Adelaide-Alice

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From Adelaide we started the journey north, passing through the Clare Valley winemaking region and stopping in a town called Burra. The campsite was cheap at $15 and Burra was a sweet little country town. We spent a couple nights there because we met a lovely couple who had a lead on potential zucchini (courgette) picking work. Unfortunately we got a different story from the zucchini farmer who now only wanted “experienced” zucchini pickers.

So we carried on up into the Flinders Ranges National Park. Australian national parks are not like UK ones. For a start, you have to pay to get in and then there isn’t any development in the park atall except for the stuff in the park headquarters, owned by the park: usually accommodation, restaurants & a general store. But because they have the monopoly it means they can really fleece you, so you have to come prepared.

The drive up the long, straight, quiet road through an increasingly scrubby and flat landscape was our first taste of the outback. The centrepiece of The Flinders is a landform called Wilpena Pound. It looks almost like a giant meteor crater but apparently it was formed through mountain uplift. Either way, it looked really cool. It’s red rock on the outside and green vegetation on the inside. The pictures of it from the sky look amazing.

We camped at Wilpena Pound Resort Campground. It was great - it had the atmosphere of bush camping, only with showers and toilets a short walk away. And what with it being a resort there was a bar and a restaurant! Yep, my kind of bush camping. There were some kind of kangaroos - possibly wallaroos - that would come out to graze late in the afternoon. They were so cute! We hadn’t seen this kind before. They’d hop about totally ignoring the campers; not coming towards us for food but equally not running away from us when we got close. They were just not bothered. In the morning we woke up to the sound of grass munching and feet thumping outside the tent.

We spent 2 nights and a day at The Flinders. We went for a bush walk to the top of Wilpena Pound. It was really really steep climbing up and really hot compared to what we’d been used to. The landscape was interesting to be walking through. Red dirt and desert plants were creeping in.
That evening, after a hard day’s hike we treated ourselves to a meal in the resort restaurant. We were planning on cooking but the general store was crazy priced. We were in luck with the restaurant - it wasn’t too swanky and the food was really good.

From The Flinders we drove south again to go to Port Augusta and stock up on supplies for our foray into the outback. Also the only sealed road runs from there too. Our car could fall apart on the bumpy dirt roads between The Flinders and Coober Pedy. Port Augusta was a bit grotty and the campsite was crap. Fortunately we only stayed one night. Just long enough to clear Woolworths out of canned goods.

The next day we got on the Stuart Highway and headed north. I set the sat nav for Alice Springs and it got a little confused, simply saying “drive over 500 kilometres” . We didn’t drive that far, we stopped at a roadhouse campsite called Glendambo. Glendambo had a pub, a motel and a windmill. The campsite was a large square of red dirt with a bunch of caravans on it. It was awesome.

Along the drive to Glendambo there was a rest stop right next to a massive salt pan! We walked across it away - it was amazing to look at. Pure white shimmering flatness stretching to the horizon. And this was one of the smallest in the area! It felt like snow to walk on as it crunched under your feet. Didn’t think we’d get to see a salt pan up close off the highway so we were really pleased.

Our next stop, another 300km up the highway was Coober Pedy. This place was WEIRD. It’s quite a big regional centre, about 2000 people live there but you wouldn’t know it from looking. That’s because 80% of them live underground. Living underground insulates you from the cold desert winter nights and the hot desert summer days. It remains at 21-24°C in the underground homes no matter what the weather is doing. How cool is that?! You can spot the houses because there will be a big mound of dirt with some pipes (ventilation holes) sticking straight up. The whole place looks like the apocalypse has already hit - it’s really isolated and desolate. The town is set up around opal mining. There are old dusty mining trucks everywhere and every second business is either a opal shop or a mine tour.

We chose to stay in Riba’s Underground Campsite! From the car park you walk down a corridor into the ground. At night time you can feel the warm air hit you, it’s very nice indeed. We put up the inside part of the tent but not the outside - it’s not like there was going to be any wind or rain inside our cave. It was great for sleeping because there was total silence. I swear you could hear your brain working. It would have been total darkness I imagine if it weren’t for the lights in the corridors that remained on all night. What is it with campsites always being really bright??

We had a right old tourist fest in Coober Pedy. First we visited Faye’s House. An actual home that was dug out by a woman in the 60s. We rang the doorbell and the bloke who lives there opened the door and gave us a guided tour around the house! Bizarre. The house was in most instances a normal, if somewhat dated, home. Except it was a cave.

We also went to a place called the ‘Old Timers Mine’. If ever there was a missed opportunity to call your place “old Diggers” then this is it. It was one of the original mines (c. 1916) in the area and it still had seams of opal in the walls! If only I’d had my pick on me I’d be a millionaire. We donned our hard hats and took the self-guided tour where we learnt all about how people used to mine for opal and viewed some of the worst mannequins in history.

