Heading into the Outback

Wednesday the 3rd of May.
We woke up to a cool overcast day. A good day for driving. We were heading up the Stuart Highway to Woomera.
 I just love the scenery along the road.It is very sparse with hardly any trees. Occasionally there would be a small mountain, a body of salt water or hills. I was taking photos out of the window as we were driving along. I couldn't get enough of the openness.The road was long and straight with the odd corner and hill.
We arrived in Woomera about lunch time and had a look through their museum.
Woomera is situated in Northwest South Australia and consists of Woomera village (population 200 -300) and the Woomera test range ( also known as the Woomera prohibited area).
The Woomera test range is 127000 Square Kilometres and that makes it the largest land based test site in the world.
It was opened to the public in 1982.In the main street there is a display of rockets and components which Luke enjoyed looking at.

Rocket at Woomera

Scenery on the road to Woomera

After we had lunch in Woomera we headed up the road to Roxby Downs.
Roxby Downs was built approx 22 years ago and it was purpose built for the workers of the BHP Billiton Olympic dam Copper mine.There is 4000-5000 people living in the town approx 1/4 were kids.
We did a tour of the mine on Thursday morning and it was very fascinating.
Our tour guide explained about how the copper was mined underground but in the future they are looking to expand into open cut mining. Copper is the main mineral that they mine for but gold, silver and urunium are also found.
No photos were allowed to be taken on the mine tour.

Friday we drove out to Andamooka Opal fields.Andamooka is a small town of approx 600 people.It has 1 sealed road that leads into the town through the main street. The town has 2 pubs one on either side of the road because it is built on a river bed and when it rains heavy the main street becomes a river and it flows to fast to cross. Out in the middle of nowhere beer is cheaper than water.
We drove through Andamooka and continued along a dirt road out to Lake Torrens. Lake Torrens is usually dry but when we went out to see it it had small bodies of water in it. We walked out onto the muddy surface of the lake and over to the thick salt layer.It was an amazing thing to see and walk on.

Dug outs in Andamooka

Duke's Bottle House-
made out of brown bottles

Nanna & Poppy on the way to Lake Torrens

Luke and Poppy
Walking on the Salt Lake Torrens

Luke

Walking through the mud
Lake Torrens

Dry part of Lake Torrens

Todd leaving our mark

Sonia at Lake Torrens

Road to Lake Torrens

Dug outs in Andamooka

After Lake Torrens we drove back into Andamooka and had lunch at one of the pubs then we went out to the huge dirt piles left from previous people mining. We were going to 'Noodle' for Opal.Noodle means fossicking or looking. We had lots of fun walking over the giant mounds of dirt and the kids had fun digging holes and sliding down the sides of the mounds.
Todd's parents were talking to a semi-local and he said that a couple of months earlier a boy had found an Opal worth $4000 just by sliding down the hills. Near the end of the day I found a small piece of Opal. It was creamy and when I held it up to the light it had flecks of red  in it but not much else. Not worth much.

Andamooka

Careena & Luke on top of mullock mounds
Used dirt from mines.

Mullock mounds with
 Andamooka in Background

Todd jumping across the mounds.
(Is he trying to be Bear Grylls?)

Alanna copying Dad

Tomorrow we move on to Coober Pedy maybe we will have more luck there.