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Published: June 26th 2008
24th May 2008 - 14th June 2008
Broken Hill - Silverton - Coober Pedy - Ayers Rock - Kings Canyon - Alice Springs - Devils Marbles - Daly Waters - Mataranka - Katherine Gorge - Lichfield National Park - Darwin
If one more person says to us "you don't realise how big Australia is" we'll really lose our rag! Actually, being English, we'll politely agree with them and have a good moan once they've gone! Seriously though, we have maps in England, we know it's a big country. We don't think Australians realise the volume of traffic we have back home or the number of traffic lights, roadworks, accidents and not to mention the cost of fuel (there's uproar over here at the moment as they are paying 75p a litre now!). So yes Australia is big but the only reason you need to use your breaks is for the occasional wandering bit of wildlife. And one more thing, being called a Pom all the time is getting really boring! Okay, whinge over, here's what we have been doing.
Driving. Driving a lot. You know Australia really is quite big! From Adelaide to Darwin (that's this blog) we
travelled around 4,000km which included a couple of diversions off the main road. The first of these being a 500km or so return trip to
Broken Hill. Broken Hill is an old lead-silver-zinc mining town, although mining still continues on a small scale today, that has become a thriving arts centre with numerous galleries all over town. We visited 'Pro Harts' gallery who is one of Australia's most famous artists and died in 2006. We had never heard of him and if we were honest were not that keen on his work. Afterwards we stopped at Bells Milk Bar for a gorgeous banana surprise milkshake (the surprise was chocolate!) which is an authentic 50s style bar that probably hasn't changed much since that time.
We then drove about 20km to
Silverton which was much more to our liking. It's a tiny outback ghost town with ruined old buildings and dirt track roads but with a small population to cater for mainly tourist needs. It has also been used for several film locations and TV commercials. Parts of Mad Max were shot around here and just about every commercial that features an outback scene, including the Castlemaine XXXX ones that
were filmed at the Silverton Hotel Pub. Mad Max's car is even parked outside the hotel! It's actually a replica but you would never have guessed. Also in the town are a couple of art galleries but these ones are definitely worthy of a look. Peter Browne's Gallery which is inside a dilapidated 19th century house on a hill (it never rains so no need to fix the roof!) was just brilliant and the VW Beetles outside painted in vegemite (a poor marmite substitute) were awesome! The next morning we drove a few km past Silverton to the Mundi Mundi lookout which is a vast plain and is apparently proof that the earth is round as you can see the curve in the horizon it's that vast! We met a guy here with a surfboard on his car roof - a little optimistic we felt (apparently it's a 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' moment, but we haven't seen that film). Back to Broken Hill and a visit to BigW to get a reluctant refund on Tom's tent that wasn't waterproof and then about 12km out again to visit 'The Sculptures'. Twelve sandstone sculptures were created by an international mix of
artists in 1993 in the 'Living Desert Reserve' - we weren't that impressed.
We left Broken Hill and a long way after re-entering South Australia (Broken Hill is back in New South Wales) we were stopped at a checkpoint to make sure we hadn't carried any contraband across state lines - contraband being fresh fruit and vegetables. A brief stop at Peterborough to buy food for dinner (including some more fruit and veg) and at the checkout the girl gave me a double take and said I look just like someone out of All Saints! Now, I thought All Saints were an all girl 90s pop band so I was a little confused. She said it was a tv programme, a hospital drama (bit like Casualty and Holby I guess) and was on TV that night. We stayed in a great little campsite in Orroroo that night which had a TV lounge so we got to watch it. It was obvious who she meant and I wasn't flattered - he was a real nerd!
Lots of driving after that with not much excitement on the way. We did stop at Lake Hart Salt Lake. It's a huge dry
lake completely covered in salt and it felt a bit like walking on snow. We eventually reached
Coober Pedy and stayed at an underground campsite. Due to the harshness of the terrain and temperature out here most people live underground and the town actually exists because of opal being discovered here which is still being mined today. The campsite also did opal mine tours which was given a hard sell by the owner. We aren't really that interested in opals and declined the tour. The campsite isn't underground either unless you are staying in a tent. We had a quick look around the town the next day which included the much more friendly and interesting 'Old Timers Mine' and left quite early as we had a lot of driving ahead of us.
We crossed into the Northern Territory state and turned off the main Stuart Highway a little later as we headed towards
Ayers Rock, or Uluru as it's now known - another 500km return trip. Ayers Rock is an amazing sight, much bigger and more impressive than you expect it to be. Climbing Ayers Rock is still allowed but the Aboriginals get very sad if you do and
the climb is closed if its too hot or windy. Both days we were there it was closed due to high winds. When you see the climb from the bottom it's amazing they allow it at all - it is frighteningly steep with just a flimsy chain to stop you from falling all the way to the bottom again. We walked around the base of the rock instead which took almost three hours as it's a 10km walk. It's when you walk around the base you realise what an odd shape it is. Down the road (100km return) we had a look at the equally remarkable 'Olgas' or Kata Tjuta (no idea how that ones pronounced). Just like its more famous neighbour it is a monolith carved by 1,000s of years of weathering but this time thirty six monstrous domes, some actually taller than Ayers Rock, have been created.
