. Can you imagine sitting in a dark box picking out little opals. 🤔 All the waste from each drum that goes through the noodle machine ends up in a pile on the ground, as you can see from the photos they can get very high.

Two more photos that I took this morning as we left. You just wouldn’t believe how much land these piles cover. It’s an amazing sight to see all this along the main highway as you leave Coober Pedy. The prospectors  that mine the land have to get a permit which costs $250 per year for each block they claim which is 200m x50m then that’s there spit nobody is allowed to mine on their piece of land.

THE BREAKAWAYS PLUS THE SUNSET TOUR

We have turned off the sealed roads heading west into the sunset to see the magnificent Breakaways.

This is the well known dingo fence which is the longest fence in the world. It is approximately 5300km. The fence is a pest- exclusion fence in Australia to keep the dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent. Also to protect the sheep of southern Queensland. 

Standing in front of the fence holding one of the original fence posts made of extremely hard word. No deterioration in the wood after being there for seventy years. Along the fence in places has been replaced by new logs which look like pine so they won’t last that long.

Now we are amongst The Breakaways fantastic. I mentioned at the beginning of the blog why they are called The Breakaways

We were told that this white hill looked like a camel lying down, but we couldn’t really see that. I think it looks more like a whale.

I will let the pictures talk here, just enjoy the colours

It is hard to believe that over 70 million years ago this area was covered by an inland sea. Amazing but who’s counting.

The start of the sunset. At this moment our tour leader George  made us coffee and gave us a massive blueberry muffin to eat and watch the sun go down. 

As the sun goes down it brings all the colours to life,  just beautiful.

Nearly gone

Time to go Gorge yelling at us all, get in the bus we have to go as though there was some urgency. It would have been a bit spooky being out there once the sun fully disappeared. It had gone completely about half way back to camp.

Our two tours yesterday were amazing they are the highlight so far,  but I hope there will be many more to come.  😎

We only did 234km today so didn’t leave quite as early arriving at Marla at mid day. Very easy travelling today hardly  any traffic at all. Marla was just a little place on the highway consisting of a Petrol station , restaurant and a big motel. All beautifully set out. Big camping area out the back even had grass to park next to which is always nice to step down on especially as we are well into the red soil.

This is the resident goose obviously well looked after. The cleaning lady came over and topped up his water bowl.  One which was smaller  for drinking and this one where he rushed over and just lay down in it. He’s very friendly , I could go over this close and he didn’t move. He is so clean and healthy looking.

Marla, lovely tidy area just choose your spot and hook up to the power and water.

Camp behind the motel.

            

                                      Marla

Not alot of people early afternoon but they start rolling in from about 4.00pm. It’s been a nice relaxing day after  our very busy day yesterday. Off to Ghan tomorrow just for one night about 250km so hopefully another relaxing afternoon camping behind a Roadhouse. These one night stops on the highway are just, as I call it, a sleep over. Nothing to see or do but nice to have a quiet time.