Adelaide, Coober Pedy and Alice Springs

We got to Adelaide in time to surprise dad at the airport (he didn't expect us to arrive in Adelaide for 2 more days). It was really great to see him after nearly 2 years there was a lot to catch up on. Just aswell really considering how boring Adelaide is!

The next day we took a drive out to the Barossa Valley and went to a few vineyards to taste lots of wine. Jacobs Creek was really good and Bethany. Elaine was driving so we made sure we bought plenty to drink that night.

We had an early start for our tour to Alice Springs. We went with Groovy Grape Tours and have 1800kms to cover in 2 days - that's a LOT of time sitting on a bus staring out into barren desert! Our guide Tasha was really good though and tried to make it as interesting as possible. We had lots of stops during the day at salt lakes, Mt. Augusta etc. and on the first night we stayed in Cooper Pedy which is a small little Opal mining town. Because it's in the middle of the desert it gets up to 55°c during the summer so the town is literally built under the ground - our hostel for the night was in a cave!

Before we left the next morning we went on a mine tour and a tour around somebody's house (all underground) it's really amazing to see people living so happily like this! Time to get back on the bus though and another day full of driving - we even passed by this secret American military base in Pine Valley outside Alice Springs. There's a huge amount of security there and nobody in the area knows what they do but there's 3000 Americans living in Alice Springs and whenever asked what they do for a living they ALL say that they're gardeners - some pretty weird stuff going on in there I'd say!