Heading Bush: Day 3 - "It Never Rains In The Desert"

Little bit nippy this morning, I saw fit to wear a jumper and everything while we headed down to the ochre pits to get painted up like Aboriginals.
This was loads of fun and really interesting an all. Each colour means something different, like, yellow represents the sun and means rebirth and new beginnings (and who couldn't use one of those every now and then), pink is the colour of lungs and therefore breath, purple means cleansing and so on. We patiently stood there like good tourists while Terance and Sharpie painted us all up in pretty colours.

Then we headed back to reality, still covered in increasingly itchy ochre and wondering if we'd get beaten up by the locals for taking the piss or something. At was all good though, they took one look at us, smiled and said, "You've been to Iga Warta, then?"

That obvious?

Talc Alf. Crazy Desert Man.

Later that day we rocked up to Talc Alf's place. Talc Alf is what happens when you give a talented, creative man too much time to think. He makes these awesome sculptures they're proper good, but the guy has odd ideas about the alphabet and why certain things are called what they're called. Its hard to try and explain when you're not a complete nutter, maybe I'll drop some acid later and see if I can explain what he was on about.

Now let me tell you about my new spiritual home. Mutonia Sculpture Park is where they have massive winter solstice raves every year, it has random sculptures all over it and I swear down I could feel the energy coming out of the ground, seriously, there was something about this place that got me excited.

Mutonia Sculpture Park

Just me, then.

Its awesome, just a vast expanse of dirt with sporadic artwork, you can imagine this place going off at the Solstice. Apparently there's going to be a huge rave here when the aliens return to Earth. See you there...?

It wasn't long after we left here when the clouds got thicker and there was a few spots of rain on the windscreen so we all hopped out to do a rain dance. After all, it never rains in the desert, this could be all the water we see for a while, right, Mike?

Right?

The Oodnadatta Track; Enjoy It

We saw some bolts of lightening in the distance and the heavens opened, it was awesome, 11 psyched up people in a jeep, shouting along to Bohemian Rhapsody as the jeep slid through puddles on the unsealed road and lightening raged in the distance.

One of those Had To Be There Moments I guess...

We stopped to collect soggy bits of the Old Ghan Railway track to burn for firewood (don't worry, they built a new one already) then pulled over at Curdimurka Railway Siding where we would be staying that night on account of the fact it was restored and had a roof. We were meant to be heading to William Creek which has a floating population of 8 and a pub.

Yeah yeah, very quaint, we can go to the pub anytime and we had an Esky full of beer and a man with a gas stove and large boxes of food. This was much better.

After The Rain

Rain Dance

Its hard to put into words how amazing this evening was. After the downpour it stopped raining where we were but we had a fantastic view of the storms going on all around us. There was literally nothing, no trees or buildings apart from our railway siding as far as the eye could see so we had an uninterupted, 360 degree view of the lightening going off all around us. Hurrah for Bum-Fuck Nothingness. It was almost constant, we didn't know where to look. Keith got some bloody amzing photos by just pointing and clicking and hoping for the best. I've shamelessly stolen them and put them online but don't worry, Keith. I credited ya ;)

Keith's Storm Photo

Me, Allison and Emma decided we were gonna exactly how water resistant the swags were and settled down outside the building to watch the storm as we fell asleep but as the rain got worse it became somewhat apparent that it was a bad idea. I've never been so glad to see a man in blue jocks before, Mike dragged us inside in our swags thus saving us the hassle of actually having to Get Out Of Bed And Move.

Now if only we could have persuaded him to bring us breakfast in bed the next day.

written by

Koala Bear on November 1, 2006 from Coober Pedy, Australia

from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush

Send a Compliment

comment on this...