Day five had a wonderful start to it. As a treat we had eggs, bacon, and toast for brekky – and we had a nifty way of toasting the bread, using the little contraction you can see below:
The previous night chilly and windy so it was nice to wake up to hot coffee, eggs, bacon.
Anyhow, after we ate we headed off to our first stop, a town called Oodnadatta. This town used to be the end of the line for the old Ghan railway – a railroad that was built many years ago by Afghans who had come into the country for work. It was initially called the Afghan railroad for that reason, but it was shortened to Ghan later. After this point, if anything had to go up to a place like to Alice Springs, it would have to be taken by camels, which were also brought over to Australia by the Afghans.
This railway is still in use, but this is no longer the end of the line. Camels are no longer needed to bring hot pants and other necessary supplies across the country.
In this town, they had a place called the Pink Roadhouse, which was aptly named:
Everything inside the shop was pink too! After a quick look around inside, and a pink hat purchase by one of the girls, we went to the museum of Oodnadatta and checked out some old newspaper articles and other relics from the early town.
Below is a picture of a house we saw on our way back from the museum that I thought was neat:
Next came another treat. We were able use the Pink Roadhouse’s pool! Also, the pool had a waterslide! We had so much fun playing around in the pool, but we eventually got out and hung out with a local Aboriginal man named Jeffrey. Jeffrey loved Heading Bush, and every time one of the tours came by he would wait around with his guitar and play for us.
We all sat around him and made up songs as he would play the guitar. Sarah D. let him play around a bit with her camera, which he really enjoyed! Here is a picture of him playing with the camera below. Please ignore the fact that it is sideways. I didn’t notice until it was too late, and I’m too rushed to bother uploading it again. Just turn your head!
While we were spending time with Jeffrey, someone had the brilliant idea that we should donate something to the Pink Roadhouse and leave our mark. Sarah R. had a pink guitar that had been given to her by some people that she knew in one of her earlier trips, but it was not really playable as the handle was broken. We had plans to throw it into a bonfire on our last night, but this seemed like a much better idea! We all got together and signed it – and Jeffrey signed it as well.
Here is Sarah presenting it to the Roadhouse:
Now anytime anyone stops at the Pink Roadhouse in the future, they will see our guitar and signatures! We’ll be legends!
Our next stop was at some ruins of an old train station, which was actually quite picturesque:
I really liked the look of this picture looking out the window. It almost looks as if the tree is a framed work of art on the wall.
I’m posting two similar pics because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.
Gus had fun at this place by blowing his dijuridu in the chimney, both from the inside and outside of the house. I thought I had a picture taken of that, but apparently not. I did get video though!
After that stop we made one more stop at more ruins. This place was another cool oasis in the desert. Imagine seeing palm trees in a dry place like a desert!
It was here where we all tried wild dates. I had never tried a date before, and I must say, they are really tasty! We also tried fruit from something called a ‘ruby salt bush’. Who even needs dinner with fruits like these?
Our camp was at Dalhousie Springs… which was an AWESOME place. Look at this picture, and what do you see?
It’s just any old lake, says you? NO! This was actually a hot springs! The water was like bath water. You had to get in slowly because it was so toasty. It was amazing. 37 degrees Celsius. Can you figure that out in Fahrenheit?
Here we are in the pool…
We didn’t stay in too long before dinner because it was still a bit warm outside – though it felt cool as soon as we got out of this bathtub!
The flies were, of course, extremely annoying here. If you get one good thing like a hot springs, you automatically get a bad thing with it like flies and mosquitoes.
For dinner, we had spaghetti. The food seemed like it kept getting better and better… or maybe we were just getting hungrier and hungrier.
The sunset in this place was once again awesome. You can actually see the moon in the picture below, well before it is completely dark.
We had one more late night swim in the hot springs, and it was like a giant jacuzzi, but without the bubbles. A perfect night for skinny dippers! Of course, I’m not saying that we went skinny dipping (we totally went skinny dipping).
After our swim it was off to bed in tents again (mosquitoes, blech).
Now onto day six!
P.S. I am done checking over my posts for errors until I catch up. If I have bad grammar or repeated sentences or misspellings or blatant lies, I take no responsibility.