More than 80 million years ago Mother Nature gathered her forces in South Australia’s outback, pushed a range of sandstone and granite up out of the ground, then set about weathering and eroding it.

What she created, the Painted Desert, is quite a picture. Cone-like structures rise from a desert scene and spread for kilometres in a 360-degree vista. With soft sandstone at the bottom topped with tough granite caps, it’s like a mountain range of mushrooms.

The palette ranges from soft pale pink, peach and apricot to rich red, ochre, yellow and jet black, softening the outback landscape usually dominated by rich red soils.

But there are also vivid pops of colour when the sun shines — striking yellows, deep browns and contrasting crisp white talc.

After a 150km drive from Coober Pedy, across flat gibber plains, the rocky outcrop is almost a shock, the scale hard to fathom. A path leads from the carpark to the top of a ridge. Arrows, made of small rocks, point the way.

From the top, perched on the highest rocks we can climb, the view is even more impressive.

Cone-like sandstone structures are capped with tough granite

LOOK AROUND

“It doesn’t matter what the day is like when you come out here,” says local identity, Wayne Borrett. “Even on a dull day, it shines.”

We’ve come on a day when the weather can’t make up its mind. It’s grey clouds and dull skies one minute, bright sunshine the next. The picture, and the mood, is constantly changing.

We’re lucky to have met Wayne in Coober Pedy. He’s a mine of information (pardon the pun) in this opal-rich region.

When Wayne arrived in Coober Pedy on New Year’s Eve in 2000, the plan was to have a few drinks with his brother and see in the new millennium. But then he never left.

That must mean there’s something very special holding him here.

Is it the opals? After all, Coober Pedy supplies about 90 per cent of the world’s opals and there is always the lure of making your fortune by digging “just one more hole”.

Is it the scenery? This is one of the most famous arid areas in the state with the Painted Desert, the Breakaways, Lake Eyre, Oodnadatta Track and the Simpson Desert all within easy reach of Coober Pedy.

Is it the town itself? That’s hard to imagine as, on the surface, Coober Pedy is hot, dry and dusty — not the prettiest place. The best bits, we discover, are underground.

What about the community spirit? It’s home to about 2000 people and 30 different nationalities.

Well, according to Wayne, it’s all of the above.

Wayne tried his hand at opal mining until 2008 when the global financial crisis ruined the price of opal and made it too expensive for many miners to keep digging. Then he was a tour guide, spending his days showing visitors exactly what makes the outback tick. Most recently, he can be found juggling tour guiding with managing the Mud Hut Hotel.

Patsie’s car

OUT EXPLORING

We are taking advantage of Wayne’s tour guide experience (and his 4WD) on the 150km journey across gibber plains and dirt roads to get to the Painted Desert.

Our motorhome would have seen us a lot of the way, but I don’t think it would have coped with the last section of the road (or perhaps it’s just me who would not have coped). Visitors should check road conditions before they tackle the drive.

The first part of the trek from Coober Pedy, across the Moon Plains is mesmerising — a 66km long and 186km wide section with very little to see.

“Some people say there is nothing here,” Wayne quips. “They’re right, but at least there’s a lot of it.”

It’s a desolate landscape. Made of ironstone, jasper and quartz with very little topsoil, nothing grows here. But when the sun breaks through the clouds, the quartz deposits sparkle, adding a new dimension to the plains. Suddenly visible are circles of smooth dirt where the ironstone does not linger, revealing a fascinating geological history.

“This was an inland sea,” says Wayne. “You can find fossils of seashells out here. Where Coober Pedy sits was an island — the shoreline of an artesian basin. Before that it was an inland sea, before that glacial ice and before that, a forest. Those round patches of smooth dirt are 150-million-year-old tree stumps.”

That geological history is also responsible for Coober Pedy’s wealth of opals.

One of the Painted Desert vistas

Millions of years ago, as the inland sea dried up and silica deposits were compressed, opal seams formed, and ever since young William Hutchison discovered the first opal in 1915, thousands have ventured out here, trying their luck at finding them. The lunar landscape on the outskirts of town with kilometres of shafts and piles of dirt, lays testament to the persistence of ever-hopeful miners in a hostile environment.

One stop on the way to the Painted Desert is the ‘must-see’ Dingo Fence which stretches 5600km from Fowlers Bay on South Australia’s rugged west coastline to Dalby on the eastern seaboard in Queensland. Built in the 1880s, it was designed to protect sheep south of the fence by keeping out dingoes.

We stop at a dry creek bed and meet a few of the locals — cattle heading for a permanent, solarpowered water hole. Gone are the days of windmills out here. We pass Mt Barry Station, owned by Tony Williams. Patsie’s car takes pride of place out the front of the homestead, a Port Power-painted tribute from Patrick to his mum, Patsie, Tony’s first wife.

The road we’re on goes all the way to Oodnadatta. You could drive this in a regular vehicle, if you don’t mind a few extra rattles at the end of your trip.

We cross Lora Creek and its1.5km wide flood plain. On the rare occasions this river is flowing, the water eventually makes its way into Lake Eyre.

After 42km on a much rougher road, Arckaringa Station provides a handy toilet break and a place to camp for the night with access to power, showers, toilets and a camp kitchen. The station is also the best place to get updates on road conditions before heading further into the outback.

It is 12km from Arckaringa to the Painted Desert, but this ancient landscape is already visible as hundreds of rocky outcrops bulge out of the flat desert landscape. You can stop for the night and take advantage of Arckaringa’s special sunset viewing platform.

Category: Destinations
Written: Sat 01 May 2021
Printed: May, 2020
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