We also visited 2 underground churches which were also very cool.

To finish the day we went out for an emu, camembert, asparagus & cranberry pizza followed by an evening mine tour back at our accommodation (everyone has an opal mine in Coober Pedy).

The next morning - feeling rather over opal mining we continued our journey northwards to the roadhouse of Marla, 160km south of the NT boarder. Along the way we took a detour to a group of hills called The Breakaways. The road was unsealed but were assured it was fine for a standard car. Not far along it we were not so sure on this as the road was corrugated and made our car vibrate in a worrying manner! But us and the car made it out in one piece, so all is well. The road ran parallel to the dog fence for a way. This is a massive long fence (over 4000km) to keep the dingos in the north away from the sheep in the south. There was no sign of either because it was a barren wasteland with absolutely nothing around - why would sheep be there? The road then ran through The breakaways which were odd hills of differing colours sticking right up out of the totally flat surrounds. It was really strange to see.

Marla was another nothing service centre. The exception was we camped on a proper deep red sandy pitch! It was very deserty. From Marla we drove into the territory and then took the Lasseter Highway in a westerly direction to a somewhat famous big red rock. The only accommodation in Yulara (the closest town by a long shot to Ayres Rock) is in the overpriced Ayres Rock Resort. We are in the campground paying $33 a night for an unpowered piece of grass/sand. There is no camp kitchen to speak of. It’s really pretty bad all in all. I think we are paying for them to have sprinklers on the sand all day desperately trying to grow grass. It does have the considerable bonus of being just 20km from Uluru itself. You can’t see it from here because there are sand dunes everywhere covered in trees and shrubs. It’s not much like a desert atall actually. Along the Stuart Highway seemed more like how we think of a desert. Totally flat and only very low lying vegetation.

It’s still awesome to see it with your own eyes though. On Mike’s birthday we went for a walk around the base. It’s a 10km walk! But as it’s completely flat it’s not so bad. It’s pitted all over with big holes and areas that look like they could break off at any moment. And it really is red. From a distance it looks exactly as on all the postcards. We chose not to climb up it because it is sacred to the Aboriginal owners and they ask you not to. Even the national park authority as you not to. Still heaps of people do it.

Today we went for a walk around The Olgas which are similar to Uluru but arguably cooler. They are many round bobbly mounds. The biggest is much bigger than Uluru. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no photos :-(

Unfortunately the weather was not doing the area justice as we had blanket cloud for the two days we were there. On the morning we left the weather broke back to the blue desert skies and we headed down with the rest of the convoy to see sunrise at Uluru. Waiting in the freezing pre-dawn with a whole bunch of tourists taking flash photography (why?) was an odd experience, but fair enough, when the sun hit the rock it lit up a bright fluro shade of orange.

On the 18th we swapped the Ayres Rock resort for the Kings Canyon Resort. As I said: national Parks have no choice on where you stay. Here there were heaps of dingos once the sun went down! It was really odd seeing all these dogs wandering around with no owners.
We took a walk around the rim of King’s Canyon the following day which was fantastic. The walk was a really nice one too - steep at the start to get up to the rim then awesome and varying views from the top down into the canyon and back out to the flat surroundings. There were some sheer cliff faces to which you could get as close as you dared.

After the walk we drove in the direction of Alice Springs, stopping 80km short as a roadhouse called Stuart’s Well. Alot of people think Alice Springs is right on top of Ayres Rock, but actually it’s over 400km away, so it’s a bit of a drive. After the walk around Kings Canyon we didn’t want to be rocking up in Alice really late with nowhere to stay, so we pitched up at Stuart’s Well where they had free camping! Stuart’s Well is “famous” for Dinky the singing dingo, the owner’s pet who as apparently been on TV all over the world. We ate dinner in the pub (this is why they give you free camping) and were lucky enough to witness a performance by the famous dog. You get some funny characters in the middle of nowhere! The bloke puts the dog on the piano and it howls when it hits a key. This bloke was the same bloke who, with his father in the 60s, opened up King’s Canyon to tourism. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings documenting everything surrounding it.

Finally we arrived in the semi-oasis that is Alice Springs. It’s nearly back to civilisation. There is a Woolworths, a Coles, a K-Mart and a McDonalds, hence the posting of this blog. It’s great having normally priced supermarkets and fuel again but it’s still flat, red , dusty and full of flies. I’m a little bit over the outback. Unfortunately there is a lot more of it on the other side. Nevertheless we are looking for work here in Alice. Everyone keeps telling us there is heaps of work here, but I’m not sure where they’re hiding it. VisitOz continue to be worse than useless.
The next blog will probably be when we make it out the other side in Darwin.

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Comments

[Catherine]

Some amazing photos beck!