Thursday 11th December

We left Coober Pedy at around 9 am on our way down to Quorn, our next night stop. It had rained a lot during the night, which is very unusual for this arid area, especially at this time of year, and the snad had transformed into a muddy sinking clay. On the way out of Coober Pedy, Brett taught us about the region we were travelling through. When Captain James Cook took Sydney in 1770, Britain decided to settle convicts in the majority of the newly-acquired territory apart from in South Australia, where the free settlers were placed. The region made very slow progress economically, supported by British funds, until in 1856 when it became self-governing. The entire region is covered by the Flying Doctor Service. This was founded by John Flynn and is run on donations all over Australia. In this part of the outback it is the only method of obtaining medical treatment. After a brief lunch stop at Glendambo, we continuted on our journey across the outback and spotted some emus wandering across the desert. Emus are the world's second largest flightless bird and are in fact very dangerous to humans when in the wild. Our next stop was at Lake Hart, a massive dry salt lake whose crystals created a snowy appearance. Unfortunately the intense sunlight made the lake painfully bright and there was also an insane amount of flies, making the whole experience a little unpleasant. We headed into the small town of Woomera ("spear-thrower"). This settlement was created specifically for the British and Australian armies for weapons testing and only military members can live there. We were able to take a wander around Missile Park though, in which there were several replicas of war planes and rockets that had been used in this area. As we entered the Flinders Ranges on our way south, the land began to transform into sheep and wheat country. The Flinders Ranges (discovered in 1802 by Matthew Flinders) are classed as one of the most fantastic destinations in Australia but unfortunately it had been raining too much for us to see the surrounding landscape properly. Our last stop of the day before arriving in Quorn was Port Augusta. This is a busy trading location of about 30,000 people and forms the main supply route to the region (food, gold, iron ore and wheat are all traded here). We arrived into Quorn in the early evening. This is a quaint old railway town, of huge importance when the Great Northern Railway was completed in 1878. When this railway closed in 1957 the town's population dwindled to around 1,500 and its main purpose nowadays is a touristic one. We were staying at a cosy hotel, The Mill, and having discovered that our proposed feral BBQ (camel, kangaroo and emu meat) hadn't been provided, we headed down to the local pub, The Criterion, for some dinne. A few of us stayed to have a few drinks with some very drunk locals, one of whom, having lost his driving licence for drink-driving, had the task the next day to go and buy himself a horse to use as transport...only in Quorn!!! The weather had turned really wet over dinner and by the time we wandered back to the hostel, the roads were practically flooded. We were singing in the rain quite literally!

Friday 12th December

We awoke today at 6am in order to go on the proposed walk through the Flinders Ranges. It had been raining constantly throughout the night though and I don't think that the little town of Quorn had ever seen so much water. Brett nevertheless decided that we should head out to see how far we could get but a short way down the road we ran into our first flooded creek. It was quite amazing how much water was flowing under such a strong current along the road. There was no way that the bus, with trailer attached, would have made it down to Wilpena Pound, so Brett reluctantly gave up. However, in attempting a multi-point turn in the road, he managed to sink the bus' wheels into the mud until we were well and truly stuck. After pushing the trailer to safety and a lot of hilarity and photo taking, we set about the impossible task of extracting the bus from the mud. As luck would have it, a red truck appeared down the road and having flagged down its friendly driver, Simon, he hauled us to safety. It would have been a very muddy and probably unsatisfactory effort if we had been left to our own devices. Having finally returned to our hostel, very cold and resembling a bunch of drowned rats, we all curled up in the lounge, wood fire blazing and popcorn all round, to watch an Australian film, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. This was a very bizarre movie about 3 transvestites doing a road trip from Sydney to Alice Springs but much of it had been filmed in places we had just visited. The rest of the day was filled with more DVD watching until dinner. We were finally presented with our feral BBQ, consisting of camel sausages, emu burgers and kanagroo steak, cooked by our trucker, Simon, who we had invited back for the evening. Luckily there was some beef and chicken as well, definitely my preferred choice. Brett had spent the afternoon baking us a surprisingly good fruit crumble, which we consumed before heading off to bed for an early night.