Back to Ayers Rock for the obligatory sunset photos and on the way back to the campsite at the Ayers Rock Resort it dawned on us why we didn't see a single Japanese person with a tripod - there's a separate viewing area for coaches! Great idea!! In the morning
we did the sunrise photos and then travelled 300km to
Kings Canyon. The rim walk up and around the canyon took us three hours, the views and interesting bee hive rocky terrain making it a worthy hike. After driving another 80km to a rest area we were more than ready for dinner and bed - a very busy day!
We had a more relaxing day driving just 250km and stopped at Stuart's Well Roadhouse (free camping) where Dinky the Singing Dingo lives. He was on holiday. We made it to
Alice Springs the next day but only stopped to fuel up and fill the cupboard with food, as we continued to Ti Tree Roadhouse (not free camping but cheap!). The following day was more interesting as we stopped at
Wycliffe Well Roadhouse to read about all the UFO sightings here and look at the strange alien decor they have built to capitalise on this. It may be a coincidence but they have the widest range of beer in Australia (but not the world!!) on sale here! Much more interesting were the
Devils Marbles. A large scattering of rounded boulders balancing on top of each other almost defying gravity at
times. There are lots more boulders than we were expecting and are a real oddity as the landscape is so barren and flat all around them. We would have stayed longer than we did but the flies were too many and getting in our eyes and ears!
The next days driving had very little to keep us entertained, it was so dull that a small detour to see a rock formation of 'Churchills Head' was the highlight! The diversion took us onto the old highway which was extremely overgrown with plants and small tress growing through the tarmac. We eventually came across something that may have been the rock formation we were looking for but it was so insignificant we continued driving as it must be better than that! It wasn't, Australia gets really desperate for tourist atrractions sometimes - we didn't bother going back for a photo. We stopped at a place called Elliot to fill up with fuel and grab a free coffee. They don't have driver revivers in the Northern Territory but a lot of the roadhouses offer a free coffee (usually be-grudgingly) to the driver only. We didn't stay long here as the town was
like a scene from 'Night of the Living Dead' the way people were shuffling around with no apparent purpose. We stayed the night at
Daly Waters Roadhouse (not free but really cheap!) which is your archetypal outback Aussie pub with bras, knickers and all kinds of stuff pinned to the walls and ceilings. They had live entertainment too, a characterless guy singing woefully to mainly Elvis songs but the Aussies seemed to think he was great!
The next morning we drove to
Mataranka and had a dip in a thermal pool. It was warm but not as hot as expected. We continued to
Katherine Gorge and stayed at the campsite near the gorge. The thing to do here is hire a canoe and paddle down the gorge so we didn't do that - we're such rebels! We had a walk along the top of the gorge to a couple of lookouts. The lookouts were great but the walks to get there were not very interesting.
Monday 9th June is the Queen's birthday (God Bless you ma'm) and the lucky buggers over here get a day off work! Oh well, we shouldn't complain as we haven't worked for nearly
300 days now! We were almost at the top end and the famous Kakadu National Park was not far away. However, we hadn't read many good reviews about it and the locals even call it 'Kakadon't'! It seems the main reason to go is to see ancient Aboriginal rock art. That doesn't interest us at the best of times, to learn that the 10,000 year old artwork was re-painted in the 1960s didn't make us any more eager to visit and drive 600km out of our way. So we went to
Lichfield National Park instead. First stop in the park was to marvel at lots of huge termite mounds. We had actually seen termite mounds next to the road for the last week or two. They started off just a few inches high and gradually got bigger and bigger the further north we got. The ones here must have been 5m tall! The rest of the day comprised of waterfalls, one in particular (Florence Falls) was really nice as it was a beautiful place for a swim. We couldn't swim elsewhere as crocodile warnings were in place!
The next day we made it to
Darwin and just chilled
out the whole day at a campsite. We moved campsite the next day though to the more expensive Big4 (wish we had become members now!) as it was literally a ten minute return walk to the camp kitchen in the stifling heat! It made making a cup of tea an event and breakfast in bed you could forget it! Didn't really do much in Darwin, partly because there isn't much to do but mainly because we needed to re-charge ourselves. We did go to the famous sunset market at Mindil Beach. It was great to see the ocean again and watch a stunning sunset but the actual market was just your typical handicraft stuff.
We left Darwin after three nights and began the journey to Western Australia. There is another checkpoint at the state border ensuring no fruit or veg is carried across so we stayed the night at a rest area just before it and cooked a big plate of vegetable pasta. Everyone else seemed to be doing something similar. 16,000km down, about 4,000km to go - you know, you really don't realise how big Australia is!!!!
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Boon
non-member comment
"Julian in bar"
More like "Julian with bras!" Have you not noticed the women's underwear hanging down at the top of that pic?!