The Breakaways.

While flicking through some of my older photos, I come across these two of The Breakaways and though I would put them on my blog to go with an earlier posting of the same area.











This is a very colourful location and we are looking forward to revisiting the area next month on our way to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Perhaps we will be able to captures some more shots to post here if the weather is kind to us while there.

Coober Pery Underground.

Coober Pedy is located 846 km north of Adelaide South Australia and is considered to be the "Opal Capital of the World" with opals first discovered in the area around 1915.

With the outside temperatures often reaching a hot 45 degrees Celsius in the shade, it is no wonder most of the dwellings are found underground.











These two photos show an underground Art Gallery and Jewelers shop which has been set up to escape the outside heat.

Dog Fence.

Yesterday's blog mention something called "Dog Fence" so today I have posted some information on the world's longest fence.

The area of the fence that we photographed was just north of Coober Pedy in South Australia where the fence runs along side of the Breakaways.
















The following quote has been pasted from the State of Queensland's web site which can be found at their Wild Dog Barrier Page.

The Wild Dog Barrier Fence (previously called the Dingo Barrier Fence) was first proposed in the late 1940s to protect sheep from being attacked by wild dogs. Erection, however, was not completed until the late 1950s.

Originally the graziers were responsible for maintaining the fence, but with drought and changes in the wool market it didn’t take long for the fence to fall into disrepair.

In 1982, a $3.6 million state government program commenced to rebuild almost half of the original barrier fence (2500 km of the original 5600 km). The program also realigned a large section of the fence to exclude previously protected areas in central-western and north-western Queensland. This meant the barrier fence would only provide protection from wild dogs in central-southern Queensland. The current Wild Dog Barrier Fence is the result of that program.

In addition to the main barrier fence, a number of check fences were reconstructed and renewed in the southern Darling Downs area.

Today, the Wild Dog Barrier Fence is administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Water. It is about 2500 km long and protects 26.5 million hectares of sheep and cattle grazing country.

The Breakaways.

This unique region of ancient Australian outback, dates back over 70 million years ago, and features many flat-topped mesas, that at one stage in time would have been islands in a vast inland sea. ‘The Breakaways’ gets its name because from a distance, the features look like they have ‘broken away’ from the main range - the Stuart Ranges.









The Breakaways is also a major movie filming location including Mad Max III - Beyond Thunderdome (Tina Turner and Mel Gibson), Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Hugo Weaving, Terrance Stamp, Guy Pearce, Bill Hunter), Ground Zero, and Pitch Black (Vin Diesel) being filmed in and around this scenic area. From here you can also trek to the ‘Dog Fence’ and then back to Coober Pedy, which is only about 25 km away.