Day 13 – 20th April

As Chris would say it was a pearla sunrise today. Not that we needed a pearla as we were shooting in the opposite direction and just needed the sun to light up the cliffs which it did, they glowed red. Sun didn’t come up until 7.30 though.

Red Bank Redbank #3 Redbank SA Sunrise Bridge

We headed off towards Coober Pedy a bit later than we had hope due to the sunrise. We stopped at Woomera and looked at the Missile Park which has a whole heap of missiles on display, funny about that. Chris was like a kid in a toy store.

Woomera Rockets 2 Woomera Rockets 3jpg Woomera Rockets Woomera

The rd to Coober Pedy can be a bit boring with stretches of long flat plains with little vegetation and then you come across salt pans or salt lakes which are very fascinating and weird. We stopped at one look out and there was this salt pan and right in the middle was the little mound like a little volcano, it was very strange.

We also saw 8 different Wedge Tails Eagles in 2 different spots that got our attention. Both times eating road kill. In one spot an eagle was sitting on a white post which was the highest vantage point as there were no trees. Chris did a U turn several times, we drove slowly back up to them and did some drive by birding. The 2nd time we stopped there we 5 eagles around, 3 were on the ground, 1 was having a good feed on road kill (which was well off the road) while the other 2 waiting their turn. As we got closer we could see the eagle pulling at the flesh of what once was a sheep. We were able to get out of the car and slowly moved towards them. 2 flew off but one wasn’t sure he wanted to leave his feed when he was finally getting a turn. We are yet to look at the shots but Chris was filling the frame with his 400mm lens.

Higher Ground Proud Wedge Tailed Eagle Feasting Wedge Tailed Eagle

One thing we have noticed about people is SA is they are really friendly; everyone waves to you when you are driving, caravan people, motorhome people, cars, even truckies, and we even had someone waving a smiling face at us.The last 250 odd kms were rather uneventful, just much the same scenery. After travelling well over 500kms we have stopped for the night 12km out of Cooper Pedy. The flies are bad here, even after dust they have not gone away, they are like piranha flies, as soon as you get out of the car they descent on you within seconds. We will really need the Aeroguard here and want to pick up some better fly hats.

We have booked into a tour tomorrow arvo that covers a many of the local attractions, like underground homes, church, shops, opal mines, dog fence and the famous Breakaways. We have also booked into an underground motel for a night on the 22nd. I’m very excited about visiting Cooper Pedy.