Climbing into the car after spending the night in the underground hotels of Coober Pedy, you drive north along perfectly sealed roads. Taking what appears to be a random right turn not long before the Cadney Homestead roadhouse, you immediately trade asphalt for the slippery dust of the surrounding landscape.
About 15 minutes after the first cattle grid, you pass a house on the right before the road begins to wind itself around low hillocks and exposed boulders. While not as evil as the Birdsville Track, you travel slowly, negotiating your way carefully around the rocks littered on the weathered thoroughfare. Perhaps you’ve been lucky, and the dirt has not yet concealed the small red flags positioned just before the potholes which will swallow your four wheel drive, whole. At first they look shallow enough not to warrant concern, but that complacency vanishes when you see the billowing clouds of dust deceptively swirl within them.
Finally, you reach flat terrain. You stop and “beachcomb” through the scattered rock, stumbling across the occasional piece of fossilised wood. An eternity has passed since the last tree grew here.
After this leg stretch in the baking sun, you proceed to a small rise, pulling up in an area poorly marked as a lookout. Leaving the car running, and the doors open, you scramble up the last of the hill, not expecting much at all.
Instead, you see hundreds of square kilometres of open plain. Conspicuously, somewhere in the middle, is a mountain of coloured rock that has not yet been razed from the earth by the abrasive sand of desert winds. You have reached the Painted Desert.
This photo is a small section of a much larger image I have taken. It is one of the most impressive landscapes I have ever seen in Australia.
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