​April 30 2017 Further up the road

Coming into Coober Pedy from the south.  The diggings are everywhere.

And talking about amazing ..... then we came to Coober Pedy! The vista for many miles in all directions is a moonscape of mounds, big and small, piles of discards of the earths innards in the relentless search for 'wealth'. It's awesome and ghastly, reminiscent of one of the MadMax
movies. Totally prohibited to most because of the very real danger of falling down an abandoned shaft.

Almost like pustules, these tailings cover a plagued landscape

As awful as it looks, I wanted to be out there noodling for little scraps of overlooked opal; I did find a piece once and had it polished. So exciting! I carry a gold pan (wishful thinking) and a rock hammer as we travel, although sadly I can't lay my hands on it at the moment. So yeah OK, I'm a frustrated would-be geologist - if I had my time over. ....... Lots of wonderful treasures lurk within those dun brown rocks which often escape our glaze out there.

One small mesa and its subsiduaries - evidence of erosion and land movement over the millenia.
The vivid colours are formed by the leaching of minerals through the soft limestone. Atop is a hard crust which gradually breaks away leaving the soft underlying rock exposed.

We were travelling through a land rich in many minerals and precious stones and ores. Some like the opals and iron ore can only be guessed at but others display their glorious colours in places like the Painted Desert and the Breakaways (part of the seabed 80 millions years ago).
We also drove for a good part of the day through another prohibited area, the Woomera Prohibited Zone. I believe you can get permission to go in there but there are some amazing accounts of the development and early activity of that region in Len Beadells books.
More later from further up the track which, incidentally, sort of follows the route taken by John McDouall Stuart in the mid 1800s. He was the first white person to traverse Australia south to north. And there's a veritable army of nomads following his foot- or rather camel and horse steps.

 

Satellite image of part of SA

Goyder's line superimposed - not a bad match!

Almost forgot to tell you about Goyders Line. Back in the mid 1800s, Surveyor Goyder was charged with determining the boundaries of arable land for farming, cropping etc in the southern part of SA. In a month, on horse back, he traversed a huge tract of land and, as a result of his observations, described a line on a map above which rainfall would be less than 10 inches per year and so be unsuited for cropping. His observations and report look mighty like what you see on a satellite photo of the area. All I can say is WOW!! What a man.
More anon ........