It was a very long 700km drive from Coober Pedy to Kimba, and our stay in Kimba was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

First of all, the Big Galah – the only thing of any note in Kimba – was completely covered in scaffolding and therefore impossible to see properly.

Second of all, the owner of the place that we had booked (Kimba Units) had sent us a text message saying that we had been ‘moved to different accommodation’ – there was no explanation.

So on arrival we headed over to something called ‘Chrissie’s Dongara’ and found a massive, strange shed like building which was set up like a teenager’s basement – it had a concrete floor, excess and random furniture, multiple fridges, and lots of unmarked doors that went who knows where.

We shouted out at the entrance and got no response – so we walked in, wandered around for a bit, and then decided to try one of the many internal doors that had a noise of some kind coming from behind it. At this point the owner appeared – they seemed oblivious to the fact that we were now staying somewhere completely different from where we had booked. There was no apology, and the reason given for our move was that the ‘unit was no longer available’.

We resigned ourselves to this fate and asked for some keys to our new ‘room’ – only to be told ‘oh you don’t need any keys – nobody locks their doors around here’. After a slightly heated discussion where we insisted that we needed to be able to lock the door, she went off and returned slightly huffily with some keys.

The day ended with dinner in our ‘room’ from the supermarket…

[Almost two years later we finally got to see the Big Galah in its full glory when we were on our way to Streaky Bay]