Close up of the Sturts Desert Pea reveals spectacular beauty.

A dirt covered bus was our church site on this isolated hillside on our first Sunday away from home during the trip. After a rugged, long and muddy trip the night before - caused by lots of rain over the roads and sudden changes in routing as we ended up in the Tippaburra for the Lord’s day – not shown are the several kangaroos impacted on the left hand side underneath the bus.

Official video man John Bean sets up his camera for the start of our journey into the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. It was a beautiful trip as we moved from south to north in the opposite direction to our planned itinerary which had been devastated by rains that started after we left base. But one result is the green and luxurious vegetation that has covered the country.

The beautiful weather was prompting green grass to appear everywhere and as a result the Aussie outback was heading for a fabulous crop of emus and no it’s not mother emu leading the chicks. In the emu family it’s the dad who does that. (Did we hear the ladies cheer again?)

Our two official photographers Garry Watterson (left) and John Bean (right) are really focused on some of the wild life we found on the edge of a small town in South Australia.

This little gecko was the source of all their preoccupation. It was just waking up after the cold winter as a bit of sunshine hit him. He sure was a cutie.

Yet another reptilian member came to light under a rock, and didn’t seem to mind being lifted up into the sun as it never made much effort to escape from us.

Getting stoked as the two brothers Peter (left) and Robert (right) posed in front of the oil drilling and gas collection equipment at Australia’s first commercial oil wells at Moonie in Queensland. The oil wells have now diminished to a minor source of petroleum for our economy but were very exciting while they lasted.

Geology graduate and business administrator Warren Holyoak poses in front of the old donkey engines from the Moonie oil fields from central Queensland.  Warren was very aware from his own training that the presence of highly pressurised oil in the sediments of the great artesian basin is an indicator that the rocks haven’t been there for millions of years. The oilfield gasses are largely small molecular types such as methane which leaks through rocks very effectively in time

Two bush blokes join as Ewart Brecknell and Ray Rose share notes at one of our great cuppa breaks.

Ted and the ladies enjoy a brisk early morning walk up to the top of the granite blob outside Tippaburra just before we had church on the hill in the bush in the bus. From the left is Joan, Mary then Annette on the right who was our layout artist for Creation News for many years whilst it was being printed by Sydney Hunter.

As the 16 ton bus sinks into dry sand washed down in recent floods in Poontana Creek, driver Warren Polley looks on as his passengers seek to find a way out. It was good exercise and fun and we really did appreciate the wonderful hymn singing by some of the ‘mature’ members of our group, and were very grateful for all the efforts of the young people who turned It into a great afternoons activity for several hours of digging.

Yes we even had to dig out the back of the bus and try and find our way down to more rocky solid ground which was about three quarters of a metre (2 and a bit feet below us).

Real Aussie diggers as we seek to excavate the bus which in the end meant digging a hole 20 meters (60 ft long) and 1 metre deep (3 ft) for each pair of back wheels as well as the front wheels of the bus. We then had to excavate the section in between the wheel tracks so the bottom of the bus wouldn’t catch. We certainly got our exercise that day! Thanks to all the co –earthed volunteers.

The Brown boys from Victoria were not too little to come on the bus trip and do their share of the digging to get our bus out of the sandy bog. But this seat was far too big. It’s one of the tourist attractions outside Broken Hill in New South Wales.

A day in Lightning Ridge enabled the more enthusiastic young ones to spend their time digging holes in the ground and collecting opal specimens. The opal is a result of silicon dioxide and water permeating through the ground in a process which we now know takes very little time at all. It forms these attractive coloured layers and occasionally beautiful fossils as well. What is attractive is the fact you can sell the stuff, as many people around the world regard it as gem stone quality. Lightning Ridge is the source of the world’s best black opal.

A man’s castle is his home even when its built way out on the edge of the outback opal fields and the builder ran out of money to put a roof on it, so it’s actually never been lived in. It is a reminder of that Scripture where Jesus challenged us with an ‘unfinished tower’ to always calculate the costs before we even start a project (Luke 14:28 - 29).  What is humorous about this castle is that the watch tower was built without a door put into the design, so unless you clamber up the outside using your rock climbing and abseiling skills you can’t even get into it. 

Australia’s Outback is still relatively full of camels and some have become quite friendly as bus tripper Edward Brown from Victoria discovers.

Pick which one is the donkey – The Aussie Outback also has its share of wild donkeys and some have become very tourist savvy knowing exactly where to go for sweets in our bus tour photographer Garry Watterson’s clothing. If you’re having trouble picking the real donkey contact us.

The sunrise was beautiful – but since we had only staggered into bed a few hours before, after an unbelievably long day due to flood waters over roads fo9rcing us on long detours, not many of us appreciated this daybreak at Broken Hill. We were desperately trying to grab every last minute of sleep we could.

We did get to the exposures of Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian rocks which will form the basis of our coming fossil report along with the geological data we were able to glean. Keep watching!

To view THE GREAT AUSSIE OUTBACK TOUR REPORT PART2 CLICK HERE