Day 3: Hawker to Coober Pedy

Just a driving day today. Checked out a couple of ruined buildings on the way out of the Flinders. Susannah is now talking about building a new house out of stone! I am more keen for a small guest cottage first, and then just going from there. :p
Stopped briefly in Port Augusta to get the tyres aligned after all the dirt roads and potholes in the Flinders. Also managed to get some new tyres ordered up from Adelaide, for us to get fitted once we get back down to Port Augusta, after Uluru. Bogart (our Toyota Hilux Surf 4x4) is a japanese import, so getting parts for him can take some planning. He is running fantastically though, after a full service in Adelaide. I have no doubt he will continue to serve us well during our journey, even he does get very dirty and covered in locust bits!
The drive up to Coober (not Cooper, as I have always thought!) Pedy was amazing. After you head away from the coast, the landscape is so flat and featureless that you get excited when you see a fence, a radio tower, or another car. Susannah has also started driving the car (it's her first manual car) and is doing really well, already driving a couple of hours a day. We have started getting into the country waving habit, as the cars get fewer and far between it seems more appropriate than back home (we just wave to people who live on our road). The ground surrounding Coober Pedy looks like giant burrowing animals have been living there, as the clay and dirt piles thrown up by opal mining dot the ground in seemingly random patterns and sizes, from tiny molehills to virtual mountains.
In Coober Pedy we stayed in the underground motel, which was a pleasant surprise. Cut into a rock wall, the only thing visible from outside is the door to the room. It was amazingly cool (tempature wise and conceptually) and surprisingly tranquil - an underground house is very quiet, you certainly don't need to worry about hearing noisy neighbours! We will definitely consider staying underground again on the way back, when we will spend a day checking out Coober Pedy properly.
We have also decided to catch the Indian Pacific back to Adelaide once we've reached Perth, with our car on the back. It should be fantastic - I've been talking about taking a long train journey for ages, so I think this will be a great experience for us.