We are up early and visit the Woomera Heritage Centre again. This is a fantastic museum, it provides a valuable and interesting insight into Australia’s rocket research. Australia was highly advanced in rockets being the one of only four countries to have launched satellites into space. While this research had military applications Australia also advanced research for peace time purposes, astronomy and spatial sciences just to name a couple. It should be noted women played an important part in the rocket research. I enjoyed the displays about Len Beadell. Its a shame the government of the day failed to support the rocket industry as Australia was so advanced let’s hope the Australian Space Agency gains some lost ground.

The centre opens at 6:30am providing a timely community service by providing great food and beverages for locals and travellers alike. The staff are certainly friendly and helpful and are proud to be a service to the Woomera community it’s a wonderful asset to the town.

We then continue southwards stopping at the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden. This is a must see educational centre just to the north of Port Augusta on the Stuart highway. The centre staff are friendly and the food is good. A number of native plants were in flower and hence the native birdlife was on show to see and hear. The displays were wonderful particularly the Eremophila garden. There was historical information to read and I loved the section about Burke and Wills who failed to listen to the indigenous people and consumed raw nardoo, which ultimately killed them. Another example of the value of local knowledge, in Burke and Wills case they ignored it. A must see venue if you are travelling the desert country and want to understand our country a little bit better.

Home tonight is a cottage at the Paxton Square Cottages at Burra. These are refurbished heritage listed terrace houses. constructed in the 1840’s to house mining families. They are close to town and beautifully setup. Dinner is at the Burra hotel, yum.