Day 5 - Williams Creek to Erldunda

A Nissan Patrol  along the William Creek road still going... ha!

This morning we woke up with the sun at Williams Creek. After a massive night out at the pub I was feeling less than wonderful, but after a bushmans brekkie sandwich with egg, cheese and chutney we were ready to hit the road once again.


Instead of continuing along the Oodanatta trail to Oodanatta Pink road house we decided instead to take the rickety road down to Coober Pedy. It wasn’t quite as bad as the road to Lake Eyre the day before but still we had a good two hours of solid shakey driving along a dirt track with the Woomera Prohibited area along both sides. Thankfully we can blare our sound system so at least we had some good music to listen to as we both sat in our chairs getting shaken up more than one does to make a martini! The car is now showing signs of also getting a little over the unsealed roads. I went to plug my seatbelt in yesterday and the plug has unscrewed itself from all the jittering along these tracks… Absolutely hilarious! So much for being safe!

When we reached Coober Pedy it meant we were back on bitchumen again (thank god!) and we stopped briefly for a hamburger and to fill up with diesel. I even had a cup of tea, my first since leaving Sydney. It was lush, even though only a dodgey dilma tea bag… Tempe – if only I had your secret stash of snob tea here with me!!

A quick drive around town meant we saw the Mad Max memorabilia house, a view of the town and then we were off up the Stuart Hwy onward bound towards Erldunda which we only just made it to before dusk. Here at the roadhouse we had hot showers and some bangers and mash -our last meal with fresh produce (we are now on emergency food!). Fingers crossed we wont have any issues booking into Voyagers resort tomorrow!

The drive itself was pretty uneventful, many games of celebrity head were played and the landscape changed by the hour as we entered the NT. Coober Pedy is a mining town, so the view was simply piles and piles of dirt and dust. Northbound this changed from shrub back to the characteristic central Australian red dirt. And its amazing too… This red dirt gets EVERYWHERE. Everything in the back of the car is now covered with dust after all the unsealed roads we have been driving along. Like Nic was saying yesterday... y ou take your towel out in the evening to dry yourself and wonder… “Is it really worth using this?” drip drying is probably a better option to keep the cleanness for longer.

So the total tally for the day… 480kms travelled AND we tallied up the diesel receipts… Sor far we have reached the grand total of $616 for fuel… Not so bad really seeing as we are a couple of thousand k’s away from home.

=.) z

Sunrise at William Creek... uurrgh my head!

Nissan Patrol... indestructable

William Creek road nothingness...

This way to Coober...

This was a road train we pulled up next to somewhere up the Stuart Hwy... MASSIVE!!

Run away! Run away! Killer Kangaroos!!

NT border... We sorta missed judged the timer on this one..!

And second time lucky!

Who said that 110kms... Was the top speed limit in Australia?