With the great dry continent of Australia receiving sprinkles of rain, we turned north from our coastal path into the rusty interior.
As we grunted along the trees thinned into scrub and old worn down mountain ranges appeared on the horizon like the carcases of melting ice sculptures.
We had been lured into the famous Flinders Ranges by the recommendation of so many a retired caravaner, between sighs at our comparative youth and complaints of the nasty Australian Winter.
We drew out a dusty path heading in a triangle, first northeast into the real outback, then across a dirt road to Coober Pedy, before returning south to resume our costal pilgrimage.
We knew we would be venturing off the paved roads onto the dirt tracks whose condition depended on the weather, or lack of and we had been under a dark cloudy ceiling for days now.
As we wound through the beautiful Flinders Ranges, the postcard landscape crinkled and folded from West to East like an educational picture in a childs' science book.
Huge stripped flakes of the old countrie's crust lay stacked in rippling ridges, with a red, black and brown cross section cut away by the now dry river beds.
With the Galah's squawking the whole area felt like a prehistoric dinosaur park, and at sunset the sun casts jagged shadows across the land finishing the days displays with a grande finale.
The roads straightened out once again as the hills faded into featureless dusty plains, whose isolated pubs and truck stops make Mad Maxx look like a travelogue.
Its amazing how a few ramshackle buildings becomes a town, sitting on the flat earth, trying to ignore the stripe of pavement that bisects it and disappears in two directions of seemingly never ending nothingness; and you think you live in a small town?
We eventually found the end of the road, leaving the casual traveler on the pavement, we turned West and onto the dusty brown road towards the Opel mining town of Coober Pedy.
