Day 79: Sun 09 Aug 26 - Pimba to Roxby Downs

Sun 09 Aug  26 - Pimba to Roxby Downs (83km)

What a horrible day.... at 3pm, it was 8C, feeling like -1.8C, with winds that gusted to more 83km/h, and 25mm of rain falling today. The wind was relentless all day.

We woke this morning to a short period of blue sky, after steady rain fell all night, but when I checked the weather forecast, it was expected to worsen through the day, but then settle again by the evening. We therefore decided to continue with our plan to take a detour to Roxby Downs, and a planned side visit to Andamooka tomorrow. With more rain and stronger winds on the way, we set off early, but rather than free camping as planned, we decided to book into the Roxby Downs caravan park to be safe.

When Noel checked in, she was met with a 'what are you doing here?' comment, because there is nothing to see or do - it's a mining community. Afterwards, I thought that I would have enjoyed walking around the township and surrounding trails - it was only the weather that let us down today. As it was, the rain and strong winds kept us indoors almost all day. We also heard that while there is a sealed main road in and out of Andamooka, all other roads in and around the township are dirt, and have been closed due to heavy rain over the past 24 hours. Needless to say, we'll be giving a visit to Andamooka a miss too. Once set up on our site, Noel drove into the township to a very well stocked Woolworths to buy a few victuals, returned and made use of the free washing machines and dryers to do all our washing. I then went into the information centre (come library, come sport centre etc etc), where I watched an interesting 12 minute video about the Olympic Dam mine (because there are no tours of the mine). The Olympic Dam mine, managed by BHP, is mostly a large underground mine (with some 700km of underground tunnels), including surface ground mining, where the ore that is extracted contains a mix of copper, uranium, gold and silver. The mine employs about 4,100 people, and has the 4th largest copper deposit and the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world (producing about 7% of the world's total uranium output). Afterwards, I had a short wander around the town centre, then I went and refuelled and returned to the van for the afternoon. Roxby Downs was originally a cattle station, and is now a small but modern town purpose built to support the Olympic Dam Mine Site. It has a surprising range of facilities and services for the local mining community. Any other time with better weather, I'm sure I would have enjoyed a stay here. I eventually got out for another short walk late in the afternoon, but it wasn't very pleasant with the strong cold wind. After a lot of discussion today, we decided that we will start heading back towards home tomorrow, one week earlier that planned.

Walking to grey skies over Spuds Roadhouse 

Waking to blue skies in the other direction  at Spud's Roadhouse Campground

15mm of rain overnight left plenty of water laying around, and more to come

Roxby Downs Town Centre

Roxby Downs Town Centre - outside the Information Centre / Library etc

Roxby Downs Town Centre murals

Roxby Downs Town Centre murals

Roxby Downs Town Centre murals - It has it's own radio station

Roxby Downs Town Centre murals

Roxby Downs Town Centre murals

Roxby Downs - Well serviced

Roxby Downs Town Centre - colourful Sturt Desert Pea along the roadside 


Roxby Downs Town Centre - colourful Sturt Desert Pea along the roadside 

Roxby Downs Town Centre 

Roxby Downs Town Centre

Winds today at Roxby 55km/h - gusting to 74km/h (and higher it seemed)

The rain and wind was relentless today. We might have stayed put at Pimba or continued south if we'd known it was going to be like this all day.

...and cold. Apparent temp -1.8C at 1500, 





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