We were up before sunrise to ensure we were on our way before 8:00am. When the sun rose, the day was overcast and fairly cold with the temperature around the 5 degree mark.
We had expected a little rain in the morning but that did not eventuate.
We had to wait a couple of minutes for the office to open at 8:00am so we could retrieve our $20 deposit on a park entry card. Our trip distance today was around the 254k mark so we were in for a relatively easy drive.
First stop was the post office and then we had a fairly easy drive back to Port Augusta where we stopped for fuel. The distance was 76k’s.
In overcast but clearing conditions, we commenced our trip north. The run to Woomera was only 178k’s and we expected to complete the leg in a little over 2 hours. Today was also the first time that we had experienced the 55m road trains and we were delighted in how the caravan handled the effect of a road train travelling in the opposite direction. We were also delighted that our Milenco mirrors are working as expected and have not been forced back against the door as was the case with other mirrors we have tried. We intend to purchase a spare set of mirrors when we return home.
We arrived at Woomera at lunch time and were able to check into the caravan park where we did a quick setup and had lunch.
After lunch we headed to the Woomera Cemetery where we paid our respects to Len Beadell and his wife. The cemetery is only small but there are far too many grave sites there. We were astounded to see graves for numerous stillborn children in the 1950’s plus graves for children who had died at a very early age.
After the cemetery we drove around the town where you can see driveways into houses that don’t exist, roads that go nowhere, a supermarket that occupies only half of the original building and the various other amenities that were built when Woomera was the centre of a rocket range back in the 1950’s and later. The sporting fields have lights that most suburban sporting grounds in Sydney would kill for.
We stopped at the heritage museum which is located adjacent to two parks that contain various rockets and two aircraft. Whilst in the museum we mentioned the number of graves for stillborn babies to a staff member who informed us that in addition to the stillborn children, a lot of children were born with deformities. One can only wonder if this was the result of the atomic testing during the 50’s or if there was another cause.
We returned to the caravan in the mid afternoon and watched satellite television. We improvised with tea and had a relatively early night in bed.