Heading Home

Dugout, Coober Pedy

Once we left the rock we really did feel like we were heading home. The sign at The Olgas read 259 to WA border. Unfortunately this is a gravel road and we wanted to stay on the bitumen. For us it was 2300 kilometres to the WA border, nearly ten times the distance. There was really only one more place left to stop, Coober Pedy; the opal mining town where the majority of the population live in the dugouts; bored out of the soft rock. Many of these underground houses are large and opulent. There are many shops and even a hotel underground. All the shops sell opals, many “direct” from the miners. All quote that their opals are the best quality and beware of others. You would want to know what you were buying.

No distances on this sign in Port Augusta,
but Perth is 2,400 kilometres and
Darwin 2750 kilometres

From Coober Pedy it was one nighters all the way home. It was now the first week of August and we always knew we could cop a hiding coming back across the Nullarbor in winter. For once we struck it lucky. The forecast was for several days of fine weather. Of course, this also meant cold weather. Overnight we had one or two degrees with maximums in the mid-teens. You soon learn that riding non-stop on an empty outback highway is much colder than riding around the city. We would have liked a set of traffic lights on red so we had an excuse to stop and warm up for a minute or two.

We stopped at Port Augusta, Ceduna, Eucla and Norseman; arriving home in five days from Coober Pedy. We travelled three thousand kilometres in five days, not bad since we were only a month from the shortest day and we never rode at night. Note to self: get heated grips for the next big adventure.