The monument at Erldunda depicting The Centre of the Centre. A few places lay claim – see image below to see the scientific approach as to where the centre really is.

Now if you take the square root of the perpendicular bisector of the gravitational anomaly and ……

Farewell to Erldunda Roadhouse – a comfortable place in the middle of nowhere for three nights of our trip.

Granite outcrops near Kulgera.

The fertile lands of Mount Cavanagh Station.

And we’re bound for South Australia..

The Great Victoria Desert reaches the highway near Marla.

We have seen a lot of wrecked and abandoned cars (including two shattered caravans) in Central Australia – lots of older Commodores and Magnas left by the roadside, a rolled Toyota troop carrier and a cople of small sedans. Most likely they broke down and were too far from anywhere to warrant towing and repair. But where do they finally end up?

Marla! There were a few sites like this in the backblocks of Marla. Probably tenfold more than the total residential population. No doubt each of these cars has a story to tell. One motel we stayed at had a story of japanese tourists that bought an old Honda in Sydney to drive around Australia, broke down in rural South Australia and that is where the car remained.

We drove out on the Oodnadatta track for a very short distance.

202km of this if you ever want to travel there from Marla.

Those designer road engineers in South Australia love colour matching to the environment.

 

Small polished gibbers as far as the eye can see outside Cadney Homestead.

This unbelievably green Emu Bush (Eremophila sp.) was so vibrant, I was asked to stop the car from 110km/hr to take a photo.

That’s a long truck. Lucky there are no roundabouts on the Stuart Highway.

Grevillea seed pods are common along the highway.

Outside Coober Pedy, we returned to the beautiful Breakaways for sunset, visiting a site we missed on our first outing there.

There were wildflowers along the road sides including this gem.

Ptilotus covered areas as big as football fields.

Outback sunset at The Breakaways. We then drove to our accommodation – Lookout Cave Motel. It is an underground motel. Half of the permanent residents live underground. The owner of the motel told us he had slept underground for 43 years and didn’t sleep well above ground due to the light and noise. The outside of the motel was bare and sparse until you walk inside. The owner gave us a tour and explained the construction and history of the dugout (as locals call them).

All rooms are off this central corridor.

Further into the hill around the end of the corridor of the previous image.

Wall inside our unit. They call it sandstone but it is technically a shale.

Our room for the night. I slept very well.

The last light of the day from our private lookout.