The next stage of our journey takes us along the Stuart Highway or on The Explorers Way as it is known out here, this will take us all the way to Darwin in a few weeks.
On our way out of Port Augusta the weather was a fine and warm 21 degrees, but as we ventured further into the outback we experienced the full brunt of SA Outback weather. Torrential rain, brilliant lightning storms and dramatic temperature fluctuations in a matter of minutes, 22 down to 13 then up again to 21 then down to 13 where it stayed for a while before dropping again dramatically for overnight, the crazy weather conditions were amazing, exhillerating, extraordinary, you've just got to love this amazing country of ours.
We decided to make the detour of around 240ks round trip to Roxby Downs and Andamooka, and we were so glad we did, couldn't be this so close and not visit the towns we had heard of all of our lives.
Roxby Downs was quite a surprise, a neat little town, very modern and lively with lots of community spirit. The town was purpose built to service the Olympic Dam Mine which contains one of the largest ore bodies in the world today. The Olympic Dam Mine is owned by BHP Billiton, the mine produces copper, uranium, silver and gold. As we arrived in Roxby Downs the weather had changed again and we spent a sunny hour or so exploring the town.
Andamooka a real opal mining town. Well what a bigger surprise, we knew it would be worth our while driving the extra 30ks but we did not expect what we saw out here. It was like we had been dropped back into the early 1900's, this place has to be seen to be believed
And again the weather was on our side for a short while which allowed us some dry time to do some exploring here as well, although it had turned bitterly cold so we did the remainder of our sightseeing out of the car windows, with Jeff jumping out every so often to take a photo or two.
This fascinating opal field, discovered in 1930, was once part of a vast inland sea. Two drovers from Andamooka Station saw flashes of the beautiful gemstones on a hillside after a thunderstorm and lodged the first mining claim. This unique town of miner's homes nestles on a honetcomb of underground diggings has a population of around 800 people.
Andamooka opal is considered by experts to be the most stable in the world.
Back on the highway again in torrential rain heading to our recommended free camp at Lake Hart. Lots of caravan and campers here when we arrive as it is getting late in the day. What a great spot you can see why it is so popular, the lake is magnificent, still very windy but the rain had cleared. It was very cold and with no power it was an early night.
As the weather cleared later in the night we couldn't resist doing a spot of stargazing. As we were literally out in the middle of nowhere the display of stars was fantastic, we didn't even notice how cold we where.
Today we spotted a couple of emu's grazing, stretching their long necks to see who was disturbing their dinner, but no sign of any kangaroo's except for a couple who didn' make it across the road during the night.
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