Halfway through our walkabout, we are returning from The Red Center back to Adelaide. It is a 16 hour drive, so we took two days to do it. Lots of time to just watch the outback and talk. Here are a few pictures – a salt flat (lots of those), some forest (looks very similar to out pinyon/juniper), a lot of featureless plains (except notice the emus running away in this one). 

When crossing the aboriginal reservation, we stopped in the small town of Mintabe (say meant to be).  About 30 years ago, this was the big opal producer, 3000 folks, but now there are only 300, about a dozen are mining. But it is here, in the sands of an old miners camp, that we noodled up our nicest finds (of those we actually found on the trip)

We stopped by in Coober Pedy again for the night. We stayed at the same nice underground motel. It was very nice. We would like to bring our kids and grandkids here someday.

On the way back to  Adelaide, as we got into wheat country and close to the sea, we stopped at Port Germaine for dinner.  All of this small town is old, and very much as sleepy little town. Of note , there is a mile long jetty (pier) extending out into the tidal basin, and a cool old lighthouse. From 1881, until  the railroad came in 1934, this was the major wheat shipping port. Every day, tall sailing ships would dock and take on sacks of wheat to feed the British Empire, loading 100,000 sacks a year from this dock.