The Jelfs Family Takes On Oz 2010: DAY 63 - 21/04/2010 - Bon Bon Rest Area, SA & Coober Pedy, SA

Bad sleep all round last night. Taylah still has that nasty cough that shes carried thru from Melbourne and it seems to be getting worse. She has these massive coughing fits and then seems to stop breathing. It totally freaks us out. Lilly and Alicia have it as well but Alicia's doesn't seem as bad.

I handled my first rest spot stay on the Stuart Hwy well. Better than I ever thought I would. We packed up at Bon Bon and headed for Coober Pedy.

While driving along we saw a Wedgetail Eagle perched in its nest on top of a smallish tree. I have seen these before in captivity but to see one in the wild is amazing. They are absolutely huge, standing probably a metre tall. We turned the rig around to take a photo but it flew away. The wingspan on this thing was at least 2 metres. Wow.

Back on the road heading north.

We arrive in Coober Pedy and stop at the information centre. Here we get all our tourist information and directions to the Big 4 on the other side of town. We follow the directions given and drive through the town. I was thinking to myself, Its got to be better than this. Aboriginal people were loitering everywhere watching the cars drive past. We arrive at the caravan park and at first it seems we are beside an industrial estate or a mine but I soon realise they are underground houses and the mounds were peoples roofs.

We have paid for 2 nights at the Big 4 Oasis Resort. It does not look like a resort but it was recommended to us by other travellors who had been here before. Now I am thinking that probably 1 night would have been sufficient. Not long after us many other vans turn up and by the afternoon the van park is fairly busy with many grey nomads. This is usually a good sign as many we have met have done the trip over and over again.

We have a list of places of interest to visit. This afternoon we drive a short distance from the town to visit the Moon Plains, The Breakaways and the famous Dog Fence. We have to drive along unsealed roads to get to these places. We arrive at the Dog Fence first. We have learnt that it is the longest continual structure in the world used to keep wild dogs away from livestock. It stretches 5600km. It begins somewhere in Surfers Paradise in QLD and ends up North of Ceduna in the Great Australian Bite.

Moon Plains in the background

We drive a little further up the road and come to the Moon Plains. At the start of the Moon Plains is a lemonade stand. Bizarre we thought. We have been told that the landscape is similar to the surface of a moon. They have filmed many movies here. Some of which are Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Pitch Black and The Red Planet to name a few. It is quite an eery place. Its flat, dusty and there are these unusual black shiny rocks everywhere.

The turn of to the Breakaways is close by. The road is corrugated and unsealed. The Breakaways are a group of low hills made up of different colours and these colours become more spectacular during sunset. which is not to far away.

We drove back into town and had time to do some more siteseeing. We visit the Catacomb Church and Faye's House. Both the church and Faye's house are underground structures. The church was amazing. Not only is it underground and cut out of sandstone but it is cut out in the shape of a cross. The Cross, lectern and communion table are constructed by local mulga wood and an old miners winch.

Fayes house is an underground 3 bedroom house with an inground pool. This house was owned by a woman called Faye and was dug out by hand by 3 women. It was unreal and great to view.

The current owner of Faye's house

We finished our day of siteseeing with a visit up the hill to see the Big Winch and we also heard there was a Chinese nutter by the name of Charlie that sold moon rocks there. Charlie was no where to be seen but his moon rocks and his so called artwork was. We had found out from locals that the artwork was actual props from the set of Pitch Black that he chained old computer terminals and other junk to it and called it art.