Three words to describe today’s drive: LONG, FLAT, and BARREN. We covered a sizeable distance today (approx. 1200km) and we can honestly say that of all the different parts of this country that we’ve seen so far, this is the least scenic stretch of road.
We had left King’s Canyon at 5am and five minutes into our drive Willy drove through a small floodway at full speed – we now realize why those floodway signs exist as this is the first time there has been water in these unassuming flat stretches of road. Over the next 7 hours, the sun came up and the scenery did not change, except for a sign indicating we had crossed the Northern Territory/South Australia border.
We arrived at a town built underground in the middle of the desert called Coober Pedy. Several houses and buildings are built underground because of the extreme temperatures in summer. We visited a couple of underground churches to get an appreciation of how far underground they are built. It was a dead town and we didn’t stay long.
From here it was another 5 hours of driving through South Australia. The landscape was so barren, there were no trees, only shrubs, but we wouldn’t even call them that because we wouldn’t want to confuse anyone with something you could see over (they were knee high at best).
This came as a surprise to us because we thought that this is more like what the Northern Territory would look like and that as we drove further south the landscape would become greener. We later learned that South Australia is known to be the driest state in the driest continent. We didn’t think it would take as long as it did to drive into South Australia, but we were happy to finally reach the coastal town of Port Augusta – brrrrrrrr.
Highlight of the day: we saw lots of wild emu’s on the drive down, probably because they have nothing to hide behind.
We had left King’s Canyon at 5am and five minutes into our drive Willy drove through a small floodway at full speed – we now realize why those floodway signs exist as this is the first time there has been water in these unassuming flat stretches of road. Over the next 7 hours, the sun came up and the scenery did not change, except for a sign indicating we had crossed the Northern Territory/South Australia border.
We arrived at a town built underground in the middle of the desert called Coober Pedy. Several houses and buildings are built underground because of the extreme temperatures in summer. We visited a couple of underground churches to get an appreciation of how far underground they are built. It was a dead town and we didn’t stay long. From here it was another 5 hours of driving through South Australia. The landscape was so barren, there were no trees, only shrubs, but we wouldn’t even call them that because we wouldn’t want to confuse anyone with something you could see over (they were knee high at best).
This came as a surprise to us because we thought that this is more like what the Northern Territory would look like and that as we drove further south the landscape would become greener. We later learned that South Australia is known to be the driest state in the driest continent. We didn’t think it would take as long as it did to drive into South Australia, but we were happy to finally reach the coastal town of Port Augusta – brrrrrrrr.
Highlight of the day: we saw lots of wild emu’s on the drive down, probably because they have nothing to hide behind.
