Heading North for Winter

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We had arranged to pick up the van on 23^rd April, after Easter but it wasn’t finished until 26^thApril. It was good to spend more time with Nico and Belinda and we had a very nice Easter. On Easter Sunday we took Nico and Belinda to the Yarra Valley, none of us had been to this famous wine region before. We went for coffee at Kings Lake, home of the devastating fires of 2009 (Danie worked there restoring power-very traumatic for him as bodies were still being found) before doing a tour of the valley and surrounding beautiful countryside. We stopped for lunch at Rochford Wines to treat Nico and Belinda and to thank them for their hospitality.

We did a few things that needed to be done, I went to the hairdresser, we did some grocery shopping and had a couple of braai and I cooked dinner one night.

On 26^th we were promised the van by late morning ………1600 we left the yard, not impressed but at least we had our home back and made it to Werribee South caravan park just on 1800 as they were closing for the day.

Saturday 27^th April

Did washing and some cooking, Nico and Belinda came late afternoon to help with Smart TV and to check out the van which they had not seen.

Sunday 28^th April 207kms (16C – not liking the cold weather)

We went to Smythesdale Free Camp where we have been before, rang Val and Max in Buninyong and arranged to visit on Tuesday.

Monday 29^th April (17C)

Took the car into Ballarat to get new bullbar fitted (insurance job from our time in Willunga). We hired a car for two days (complimentary from RAC) which helped enormously. Went grocery shpping and back to Smythesdale.

Tuesday 30^th April (18C)

We returned the hire car and collected our car. What a great job they did too, was nearly worth getting hit head on by a speeding driver on a gravel road. Filled up car and two jerry cans with fuel ready for our trip.

Had a fabulous dinner with Val and Max, great friends whom we met on the road up north two years ago.

Wednesday 1^st May 278kms (22C)

Travelled through Hadden and Windermere (pop 97) towards St Arnaud and then Wycheproof to Lake Tyrrell Rest Area, a free camp on the side of Victoria’s largest salt lake - 51,500 acres. Met a couple from Busselton, WA and had a few drinks with them. No fires in Victoria yet which was a shame.

Wycheproof (pop 789) is a small regional locality in the centre of the Shire of Buloke. The name, Wycheproof, originates from an aboriginal word meaning 'grass on a hill', referring to Mount Wycheproof just off the Calder Highway, which is the smallest registered mountain in the world, standing at 148 metres above sea level or 43 metres above the surrounding plains.The economy of Wycheproof is driven mainly by wheat.

The railway from Bendigo and Korong Vale reached the area in 1883 and was later extended north. The last regular passenger service though the local railway station was from Bendigo to Sea Lake on 7 May 1977 and was operated by a Diesel Electric railmotor.The town is unusual in that even today the railway line runs in the centre of the main street.

Thursday 2^nd May 317kms (21C)

Stormy, windy night and very wet in the morning for our trip to Ouyen and Mildura then through quarantine just over the border of South Australia. There were a lot of new Quarantine Inspectors new to the job, in training when we got there but all good and we got through with no problems.

Through Renmark, SA we went to Plushs Bend free camp on the banks of the River Murray where we stayed until Saturday. A lovely place and not too many vans, we collected some wood and had two lovely fires whilst we were there. A very safe place and we were happy to leave the van and do some exploring.

Saturday 4th May 350kms (19C)

Packed up and left for Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. we travelled via Berri (pop 4088), Berri is surrounded by 3000 hectares of irrigated vineyards and orchards. Berri plays host to some of the largest wine production facilities in Australia. Wine production at the Berri Estates Winery has been a fundamental part of Berri’s existence since 1918, making it one of Australia’s oldest wineries, Berri’s wine history has recently developed to include innovative boutique wineries and wine producers, specialising in high quality, small batch and alternative variety wines., Morgan (pop 489), Eudunda (pop 640), Saddleworth (pop 425), Auburn (pop 661), Balaklava (pop 1902) The first European settlers in the area were James and Mary Dunn who in 1850 opened a hotel to service bullock teamsters carting copper ore upon the Gulf Road between the Burra mine and the export port of Port Wakefield. Port Wakefield was the first government town to be established north of the capital, Adelaide.

