h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great article - funny and informative. May I make a couple of suggestions of interesting outback towns to include:

1. Coober Pedy - opal mining town in NSW, has the distinction of being almost entirely constructed out of sides of houses. These "underground" houses are very cool, but don't have a lot of natural light. You can take a tour in the old mines and see whether you are any good with a divining rod, and also pocket any rough opal you find on the ground.

2. William Creek - pop 2 on a good day! This town is north west of Maree in NSW and 100km directly east of Coober Pedy. In the pub there is a plaque that reads: "MacDonalds - William Creek. Opened 7/6/1988 8:30am, closed 7/6/1988 3:30pm"

The story behind this: FJ Walker, MacDonalds' transportation company, erected a temporary Maccas in William Creek for the Variety Club's "Bourke to Blathiskide Park (Alice Springs) Bash". This rally car event was to pass through William Creek on the date mentioned in the plaque. Imagine their surprise on approaching one of the least populous "towns" in Australia and espying the Golden Arches rising out of the horizon! The store, complete with limited menu, was pulled down that later that day.

I think you'll find that Coober Pedy is in South Australia. I have passed through there a couple of times and it gets a brief mention in the list at the bottom.

Love the story on William Creek. It will be included when I get around to editing and adding/correcting some of the other ideas.

I'm a bit confused about what to do with Redback. I first tried it in Perth but am reliably informed that it is now brewed in lots of places. Doesn't seem right to list it as a Victorian beer. Putting it under WA and adding a footnote might be the better option.

My mistake (hey, I was 15 when I did the trek, okay!)



I also forgot to say that William Creek is on the Oodnadatta Track. When we drove out there, the red dust was so thick, it almost looked like there were "waves" in the sand when we ploughed into them. Really fine, red sand - a bugger to clean off the car as my father discovered at the end of our four week oddessey.

So William Creek is probably in SA, too (will check my maps at home tonight). Funnily enough I don't recall William Creek, but I have been to Oodnadatta and I'm sure we stopped at every pub we could find along the way.

Oh, and that red dust. A mate of mine returned from a couple of months in the outback and we thought he'd had his 4WD resprayed...

Turns out he just hadn't washed it since he left.

We did four states in four weeks in four 4WDs - does this pose some kind of balance, or what!



And as for the dust - I thought slave labour had been outlawed...dad simply passed the task to the kids (yes, there were four of us - tee hee) who had put up with a cramped vehicle drive all this time and who were hoping to see the back of it for a while!