Today, we moved on from Coober Pedy.
After packing up, we drove around to say goodbye to fellow Karavan owners, Denis and Beth. We had a nice chat before moving a little further into the entrance of the Caravan Park.
In Coober Pedy water is precious because they have to put it through a reverse osmosis process to present usable water to residents and visitors alike. For twenty cents we are able to get 40 litres of water. As our tanks are quite large we did spend around 80 cents to fill up. There were two other caravans waiting behind us to load up.
Next stop was the Caltex fuel outlet to top up the Bravo which was $1.40 per litre for diesel fuel. As we had stayed in the Stuart Range Caravan Park we could get a 3 cent per litre discount.
Our next stop was Coober Pedy’s “Boot Hill”, the cemetery. There was one funny grave. It was Karl Bratz who apparently knew he was dying.He managed to get a $10,000.00 loan from Westpac Bank. He had his own wake and paid for his funeral and memorial. It has a beer keg on it with the words “Have a drink on me”. He had no assets when he died so Westpac really paid for his whole farewell and his memorial. There are many characters in the town apparently and he was one of them.
Next we went to the Crystal Cafe for our final cappuccino in this town. For a Sunday morning it was quite busy.
As we walked out we noticed some aboriginals who were out to do some shopping and they were returning to their home. Sad but that is their way.
Eventually, we moved on to Cadney Park Roadhouse. We had lunch there and I was able to see the last half of the Springbok versus Wallaby game that was played last night. The Springboks won! No bragging Henry. Our lunch was quite nice. This location is an entry point to the north to the Painted Desert which we visited a few days ago.
Next we drove on for another 82 kilometres to the little village of Marla, still on the Stuart Highway north, which has a massive Roadhouse. Included in the Roadhouse complex is a Motel that has at least 45 rooms, a swimming pool, Caravan Park, restaurant, bar, small well stocked supermarket as well as a busy fuel outlet. The caravan park was quite empty when we arrived but tonight it is almost overflowing.
We had drinks and nibbles with two couples from Melbourne. They do not know each other. The conversation was animated especially with most of us having several wines or beers to break the ice. This is one of the big benefits of caravanning, meeting new people from all sorts of places and professions.
The dinner was a BBQ steak and nice vegetables. What more could one ask for especially when it is washed down with a nice Queen Adelaide Merlot!