Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Day 34: 3/2/13
We had a sleep in this morning- we didn't leave until 7- yippee!! Anything after 5 is a sleep in at the moment
We went noodling this morning. When they are mining, they have a blower machine that sucks out the rubble created by the explosions. There could be bits of opal in this rubble, but the miners are looking for big sections of opal and aren't interested in this. So noodling is when you root through the piles of sand and rocks looking for opals. We spent a while rooting through stones, getting nice and dirty! We didn't find anything. There were picnic tables near the bus and when we gave up and went back there we realised there were lots of little bits of opal around there. So we all got some little bits. Some are probably potch- opal without the colours through it- but they still look nice! I was so glad I hadn't wasted my money buying jewellery for the sake of getting some opal, when it was much more exciting to find it in the ground yourself!!
After that we were back in the bus for another long journey! We were driving on the Stewart highway for most of today and yesterday also. Stewart was an explorer and the first man to make his way from Adelaide to Darwin. They were able to put up a telegraph and stuff after he explored the way. Also, noone died on any of his expeditions. He could have been knighted but he was a bit of an alcoholic and didn't bother.
We stopped for lunch at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. There were three big massive trucks there called road trains. They are big lorries but can have 3 trailers attached. There were some windmills there too which made good photos. Also there was some sand swirling around which looks like a twister. It's called a willy willy! I don't know about the spelling!
The landscape got quite red again as we got closer to Adelaide. Dan said Adelaide is the driest city, in the driest state, in the driest continent in the world. In the past the military tested missiles out here and even tested nuclear missiles. They didn't bother to tell too many aboriginal people about it and 800 of them were killed in the first explosion. There are a different tribe of aboriginal people here hit still a lot of the creation stories are the same- they have been carried on for 20,000 years.
We stopped at a salt lake on the way. It was tiny compared to the one in Bolivia, but still good to see. Photos look good when the ground is all white, but you couldn't take the kind of cool perspective photos that you could in Bolivia as you could see the normal ground in the background. You can take some cool jumping ones alright as you can make it look like you are above the horizon.
We saw emus on the side of the road while we were driving which was cool!
We stopped in Port Augusta which was the first civilised town we've seen in a week! We had a chance to go to the supermarket there and buy some alcohol.
It was about 6 when we got to the Flinders mountain range where we were staying. We had a barbecue which was yummy! Burgers, sausages, fried potatoes, salad... Gorgeous! We all had a few drinks then. It got dark pretty quickly so it was hard to see the people far away from you! I was talking to Nathalie and Nikolaus from Sweden most of the time, also Svenya from Germany. There was a shed area that was the kitchen. In there they put up disco lights and some people went dancing! They played lots of the same songs over and over, lots of dance music! As you can tell I wasn't dancing! It was mostly the 18 year olds! I went to bed around midnight. Another night in the swags, under the stars! The music and disco lights were still going though so sleeping wasn't too easy!
- comments