Andamooka – a holiday from our holiday.

“I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go … ” Yeah, we still have the house and the mortgage.  The bank account was heading southward in a hurry, so we organised work.  So, we stopped for work for ten weeks.  Which blew out to fifteen weeks, as we … hmm, Jarrad … decided he wanted to get a metal detector.

So, we headed back up into the South Australian desert for Jarrad to work at the Olympic Dam mine, near Roxby Downs and Andamooka.  A seven hour drive north of Adelaide, or about three hours south of Lake Eyre.  The boundary of the Woomera Protected Area is really close by — someone told me that the boundary used to include the Olympic Dam mine, but they moved it for the mine site.

I always thought that the desert was supposed to be hot during the day, and cold at night.  It was so hot when we first got here and it was only autumn.  Apparently, the weather is in the 40s for much of summer each day (104 – 119F).  By the time it has hit winter, this year, it is so cold.  Bitterly cold, and our heater needs to be serviced so is out of action.  I’m cold, cold, cold.  And I shouldn’t be cold, I thought the desert was suppost to be hot.

So, Jarrad is spending his days on the mine.  He’s doing some electrician thing there, and comes home with all sorts of stories.  I’m a bit jealous that he gets to, well, has to, have a hot shower every single day at the mine site — I’m not so jealous that it’s a group shower!  He’s not allowed to wear any of his own clothes (even socks or undies) on site because they’re pulling copper, gold, silver and uranium out of the ground.  Since he’s only in his work clothes for the two hours of travel each day, it means I don’t have to do as much washing!

So where are we staying?

In the campervan, of course.  But not at Roxby Downs, the main township for Olympic Dam.  We’re staying 30km away at a smaller town called Andamooka.  We could stay in Roxby Downs, but we have chosen to stay in Andamooka for three reasons.

The first is that it is much more affordable to stay in a $2.50 per person campsite operated by the local community than a campervan park.  There is also the not-so-small issue that we have more space here.  We are camped on a patch of gravel next to the local playground, complete with shelter over it from the hot desert sun. While we were there, they built a skate park that the kids all love to run up and slide down.  After the first two weeks, I’d had to throw 7 pairs of pants in the bin because the bums wore threw.  We bought the kids a clothe each to sit on when sliding down.

There is also a public noodling pit in the camp ground (noodling is a weird word meaning to fossick for opal through the molluck heaps).  There is also the piles of pebbles and dirt that are dotted around the campground.  They will be used to make some of the dirt roads, as only the main street is bitumen at present.  In the meantime, my kids think that piles of dirt and rocks are better entertainment than any other options.  Maybe 4 or 5 times a week tourists will come in and start searching for opal in the rock piles — sometimes even washing the pebbles that will be used to make the roads to check if it’s opal!

The water tanks at the campground were empty, which was obviously a problem.   A local man noticed that we’d been here a few days and on several different occassions came to help us out with water.  After that, the equivalent of the local mayor organized for us to have a watertank and fill it with water for us.  We were blown away by this kindness, and helpfulness to travellers.

There is another thing that I like about the campground in Andamooka over staying at the campervan park; yes, besides the large playground, the space, and the cost.  There are a few nights each week that there is maybe another traveller camped at the campground.  In four weeks, there have even been two other families with children staying here.

The One-Roomed School

There is another reason we are in Andamooka, too.  The local school here.  It is a one-room classroom with two young, enthusiastic male teachers.  The school also has a full time librarian, receptionist, prinicipal, and classroom assistant.  In the room next to the school room is the kindergarten, where there are a number of childcare workers and assistants, and the kindergarten teacher as well as the children aged under 5.  There is a reason why I homeschool; it suits our family and the kids.  However, we also feel that this way they can have the ‘school experience’ in a safe environment, and the rather unusual experience of a one-room schoolroom.  Best still, they aren’t kept in a single-age environment so the kids still get to be with their siblings.

Peter and Lucy love the school here, and Susan is warming to it.  Edmund is getting some one-on-one time with Mum, and actually getting to experience a playgroup.  Peter, Susan, Lucy, and Edmund get to play with the steady trickle of children that come to the community playground at the campground, and at the school.  They are all getting to realize that Mum is not the only ‘teacher’ who expects them to keep their heads above their feet during school time.

Haven’t Heard Of It?

Andamooka is a town of about 800 to 850 people in the middle of the South Australian desert.  It is rather spread out for such a small township.T he mullock heaps left around from opal mining make it look a bit like a moonscape. The main street is a dry creek bed, so when the rains came in June 2010, the creek flowed and the town flooded.

This town is close to the Lake Torrens National Park.  Lake Torrens fills only once every 100 years or so, which is even less often than the larger and more well known Lake Eyre.  There are old miners huts in the township still that show the primitive condiitons that the early miners lived in.  Rather hard to believe, considering that it is not uncommon in summer for the mercury to approach 50C.

Apparently the township of Andamooka was closer to 4000 people, but not as spread out in the 60s.  The BHP Olympic Dam mine opened in the 80s and the associated founding, the growth and wealth of the Roxby Downs township has seen Andamooka get smaller.  The local supermarket in Andamooka looks like it used to shelve a lot more items.

Opal mining is what this town was founded on.  It was originally noted by John McDouall Stuart on 21 July 1858.  There are still quite a few people mining opal around here.  We’ve been able to go through some of the underground mines, and watched the machinary moving the dirt in an open cut opal mine.

The first pastoral lease was taken out on Andamooka Station in 1872.  There aren’t many pastoral properties around here any more.  BHP have bought out the pastoral leases to the regional stations; Purple Downs, Roxby, and Andamooka Stations are now proudly owned by BHP.  Not a lot of cattle or sheep to be found in this outback region.  Animals aren’t coming so close at the moment as it is incredibly green (for a desert) but we have spotted flocks of emus, mobs of kangaroos, many lizards and other reptiles, and countless numbers of eagles, kites and falcons riding the air currents?

When we were in Roxby Downs at the end of last year, the kids got to join in as part of the Christmas pageant, and got given a ‘Welcome’ medal at the end of year concert, which has become one of their favourite things.  That welcoming spirit is one of the things that makes this town a place that will stay in our hearts — it’s not a town your great-grandparents had to have lived in to be called a local!

It is not the most scenic place in Australia, but for somewhere to live or to stop and work it is a great town.  I don’t think we’ve been many places that are as welcoming, accepting, warm and friendly as this town.

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Amy and Jarrad

Travelling Australia in a campervan since 2009 with our four children aged 4, 7, 10, and 11. We are a family living on the road. Stopping to work in rural and remote towns as we need more money, we love this lifestyle. The four kids are homeschooled as we work our way slowly around Australia.

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