Day 58 Coober Pedy to Glendambo

Before we left Coober Pedy I walked to the top of the hill at Riba’s, from there I had a 360 deg. view of the area. Apart from the Campground I could see the tops of the skylights above the Underground Camping area and across the way openings into a hill one seemed to have a door and another a window.

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We intended stopping the night at Kingoonya, the Pub has a reputation for good nights of singing and the little town sounded interesting. It has the widest main street of any town in Australia. Our first stop though was at Bon Bon Rest area, some people set up camp for the night in places like that but it doesn’t appeal to me. Too exposed and too noisy with Road Trains travelling at all hours on the adjacent Stuart Highway.

Turning onto the rough dirt road meant lowering the tyre pressures and while that was happening I took a look at the vegetation near the road.

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When three horses came to meet us as we drove in to Kingoonya I thought it was a place we had to stay. Eighty trains a week pass on the way to Tarcoola there some go north and others west. The Camping Area was very exposed and the Pub seemed to be the only remaining business, only nine people live in the town. Whether or not anything happened there at night depended on who turned up, maybe a few people, maybe no-one. We walked around the town, bowled some horse poo down the cricket pitch in the middle of the main street in lieu of a cricket ball and then decided there wasn’t enough to keep us in the windy town.

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The section of road from the Stuart Highway to Kingoonya had corrruggggattttionnnnns so we were happy when the dirt road on to Glendambo was relatively smooth…..until the Prado Pilot commented on the fact. At least it wasn’t as bad as the previous road. Maybe tractors are kinder to the roads than faster cars.

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Driving in to Glendambo we had a Mataranka Moment when three transporters turned in with tanks and other Army vehicles on board.

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Just off the road there are some areas of water, on one side I only saw one small bird and a dead Pelican but across the other side there were a lot of small birds. It makes me wonder if there’s something polluting the water on one side.

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We’ve stayed in this Campground before and it’s another one which has deteriorated, the newest Amenities Block is closed and looks in need of work. Years ago there was a Fauna Park here but that has gone and when we walked up a track there were lots of drums and posts that must have been there for a purpose once.

On our walk we saw some beautiful Sturt Desert Peas and three wild Emus seemed very curious about us.

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Looking around the Campground there were a few hints that the place gets windy!

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It’s getting very cold now, I need to put another layer on and turn the heater up!