C. Nyal de Kaye
New member
Exploring Australia is fun and can also be quite challenging. The outback roads seem endless. In fact the world's longest dead straight road is on the Nullabor Plain in Western Australia and stretches for 146.6 kilometres (just over 90 miles). You then come to a tiny bend that you can negotiate at 100 mph I expect. After that it is straight again for nearly as far again.
It is possible out there to travel all day and only see one or two vehicles, or sometimes none at all. (You will get a better appreciation of the pics, and see much more detail, if you click on them and view them full size.)
It is always nice to find a good shade tree to set up your day base whilst detecting in Western Australia. In the left background you can see some old diggings. Robyn has a thermos in her hands so it's time for a cuppa.
"The night cometh when no man can work." With a big sky you get a big sunset, followed by millions of stars from one horizon to the other. It's quite majestic.
The next two pics are the same scene from different angles. The first shows a busy shop front in the township of Leonora, Western Australia. The second explains itself.
Here is some surprising and beautiful colour found smack bang in the middle of nowhere in outback South Australia. The pic has not been doctored - that is how it is. The Lord's creation is amazing, isn't it?
The following pictures show two underground Churches in Coober Pedy, an opal mining town in South Australia. They are dug out of the living ground, are open every day and are visited by many travellers. Both are fully functioning worshiping Churches and not just tourist oddities.
The pulpit in the first pic is quite unique and follows a mining theme.
The term "underground Church" simply means it is built underground. It is not to be confused with underground Churches in China where "underground Church" means a secret Church meeting without the approval of the communist government.
The next pic shows a road train full of wrecked cars. There are a lot of road trains in Western Australia. This one is pulling three trailers, but some pull many more. In the old Tennessee Ernie song "Sixteen Tons" one verse says, "If you see me coming, Better step aside, A lot of men didn't, A lot of men died ..."
Well, if you see a road train coming then do what Tennessee Ernie says and "step aside" or perhaps die. At speed, and they are not slow, the trailing "carriages" thrash about behind the prime mover and cover the great proportion of the road width. So, even though the prime mover may miss you by 10 feet, the "tail" may swing out and get you! So, when you "see them coming" it's very wise just to pull over and let them pass.
There are a lot of abandoned and wrecked cars and caravans to be seen. We counted 213 abandoned, crashed and/or burnt out cars on one 1100km section of the road from Laverton in Western Australia to Ayres Rock in the Northern Territory.
These remote roads are not a great place to break down. If you leave a vehicle unattended you can count on it that it will be cannibalised and burnt, and quickly too. Certain groups more or less patrol these roads looking for abandoned vehicles.
On that road we also counted 23 camels, plus one dead one that had failed to avoid a road train with tragic results for the camel. The road train didn't do to well either!
We saw just two emus, one kangaroo and four dingoes on that road. For those unfamiliar with our wild life I must point out that you don't see many 'roos during the day.
There were 1000's of 'roos around, but they rather sensibly rest in the shade during the day, unlike detectorists who are nuts and therefore don't.
---------------
This is the Sturt Desert Pea, the state flower of South Australia. It was named in honour of Captain Charles Sturt (1795-1869) who was a noted explorer in Oz.
This clump (its a creeper) was growing about 20 metres off the road in as remote a spot as could be imagined. Whilst we were there another car pulled up to have a look. A car stopping may seem a silly thing to report, but it was the only car we saw and it was nice to see some fellow humans. They offered to take our pic and this is the result.
I hope you liked them.
END
It is possible out there to travel all day and only see one or two vehicles, or sometimes none at all. (You will get a better appreciation of the pics, and see much more detail, if you click on them and view them full size.)
It is always nice to find a good shade tree to set up your day base whilst detecting in Western Australia. In the left background you can see some old diggings. Robyn has a thermos in her hands so it's time for a cuppa.
"The night cometh when no man can work." With a big sky you get a big sunset, followed by millions of stars from one horizon to the other. It's quite majestic.
The next two pics are the same scene from different angles. The first shows a busy shop front in the township of Leonora, Western Australia. The second explains itself.
Here is some surprising and beautiful colour found smack bang in the middle of nowhere in outback South Australia. The pic has not been doctored - that is how it is. The Lord's creation is amazing, isn't it?
The following pictures show two underground Churches in Coober Pedy, an opal mining town in South Australia. They are dug out of the living ground, are open every day and are visited by many travellers. Both are fully functioning worshiping Churches and not just tourist oddities.
The pulpit in the first pic is quite unique and follows a mining theme.
The term "underground Church" simply means it is built underground. It is not to be confused with underground Churches in China where "underground Church" means a secret Church meeting without the approval of the communist government.
The next pic shows a road train full of wrecked cars. There are a lot of road trains in Western Australia. This one is pulling three trailers, but some pull many more. In the old Tennessee Ernie song "Sixteen Tons" one verse says, "If you see me coming, Better step aside, A lot of men didn't, A lot of men died ..."
Well, if you see a road train coming then do what Tennessee Ernie says and "step aside" or perhaps die. At speed, and they are not slow, the trailing "carriages" thrash about behind the prime mover and cover the great proportion of the road width. So, even though the prime mover may miss you by 10 feet, the "tail" may swing out and get you! So, when you "see them coming" it's very wise just to pull over and let them pass.
There are a lot of abandoned and wrecked cars and caravans to be seen. We counted 213 abandoned, crashed and/or burnt out cars on one 1100km section of the road from Laverton in Western Australia to Ayres Rock in the Northern Territory.
These remote roads are not a great place to break down. If you leave a vehicle unattended you can count on it that it will be cannibalised and burnt, and quickly too. Certain groups more or less patrol these roads looking for abandoned vehicles.
On that road we also counted 23 camels, plus one dead one that had failed to avoid a road train with tragic results for the camel. The road train didn't do to well either!
We saw just two emus, one kangaroo and four dingoes on that road. For those unfamiliar with our wild life I must point out that you don't see many 'roos during the day.
There were 1000's of 'roos around, but they rather sensibly rest in the shade during the day, unlike detectorists who are nuts and therefore don't.
---------------
This is the Sturt Desert Pea, the state flower of South Australia. It was named in honour of Captain Charles Sturt (1795-1869) who was a noted explorer in Oz.
This clump (its a creeper) was growing about 20 metres off the road in as remote a spot as could be imagined. Whilst we were there another car pulled up to have a look. A car stopping may seem a silly thing to report, but it was the only car we saw and it was nice to see some fellow humans. They offered to take our pic and this is the result.
I hope you liked them.
END