Port Wakefield is situated on the River Wakefield, at the head of the Gulf St Vincent. The town was originally named Port Henry by William Hill. The name of the town was, around 1849, changed to Port Wakefield, after the Wakefield River.

In 1848, the Patent Copper Company agreed to build and operate a smelter at Burra. Seeking to reduce cartage costs, a track was surveyed to its port established at the mouth of the River Wakefield. By securing leases of the appropriate Crown Land, the company obtained a monopoly of the port. The Government declared the track the Great Western Road. The wharf was constructed along the bank of the river and cargo was transferred between the wharf and ships at anchor in the Gulf on lighters.

With the opening of the railway from Adelaide to Gawler in 1857, the Copper Company's traffic came to a sudden end, leaving only pastoral produce to flow to the port. Mixed farming was established on lands opening up by the Government along the River in the mid-1860s and this called for improvement in transport to the Port.

Port Wakefield is a major stop on the Adelaide – Yorke Peninsula and Adelaide – Port Augusta road routes. Just north of the township there is a major forked intersection where the Yorke Peninsula traffic diverges west onto the Copper Coast Highway from the main Augusta Highway. The intersection is notorious for road accidents and traffic delays, especially at the end of holidays and long weekends.

Located thus, Port Wakefield is known mostly for its roadhouses and trucking stops, including Shell, United, Tucker Time and BP. Travellers between Adelaide and any of the Flinders Ranges, Yorke Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula or the Nullarbor Plain will likely travel through Port Wakefield.

We therefore bypassed Adelaide and easily got to Maitland Showgrounds where we stayed for a few days - $15 with power and water.

Sunday 5th May 385kms (18C)

We hadn't been to the Yorke Peninsula before so took the opportunity to have a good look round as we didn't need to be in Dundee Beach, NT until 20th May.

The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located north-west and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Strait.

Yorke Peninsula was named by Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N., after the Right Honourable Charles Philip Yorke (1764–1834) (later Lord Hardwicke), narrowly beating French navigator Captain Nicolas Baudin (who preferred the name 'Cambaceres Peninsula').

Principal towns include the Copper Coast towns of Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo; farming centres of Maitland, Minlaton and Yorketown; and the port of Ardrossan. A number of smaller coastal towns are popular destinations for fishing and holidays, particularly for people from Adelaide. The south-western tip is occupied by Innes National Park.

Today we went right down to the south of the peninsula as far as Innes National Park. The whole area is so lovely, the central part is farming land and many farmers were out direct drilling the seed and fertilizer with huge tractors and machinery using the GPS to get such straight lines and computer driven machinery. The area supposedly grows the best barley in the world. The coastline is dotted with villages of holiday homes. Today we went to Port Victoria (formerly Wauraltee) a town on the west coast (pop 341) Like many other coastal towns on the peninsula, it has a jetty and used to be a thriving port for the export of grain to England. Its anchorage is sheltered from westerly weather by nearby Wardang Island. The windjammers carrying the bagged grain called at Falmouth, England or Queenstown, Ireland for orders of where the grain was to be taken. Many of the smaller ports were visited only by coastal ketches and schooners. Port Victoria also had an anchorage offshore for the larger windjammers. These were loaded from the ketches which were in turn loaded at the jetty. The last working sailing ships visited in 1949. As a result, Port Victoria is known as the last of the windjammer ports. Today, Port Victoria is predominantly a fishing town. Activity peaks during the holiday season. We saw several dolphins here.

Minlaton (pop 800) in central Yorke Peninsula. It is known as the "Barley capital of the world", due to the rich barley production in the region. It was the hometown of Harry Butler, a World War I flying ace. His Bristol M1C monoplane has been restored and is preserved in pride of place in a building the centre of the town. When he flew an air mail run from Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent to Minlaton in 1919, it was the first over-water flight in the Southern Hemisphere.

Then the small settlement of Yorketown and to Edithburgh (pop 454) on the south-east corner of the peninsula and about 50 kms west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, but 226 kms away by road.

The first European pioneers arrived in the 1840s and were sheep graziers and pastoralists. With closer settlement, in 1869 the Marine Board fixed a site for a jetty to service the developing farming district. An adjacent town was then surveyed, the layout closely emulating (on a smaller scale) that of Adelaide, with a belt of parklands. Edithburgh was named by Governor Sir James Fergusson after his wife Edith. The new jetty opened in 1873.

Edithburgh originally developed as a port for servicing the pastoralist pioneers. In the 1870s grain farming became a mainstay of the local economy, which it still is. At the turn of the 20th Century additional industries were established in the form of gypsum mining and salt refining. There are vast salt lakes in the area, from which salt was scraped and exported as far as Russia. Among those refineries was the Standard Salt Company, operated by C.T. McGlew. The jetty became a busy hub for exporting these commodities, as well as unloading supplies.

Nowadays the jetty is used mostly for recreational fishing and is a popular scuba diving site. There is also a small fishing and prawning fleet based there. The town is now overshadowed by the 55 wind turbines of the Wattle Point Wind Farm, located southwest of the town and opened in April 2005.

Occupying a commanding position on the coastline at semi-circular Salt Creek Bay, Edithburgh is noted for its magnificent seascapes which include steep rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. Troubridge Island can be seen offshore. As a result, tourism is now a growth industry. It is a popular holiday destination with a variety of accommodation types available including a caravan park. The Troubridge Hotel and the Edithburgh Hotel sit diagonally opposite each other at the intersection of Blanche and Edith Streets, both named after Governor Fergusson's daughters.

For those who prefer not to swim in the open sea, the town has a unique seawater swimming pool constructed at the shoreline. Its sheltered waters are refreshed with each rising tide.

Many divers, scientists and marine conservationists list Edithburgh jetty as one of South Australia's premier shore-dive locations. The jetty extends eastwards into Gulf St Vincent and is 170 m in length.

Then Coobowie (pop 247) and Warooka (pop348) known as the "Gateway to the Bottom End", Marion Bay (pop 172) and the gateway to Innes National Park and very popular holiday destination with many large holiday homes as it is a pretty area of beaches and cliffs with good fishing. We found that many holiday areas had a lot of substantial holiday homes.

Dunn Point was our next stop where we saw sealions in the ocean on Corny Point (pop 102) so named because its location looks like a corn on the foot of the peninsula. Corny Point itself has a lighthouse about 7 kms from the settlement of the same name.

Last stop for the long day was Hardwicke Bay.

Monday 6th May (156kms) 19C

First stop today was Ardrossan (pop 1167)

Ardrossan is located on the east coast of the Yorke Peninsula, about 150 kilometres by road from the Adelaide city centre, It is notable for its deepwater shipping and towering cliffs of red clay. Being at a site formerly known as Clay Gully, after a deep gully leading to its red clay coastal cliffs, the surveyed town of Ardrossan was named by Governor Fergusson after the Ardrossan seaport in Scotland which shared similar geography - 'ard' a height, and 'ros' prominent rock or headland.

The site was largely chosen because of its potential for shipping infrastructure, allowing wheat farmers to ship their produce across the Gulf St Vincent to Port Adelaide. The residents of the new township petitioned the government for a jetty in 1874. Completed in 1877, this was later extended to better accommodate the larger steamships and windjammers used to export grain overseas. By 1878 there were six houses, a post office, a flour mill, a Methodist church, and a hotel. That same year a public school opened, having 53 pupils.

During the late 1800s, and into the early 20th century, the town expanded steadily due to income from the surrounding farms. As well, it became notable as the location of Clarence Smith's factory where he manufactured the Stump-jump plough between 1880 and 1935. This South Australian invention was vital in opening mallee country throughout Australia to the plough.

Mallee scrub originally covered large parts of southern Australia, and when farmers moved into these areas they found it peculiarly difficult to clear the land. After the trees were cut down, the roots energetically produced regrowth. These young shoots and the old roots could be killed by repeated burning (see below), but the large roots remained in the ground, making it impossible to plough the soil. Grubbing the roots out was a slow and labour-intensive activity, and the problem was seriously hindering agricultural expansion.

In South Australia, land was being offered under the Scrub Act of 1866 to farmers on lease, with the option of purchasing after 21 years at the price of £1 per acre. However, grubbing the scrublands was proving costly, at approximately £2 per acre, and solutions to the problem were desperately sought.

The situation had grown to be so frustrating by 1878 that the South Australian government offered a reward of £200 to anyone who could develop an effective mechanical stump puller; although myriad devices were developed, none proved to be a breakthrough success. Many of these machines were trialled in contests near Gawler in the same year, but none were as effective as three skilled axemen.

Pending the development of an effective machine, a technique known as mullenizing (after a farmer from Wasleys named Charles Mullens) became popular as a means of clearing the scrub. Mullenizing involved dragging a heavy roller over roughly cleared ground to crush young shoots; the field was then burnt, and a spiked log was run over the ground, and a crop of wheat sown. The next season, the stubble and any mallee regrowth was again burnt, and eventually the mallee died, though stumps remained underground.

In 1876 a special plough was invented by agricultural machinery apprentice Richard Bowyer Smith, and later developed and perfected by his brother, Clarence Herbert Smith, on the Yorke Peninsula (where the problem was particularly acute). The plough consisted of any number of hinged shares: when the blade encountered an underground obstacle like a mallee stump, it would rise out of the ground. Attached weights forced the blade back into the ground after the root was passed, allowing as much of the ground to be furrowed as possible. Although a little unorthodox, the plough in action appearing "like a ship in a storm",it proved remarkably effective, and was dubbed the "stump-jump" plough.

The invention was hailed as a "complete revolution" and, in combination with the process of mullenizing, was adopted almost universally across the mallee lands, even proving as useful in stony ground as it was in mallee country.

Although the surrounding grain farmers around Ardrossan continued to prosper, there was little change in the size of the town during the early 1900s. Indeed, after the depression in the 1930s, the town and its businesses were largely stagnant until a large open-cut dolomite mine was opened by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) in the 1950s for use in its steel manufacture at Whyalla on the Eyre Peninsula and Port Kembla in New South Wales. A new one kilometre long jetty was added and at the same time construction was started with grain storage silos. The 'new' jetty currently services ships loading dolomite, grain and salt from the solar salt pans at Price which are located approximately 10 km north. The wharf is located 1.5 kilometres south of the town jetty, and can accommodate vessels of Handymax class.

From here we went to Pine Point (pop 87) which has many beach shacks and is on the east side of the peninsula. Then to Port Julia (pop187) (also known as Port Curramulka. Its boundaries were created in May 1999 for the “long established name” and includes both the former Port Julia Shack Site and the former Dipper Shack Site. The name is reported as being derived from a Mrs Julia Wurm (née Crush) whose husband and sons had acquired land in what is now the locality.

As of 2015, the majority land use within the locality is agriculture. A secondary land use is conservation which concerns the strip of land immediately adjoining the coastline. A third use of land along the coastline is for residential use at the sites of the former shack sites. The locality contains the Port Julia Jetty and Cargo Shed.

We travelled along the coast to Port Vincent (pop 514). The town was laid out by Adelaide solicitor L.M. Cullen in 1877, originally known as Surveyor's Point.

In its early days it was a port exporting wheat, barley, wool and mallee stumps (firewood). From the first settlement in 1852 until 1877, coastal trading ketches would beach at high tide, and unload directly to farm wagons at low tide. A jetty was built into the bay in 1877, construction of a wharf began in 1901, and the original jetty was removed in 1918. Port Vincent was the main entry point for people and goods to and from the Yorke Peninsula until a good road was built from Port Wakefield in around 1949. Three major fuel companies had storage and distribution depots in the town, supplied by boat or barge from Port Adelaide.

A seaside holiday destination for many years, recently it has been the site of a marina development. Port Vincent was named Australia's Tidiest Town in 2004, having won the South Australian award in 2000 and 2003.

In 2003/04 a large marina was constructed in Port Vincent with canal-side homes. It is operated by the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia. The town has grown in size over the last few years with the release of land for housing. There is a proposed 'next stage', which will include over 100 domestic building blocks and possibly a retirement village. we were not to impressed as it seems to have lost its character and been taken over by owners of huge holiday homes.

We bought seafood in Stansbury (pop 648) as had not had luck fishing, then went back to Maitland via Curramulka. Stansbury faces the Gulf St Vincent across Oyster Bay, where shellfish were originally harvested in the 19th century. The town has also been a port used in the export of wheat and barley to Adelaide. Dalrymple electrical substation is located at Hayward Corner in the locality of Stansbury, just south of the township. Its name is based on the Hundred of Dalrymple, the cadastral division in which Stansbury lies.

Dalrymple substation is at the end of a 275kV power line into the peninsula. It feeds 33kV lines to various towns across the lower end of the peninsula and receives electricity generated by the Wattle Point Wind Farm.

Curramulka - Nearby is an extensive chain of limestone caves. They were first explored in 1850, and major extensions discovered in 1984. They have 14km of known passages in an area of approximately 400m x 300m and depth 46m^..

Corra-Lynn is the longest cave in the region. Curramulka is one of the oldest townships on the Peninsula, the Hundred of Curramulka being proclaimed on 31 December 1874. The name is derived from 'curre' (emu) and 'mulka' (deep water hole). Emus used to drink here, and thus it was named by the indigenous inhabitants.

Farming land was first opened up in the mid-1870s and Curramulka enjoyed its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when most farming produce moved through nearby Port Julia. The town's commercial importance dwindled when Ardrossan to the north became the main regional port for wheat and wool.

Tuesday 7th May 17C (290kms)

Today we went to explore the northern part of Yorke Peninsula. Firstly going to Balgowan, a small fishing village about 20kms west of Maitland and from there to Port Hughes (pop571) considered a satellite town of Moonta. Port Hughes is a popular tourist destination and part of the Copper Coast. The government town of Port Hughes was surveyed in April 1863 and named after Sir Watson Hughes. In recent years, Port Hughes has been the subject of significant interest from land developers, with several land subdivisions in the local area. The most significant recent developments are the Patrick's Cove and Patrick's View land subdivisions, which have resulted in new housing being constructed and an influx of new residents. In June 2007, "The Dunes Port Hughes", a major new residential development was announced, including the construction of the first Greg Norman designed golf course in Australia, as well as a hotel and convention facility, as part of a major housing development.

We then went to Moonta Bay (pop 2024) the beach area of Moonta and a popular holiday destination with a jetty which is a good fishing spot especially for squid. Then to Moonta itself (pop 671). It is one of three towns known as the Copper Coast or "Little Cornwall" for their shared copper mining history.

The Yorke Peninsula coastline near Wallaroo was separately navigated by Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin in 1802. The next Europeans to explore the district were John Hill and Thomas Burr. Under instructions from Governor Gawler, the pair were landed about 15 kilometres south of Point Riley, near Moonta Bay, on 28 April 1840 from the government cutter Water Witch. They then made their way back to Adelaide on horseback, traversing Northern Yorke Peninsula. They reported the discovery of 'a very excellent tract of country'. Based on that report a few pioneering British settlers arrived in the Moonta area in the 1840s, as pastoralists, but there was no significant development until the 1860s, primarily because of the lack of water. The scrub in the area was difficult to penetrate so the first settlers had a hard time clearing the land.

Large and rich deposits of copper were discovered at Moonta in 1861 by Patrick Ryan, a shepherd from Walter Hughes' property.This became a prosperous mine, named Wheal Hughes, with other mines soon to follow. The government town of Moonta was surveyed in March 1863, while an informal township of mining workers also grew at Moonta Mines.A horse tramway from Moonta to the port at Wallaroo opened in July 1866.

Following advertising by the South Australian Government, Cornish miners arrived in Moonta in large numbers. The mines at Moonta proved to be the richest mines in the whole of South Australia by 1917, exceeding the total wealth created by all other mines since 1836, the year of establishment of South Australia. The population of Moonta in 1875 was 12,000. The main copper mining operations at Moonta Mines ceased in 1923, although a number of smaller mines continued to be worked for some years. Smaller-scale operations recommenced in the area in the late 1980s but had closed by the mid-1990s. Following the demise of copper mining, the district successfully merged into dry land farming. Moonta's surrounds are used for growing barley, wheat and other crops such as legumes, canola, chickpeas and field peas. The popular three-day Kernewek Lowender Cornish festival is also held every odd year in May in the Copper Coast towns of Moonta, Kadina and Wallaroo, with events staged across the three towns over several days.

We then went up to Walleroo. The name "Wallaroo" comes from the Aboriginal word wadlu waru, meaning wallaby urine. The early settlers tried to copy the Aboriginals by calling it Walla Waroo. However, they found this too big to stamp on the wool bales, so they shortened it to Wallaroo.

Matthew Flinders was the first European to visit the location. When he sailed by on 16 March 1802, he recorded that "the immediate coast ... which extends several leagues to the north of the point, is low and sandy, but a few miles back it rises to a level land of moderate elevation, and is not ill-clothed with small trees." Wallaroo was first settled in 1851 by a sheep grazier, Robert Miller. In 1857, Walter Watson Hughes purchased the land and named it "Walla Waroo". The name was subsequently shortened to "Wallaroo".Copper was soon discovered in the Kadina area in 1859, and in Moonta (in a wombat hole) in 1861. Confusingly, the famous Wallaroo Mines were at Kadina, not Wallaroo. There were no copper mines at Wallaroo itself, although Wallaroo became a smelting and harbour town, not a mining town.

The copper smelter was established in 1861. Wallaroo settlement was established on Wallaroo Bay by 1861 and was proclaimed as a government town on 29 January 186. In June of that year, the cadastral Hundred of Wallaroo was proclaimed, allowing the surrounding land from coast to Wallaroo Mines to be allotted and sold as sections. The smelter grew and developed to eventually become the largest copper smelter outside of Wales. In addition to copper, the smelter also produced gold and lead, and included a sulphuric acid works, forming the largest and most important producer in Spencer Gulf, until the Port Pirie smelters were established in 1890. Trading prospered, and a jetty was built in 1861 for ships to bring in coal, timber, food and mining equipment. The first load of refined copper was shipped in 1862, and by 1868 over 100 tons were produced each week.

Wallaroo was connected to Kadina by horse-drawn tramway in 1862 and to Moonta in 1866. By 1865, the population of Wallaroo was 3,000, and soon the government town was incorporated as the Town of Wallaroo on 25 June 1874. A rail connection to Adelaide was completed by 1880. Distilled sulphuric acid was also produced and superphosphate was manufactured between the 1890s and 1920s. The areas population peaked at 5,000 in 1920, and Wallaroo was Yorke Peninsula's largest and most important port until when copper production ceased in 1923. An automatic grain loader was built on the town's third jetty in 1958 and is currently in use. The local railway yards expanded to a significant size, but the use of the line diminished and it was closed in the 1990s. Today Wallaroo remains as a major grain port.

Next we went to Kadina (pop 4587) Kadina the largest town on the Peninsula (pop 4587) was once chiefly a copper mining town with the Wallaroo Mines being south-westerly adjacent to the township. Since the closure of the mine in the 1920s, agriculture has been the dominant local industry. We then went to Port Broughton and Bute, both small communities heading across to Mundoora (pop 130), Burunga Gap, Ninnes, Kulpara, Arthurton and back to Maitland. These are all very small agricultural communites in the central area of the Peninsula and we took the gravel roads we found on a local map, making for an interesting drive. We had dinner at the Maitland Hotel, not the best we have ever had but it was OK for pub food.

Wednesday 8th May 20C (293kms)

Today we left Maitland and travelled up to Port Augusta via Port Wakefield where we stopped to buy a couple of the famous pies from the bakery. We went to the sportsground campsite we stayed at earlier but it was totally full at only 1pm. As Port Augusta is not the safest place to stay, even in the caravan parks, we opted to go to the nearest free camp at the Lincoln/Eyre Highway junction where we had also stayed before and only a few vans there.

The Yorke Peninsula is very pretty and compact, a great place to go for a break with plenty of fishing spots, loads of caravan parks but no free camps - Maitland showgrounds was an ideal base and cheap. Would recommend this area highly.

Thursday 9th May 16C (383kms)

Today we truly started to head north and hit the Stuart Highway in Port Augusta. We had really bad weather today with heavy rain and strong winds for part of the trip, we had lunch at Lake Hart Rest Area, where we stayed overnight next to the salt lake last time we were on this road and then carried on to Bon Bon Rest Area, 170kms south of Coober Pedy for the night, travelling through the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) . The WPA covers an area of 122,188 square kilometres and is described by the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) as the largest land-based test range in the western world. The WPA is highly prospective and the Government of South Australia and Geoscience Australia have assessed that by 2025 about A$35 billion worth of iron ore, gold and other mineral resources are potentially exploitable from within the WPA. Access to the WPA for non-Defence use requires Commonwealth approval and is on the proviso that Defence activities will not be unduly compromised.The ground area of the WPA is bound generally by Woomera in the south-east, Roxby Downs and the village associated with the Olympic Dam mine in the east, William Creek in the north-east, Coober Pedy and further north to the 28th parallel, Maralinga in the south-west, and the Trans-Australian Railway and Tarcoola in the south. The WPA is divided into green, amber and red zones; representing infrequent, periodic, and frequent Defence use, respectively. Easements through the WPA allows public transit on the Tarcoola-Alice Springs railway, Stuart Highway, Lake Cadibarrawirracanna Road, Olympic Dam Highway, William Creek Road, as well as the Woomera Village. Permits are required to use the Anne Beadell Highway. From time to time, and for safety reasons, Defence is able to close access for short periods along these easements during the conduct of tests carried out on the complex. The Woomera Prohibited Area Coordination Office (WPACO) coordinates daily operation of the complex which comprises a mix of South Australian crown land and is covered by pastoral leases and mining tenements granted by the Government of South Australia.

Friday 10th May 18C (364kms)

We stopped at Coober Pedy to refuel ($1.63 / litre) only as been before. We carried on to Marla South Rest Area to stay overnight. Just out of Marla (pop 100) a settlement created in early 1980s to provide a stopping place for travellers. The railway passes close by but no trains stop at the station!

Saturday 11th May 20C (312kms)

Today we crossed into the Northern Territory, we are taking our time and like to pull up for the night early afternoon so we can sit and relax and chat with anyone else staying the night. Not very busy, but it is early for people going north for the winter, however at the Ayres Rock turn off the carpark off the roadhouse was full of caravans when we stopped for our Thermos of soup. We stayed at Desert Oaks Rest Area about 170kms south of Alice Springs. All these rest areas are free and have shaded picnic tables and, usually, toilets and rubbish bins. Some even have non potable water.

Sunday 12th May 19C (306kms)

We went into Alice Springs to refuel at one of the many unmanned fuel bowsers that seem to have sprung up. Much cheaper than the regular service stations too. Stopped for our soup right on the Tropic of Capricorn. We are convinced that it will get warmer soon and the flies will go away. Tonight we stopped at Prowse Gap Rest Area. Like every night so far we had a good sleep and were on the road around 0800.

Monday 13th May 29C (354kms)

Left a little later this morning as not far to go to Tennant Creek where we decided to stay in a caravan park so I could do some washing and the unexpected 29C meant we need the air con going in the van. Tennant Creek is not the best place to stop as it's not very safe at all. The caravan park locked the gates at 1730 !! It was pretty full so we were grateful we had arrived early. We got chatting to an older couple who were making their last big trip up north. They had recently moved to a retirement village in Point Cook, