The Rainbow in the Stone

We ended up staying 1 more day at Yalura before we left for Coober Pedy and Wooz, me and Nat took a camel ride.  Candy took us out and we loved it.  Nat and I rode Lazy Dazy who defying his name was a great race camel, and Wooz rode Diesel who really was lazy.  Candy answered all our questions, telling us all about camels constantly regurgitating their food, but the most interesting fact was Chewie from Star Wars makes a camel noise!

We decided not to take the camels to Coober Pedy however although it still took 2 days in the car.  We stopped overnight in Marla where there was a moth plague and we would've had 1000 in the van, and a few hundred in the car.  We drove into opal country around 2pm the next day and settled into the Oasis (nObASIS for that name) caravan park and a night of rain which apparently is quite unusual in the desert!  Then we got up early to do a tour with old Rudy which was quite entertaining.  We saw the Serbian underground church,

did some noodling in the mullock heaps, checked out the golf course (you need fluro balls to see them),

and ended up at Umoona mine which had a great history on opals, opal mining and fossils.

Then we packed up the van and went to stay at the Desert Cave Motel to give the boys the experience of staying underground, and we ended up enjoying so much the extra space we stayed 2 nights.  We had great sleeps there with the pitch black nights and no sound but one drawback was it stunk.  The Swedoshs did the big drive in 1 hit so we got to hang out together again and checked out the Old Timers Mine, which won the SA tourist award the day before,

and the Comfort Inn where we saw some awesome opal shells and had great ice coffees and milkshakes.
Then we said goodbye to the cave and headed south to Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula.  We did about 250km to Kingoonya mainly on tar, and stopped for lunch.  It was a godforsaken ghost town and the pub had closed down and we saw the biggest redback I have ever seen.

The next 250km were on the dirt and it was fairly muddy from recent rains.  The roads were long and the landscape sparse with salt lakes dotted along the way. 

The vehicles got a clay mask again but most of it got washed off as we hit a huge storm coming into town.  It was another big day at the office, at least 7 hours in the car but we sucked in the sea air and celebrated being back on the coast at the local pub.

Welcome to the Rock

After a beautiful sunset over Kings canyon the next day was rainy again.  But nothing dampened our enthusiasm as we approached The Rock, not realizing how big it really was.

 This is the view from behind our camp and looking away from Uluru was The Olgas or Kata Tjuta.

There was a glint of sun coming through at sunset but this was false hope as, after a great dinner with the Carrolls (the family we had done the King's canyon walk with), the rain set in.  They were supposed to leave the next morning but the rain had not stopped and didn't all day, and with that their hope of a short route home to Geraldton faded fast, while the water in our annex filled up fast.  So that day was spent in the camper which probably hadn't happened since the Blue Mountains.  So much for the desert being hot and dry!  Checkout the clouds on The Rock.

The next day we kicked into action and visited the cultural centre and rode our bikes around Uluru.  It was a great way to do it, nice and easy compared to walking, and fun going through all the puddles.  There were some great water holes and wave rocks.

A guy offered me $50 for my bike so I told him this was a sacred site and to stop showing disrespect.
When we got back the Swedosh's had arrived and we all fired up for the Mala Walk with Ranger Kim at 8am the next day then hopefully climb The Rock, if only the weather would oblige.  So we got up early for us and enjoyed the talk by the ranger,

but The Rock was still closed so we headed back to camp and the Swedosh's to the cultural centre.  Just as we were cooking lunch we got the text from Tori saying it was open, and the boys were pumped, so we postponed lunch and did the climb and returned a couple of hours later completely hunger flat.  We went up pretty quick (probably broke the family record) but would pay for it the next day. 

 On the way up we passed a blind guy and a big perentie, great effort on their part.

Then the last day at Yulara we decided to back it up with a 7.4km walk in The Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta.  Kirst was the only one standing strong, the rest of us struggled through it a bit, but the walk was beautiful and a special way to end our visit to the red and rainy centre.

Tomorrow we head off 700km south to Coober Pedy.  See you there.