Saturday, September 06, 2008

This great brown land I live in






Lat week end we were by the sea, on Wednesday night I was sleeping in a tent in the middle of no where, near a town with a population of 3.
It was the most incredible experience. We flew out of Adelaide and after 2 hours landed at Coober Pedy, having flown over salt lakes and as we flew in marvelled at the hillocks all over the place that the opal miners had made.
The airport was a tiny tin shed.
We were loaded into buses and driven another 2 hours out into the desert.
We passed through the dog fence, which has been erected to keep the dingo's out of the sheep country so here we were in cattle country and on Anna Station, supposed to be the biggest single station in the world, owned by the famous Kidman family.
We were on the famous Oodnadatta track. Not much wildlife we did see 2 emu's, but mostly red sand and sparse bushes except in the creek lines where the trees were bigger. They have been in drought for nearly 10 years but then at Coober Pedy the average yearly rainfall is about 4 inches, when the rain comes it is usually about an inch at a time or more and then everything changes and it is a sea of flowers.
The William Creek pub is justly famous, calling cards from all over the world are here, and yes we had beer at the pub, more on that tomorrow.
I took loads of photos but it is amazing when you look at what you didnt take.
We were taken to our tent city and found our allocated tents, lines of blue ones.
I think I will tell this over a few days so I can get more photos in.
The reason we were there? It was the far north's turn to host the Regional Development boards conference, and host us well they did, John is the Chair of our local board.

3 comments:

Doreen G said...

What incredible photos Penny.
How did you go in the tent.

Robin Mac said...

So glad you are spreading it over a few days and showing us more photos of that wonderful country. Aren't you lucky it was their turn to host the conference.
Cheers, Robin

Anonymous said...

It was always a dream of my dad's to visit Coober Pedy.