The past few days have been a wake up call – the weather’s changed dramatically from the sweltering temperatures we’ve become used to, and we have experienced a remarkable thing called rain.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Following the alternate reality of Coober Pedy we head south towards Port Augusta, but not before a visit to another unusual bit of Australian history – Woomera. The drive here brings a realisation of how much the world has changed. Or not. Woomera became a rocket testing site shortly after the Second World War. It was one of the Allies most secret sites during the Cold War, and is still an operational RAAF base. We spend a bit of time in the Rocket Museum, where there is no sign of either Elton John or Kim Jong-un. During the 1950s and 1960s Woomera was second only to Cape Canaveral as the busiest rocket range in the world. In subsequent years it has been involved in space missions, and other testing is still carried out – the relationships across Defence, mining interests, indigenous land owners and Government are complex and it’s mostly a prohibited area and airspace, so what they don’t want you to know you won’t find out.

Heading east from Port Augusta we stop in Peterborough, population 1,400. In the late 1800s it was a thriving town with three rail lines converging and 100 trains a day passing through, taking wool and produce to market; the advent of diesel meant fewer trains taking longer and heavier loads and the slow death of the town. Only the Indian Pacific passes through now, twice a week. Initially the landscape is redolent of the early pastoralist days. The land was allocated in one square mile blocks, so there’s a house for every square mile, but now it’s sad to see the old stone cottages are crumbling away. Even so, we love seeing trees, paddocks with grass, fences, windmills and other evidence of life after so many hundreds of kilometres of wide open desert.

Unfortunately it doesn’t last all that long and we find ourselves back in the dry.  In the immortal words of Dame Edna, it’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger. Dust clouds blow across the road and the barren fields. There are so many dust devils we stop remarking on them. It’s heartbreaking to think people are trying to eke out a living here. The just announced relief package is widely deemed too late to help many farms after years of drought. There are towns in New south Wales and Queensland that have run out of water. The bureau of Meteorology says this is the worst drought in a century and as I write this about 120 bush fires are burning through the same areas. This is a hard country.

Its a relief when we arrive in Mildura, a prosperous horticultural centre famous for its orange and grape growing industries – it produces 80% of Victoria’s grapes – and no, we don’t miss growing grapes. The Murray river forms the border between Victoria and New South Wales, though by law the river belongs to NSW. Half an hour from Mildura is Wentworth and the confluence of the Darling and Murray rivers.  The Darling flows 2,740 kms down from, quite literally, the back of Bourke, and the Murray has its start in the Snowy Mountains and runs 2,520 to pick up the Darling and flow to the coast south-east of Adelaide.  We climb a viewing tower for a better look, but there’s not much to see other than two muddy rivers joining. 

It’s hard to grasp the complexities of water politics in this country; peace in the Middle East is more likely than agreement on water allocations in Australia. All the argument doesn’t seem to impact the commercial riverboats. Day trips on paddle steamers, long term hire boats, and week long trips up and down the river are a major draw. We settle for a short trip on the PS Melbourne, a paddle steamer which has plied its various trades on the river since 1912, originally hauling trees rather than tourists. It is still a hungry steam powered beast and I’m glad I don’t have to chop the wood.

Scott has never been to Canberra, and why would he? Canberra is possibly one of the prettiest but least interesting cities in the world. Leaving aside indigenous and early European settlement, Canberra came into being in the early 1900s when Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t settle their playground squabble on which should be the nation’s capital. “I’m older” cried Sydney. “But I’m bigger” shouted Melbourne. And much like all kids’ fights, no-one gets their way and a compromise was reached with “somewhere in between”. Hence Canberra.

It always reminds me of Washington, DC, I think because they both have those long vistas towards their respective key Government buildings. In 1960 the population was 50,000. Now it’s about 430,000, which tells you all you need to know about bureaucracy.

If there are reasons to linger we don’t find them and head for the coast and what we hope is more fun in the sun. We take the road directly out to the New South Wales coast to Bateman’s Bay. To Scott’s consternation it’s his turn to drive again and the road we take is a first cousin of the winding downhill goat track we took to Cairns. Cue much use of brakes and colourful language.