Trullis for troglodytes

We left King’s Canyon after a bout of rainy weather undermined many of the canyon walking paths, then drove long miles until we came to an almost treeless, featureless, gibber plain, the outer western edge of Sturt’s Stony Desert.

Red ochre rocks still 

We arrived in the throes of a monster storm that descended on us like an apocalypse – as though the uranium, just east over at Olympic Dam, had suddenly mushroomed explosively, leaving these sodden impassable wastelands in its wake.

This is Mad Max territory. It could be the home of ferals, wild things, and other mutant beasties. We find bleached bones on gibber rocks, and shiver.

Skeleton bones on gibber rock

As we drive on breaking into low cloud, a navy blue horizon emerges, heavily pocked with mullock heaps: pink, white, ginger, cinnamon, coffee. These remnant rubbish piles left by opal miners pepper the landscape and look for all the world like trulli igloos -- dwellings for tiny troglodytes.

This is Coober Pedy. So amazing and unexpected a landscape it takes your breath away. Nowhere in Australia, have I seen such a sparse and arid moonscape. It does not feel like earth. More like Mars, or even the moon.

No wonder tourists flock here. This is as unusual as a place gets.

Cinnamon and white bullock heaps

oooOOOooo