Woomera is more than just rockets.

We were in no rush to leave Coober Pedy.  We had a bit of a drive to Woomera, but there is this sense of excitement that whilst this drive is going to be a big one, it is the last big one for a while.  Maybe that is where we went wrong!  The first half an hour of the trip were umm, to put honestly painful, the kids just weren’t happy and wanted whatever the other one had and would not share.  It didn’t help that our first stop was still in Coober Pedy, as the caravan parks aren’t really set up to have water connected to your van we had used all our water.  We didn’t want to travel with the tanks empty, so we decided to fill them up at the water station.  It only cost about twenty cents per 30 litres so it only took a dollar to fill her up.  Just don’t want to be caught without water out there.

Filling the van up with water.

 

Thankfully the kids settled down after that first half hour and started to finally entertain themselves.  Hamish had us laughing with his antics.  We pulled in for a quick stop at Glendambo to fill the fuel tanks and have some lunch.  The sign when driving into the little community did give me a good laugh and the kids welcomed the chance to stretch their legs.  Again we stayed a little longer than we should of, but we were on the home straight now, not too much longer to go.  Woomera is about six kilometres off the main road so our intention was to drive in, do the museum and see the sights (it is only a small town) before returning out to free camp at the servo on the side of the highway.

Nothing to see.

Hamish keeping us entertained.

Happy little chap.

Really have to think outside the box.

Glendambo information.

The lead up to Woomera was open plains of nothing.  They had warning signs to be aware of stock on the road but I was more interested in finding out how stock could survive out there!  The most exciting part of the road was when there was a little hill so we could cross over the train track.  Then we would come to the edge of a ridge and it would drop down to a bit more vegetation and that is when the salt lakes started to appear.  They were quite amazing to see and very bright with the sun reflecting off them.

Look a man made ridge.

Our first salt lake.

Another one.

More of the first one - it was just so white.

Lots of Emu chicks.  We got very excited at the sight of wildlife.

When we turned for Woomera there was no vegetation really around, other than the odd tree near the homes at the service station.  Then you drove over this ridge and saw the little leafy township of Woomera.  We parked the van and made our way up to the museum, taking our time to check out the rockets, aircraft and missiles that were on display.  The town is well laid out with lots of big leafy trees and beautiful parks, however the town was dead, you rarely saw a car, let alone another person outside the buildings.

Checking out the displays.  The boys really loved it.

Oh my gosh, green grass.

We certainly made the most of it.

When we arrived at the Museum we found out it was shut for the day, we had missed it by half an hour.  Now we regretted taking our time to get here, and so I quickly grabbed some printed information before they shut the information centre too.  In the summer period their opening hours are from 10am until 2pm.  I just gave Jason the look as I had told him to call ahead whilst we were in Coober Pedy as I had read they close during low tourist season.  If he had, we would have been informed of the opening hours – lesson learnt.  However as we have no real set schedule we decided just to stay the night in the caravan park. 

Lucky for us it wasn’t packed and we were easily able to find a park!  After we took this photo another caravan did join us and I think a couple pulled up to stay in one of the cabins, so it wasn’t fully ours.  They also had a quirky onsite bar which was just a small shipping container.  From the outside you wondered what on earth could fit in there, but once inside it you didn't feel cramped at all.  We stayed there until the kids started to move the little bit of furniture around and cause a bit too much noise for a small place.  However I really enjoyed my time chatting to the lady at the bar.  We learnt that you are only allowed to stay in Woomera if you work there and you had to work at least a minimum of thirty hours a week.  The only person who actually owns land near Woomera is the caravan park owner, everyone else just rents.  All the trees we saw in town had to be planted, but first a nursery was set up in Port Augusta to establish plants that would survive in the harsh salt conditions that Woomera was positioned in.

As soon as we parked the birds just flocked to us.

Yep, we had the place all to ourselves (well for a while anyway).

This gave us a good laugh.

The bar and its deck.

Inside the bar.

It was quite windy that night and the next day too.  Lucky we hadn’t bothered putting out the awning as I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep.  We hitched on the van and went to head back into town.  For some reason though the caravan reversing camera wasn’t working.  Jason tried to fiddle with it but I was more keen to get going to see everything and be there when the museum opened.  We were only going to Port August that night, so just two hundred kilometres down the road, but I just wanted to get there by now.  I didn’t want any more dramas.  Jason kept trying to fix the problem and even had the guy who installed it on the phone.  They tried checking fuses etc. but nothing seemed to get it to work.  I finally convinced Jason that we didn’t need it; he just liked to be able to see behind the caravan as we drive, I think it provides him with some entertainment on the long drives.

Beautiful tree lined street.

Hamish wanted his photo in front of most of them.

This one was pretty special.

The Museum finally opened and we were there waiting.  It was only small but there were so much interesting facts.  Even out in the cafeteria there were heaps of old photo albums each showing different things from weddings and engagements in the area to other news articles.  You could have easily spent a day going through them all.  A day we did not spend as we did have to keep moving and I was mindful of not travelling too late in the afternoon with the kids.

Checking out one of the displays.

They really enjoyed it.

So much to see and explore.

 

It was actually quite windy and today we were driving into it so our fuel economy was not good at all, still better than the average of some people car, but for us who are used to 16.5L per 100km, going up to just shy of 20L per 100km made us realise how much wind can impact it.  Most people say not to stop in Port Augusta but we never seem to really listen to people’s advice.  Besides the way the wind really picked up in the last 20km of the trip, we were more than happy to stop as it was getting a bit too strong for our liking and was more side on so really pushing the van around.  We didn’t feel unsafe but we are firm believers in stopping before you get to that point.