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We left you after two days of solid driving, but only a tiny proportion into our epic drive from Adelaide to Cairns. We were in the desert town of Coober Pedy. We had a quiet day or so there getting our affairs in order, as they say, before moving on to Ularu (Ayer's Rock).
The problem, you think as you drive the 300km off the main road to Ularu (the proper name for Ayer's rock), is that you've already seen it a thousand times in pictures and on TV, it's expensive and a long long way from anything at all. By the time we arrived, and although we didn't admit it to one another until after, we were both expecting to be disappointed; after all it's just a great big stone in the desert in the middle of nowhere can it really be worth all this time and money to see it in real life?
The truth is...it is. It's, and i use the word advisedly, spell-bounding. You can't take your eyes off it, something naturally made of rock should not be so captivating. Every cliche you've heard about it is true, it changes colour almost constantly, it's shape is far
more irregular than you would expect, covered in waterfalls, rock pools and black marks made by dead algae. I could waffle on for an age about it, let's just leave it at ;it was a great experience, far more captivating than any stone has a right to be'.
Down the road from Ularu, well 45km so no distance at all in Oz terms, is the Kata Tjuta a collection of small hills from the same formation as Ularu, nowhere near as famous as Ularu but very beautiful nonetheless. The walk around them was amazing, it just looks like an ancient land and we had it mostly to our selves early in the morning.
On our way back to the main road we stopped off at King's Canyon, a mere 150km out of our way another place of unbelievable beauty. A slash of verdant greenery in the middle of the desert, full of endangered animals living in a beautiful billabong.
We then went to the town of Alice Springs, all the guide books will tell you it has a kind of end-of-the-road, outback charm, unfortunately it doesn't. Although it has a fairly small population it's the only decent size place for
1000km in either direction so has all the shops, K-Marts, cafes and petrol stations you could ask for turning it into anywhere-Australia, but 'no worries' we didn't come to the middle of the continent to see the towns, so we disappeared west to the McDonnell ranges to have a tramp about, which was very pleasant. The interior has had it's best 'wet' in living memory and all is green and pleasant where it is normally red and dead (a slight exaggeration but you get my point).
As we start the long drive from the centre to the north coast now might be a good time to talk about the people we've met on route the 'gray nomads'. They're mostly retirees who have bought a 4x4 with a massive caravan hitched to the back and travel for about 6 months of the year mostly migrating north for the winter where it's warmer. We've found them to be uniformly kind and interested in us. One woman even gave us her number and email address and asked us to call her when we're in Melbourne and she would look after us. The Australians in general, actually, have been wonderful, we've been looked after
and rather than dismissed as 'more bloody backpackers' people seem really interested to talk to us and find out what we're up to and what we think of the country. Although they do all love to try and scare you... "you think this is hot, you should have seen..." or horrifying us about various things that will kill or maim you in a delighted tone.
We eventually arrived at the town of Karumbra; the only town on the massive gulf of Carpentaria, there was no real reason to go here (it was only 80km out of our way) than to be able to say that we'd driven from the southern to the northern coast of the world's largest island! Pats on the back all round, especially to Alice who has driven like a trooper.
Driving through the centre was an amazing experience. It made us much more connected to the country than when you go through on quick tours, I've already seen more animals and met more Ozzy's than my last trip here. We saw grey and red kangaroos, rock wallabies, dingos, a big snake lying across the road (apparently for warmth), emus, camels and many birds (including huge eagles).
We wanted to spend some time in the tropical north of the country so phoned around a few wwoofing places and ended up wwoofing with Diane Cilento who was a fairly famous actress, appearing in the wicker man and the agony and the ecstasy, also Sean Connery's ex-wife and the owner of the only theater/opera house in a jungle. We were slightly blown away at how professional this place is, we both had the image of a couple of hippies putting on amateur dramatics stuff. Instead we found a beautiful wooden theater that Diane set up with her late husband Anthony Shaffer with international standard shows (http://www.karnakplayhouse.com.au/About-Karnak.57.0.html). She's putting on the opera La Traviata on 5th August and we're gonna hang around here until that happens. Right now we're helping getting the grounds sorted and things painted after the cyclone that blew through this part of the world in January.
We were able to take a day off on Tuesday and go to the Atherton Table lands where we had cream tea by a lake and felt very English too, then saw wild Platypuses frolicking in the stream to remind us where we were.
We're hoping to see most of
North Queensland on day trips from the theatre, then head on down the coast. So much to see, so little time.
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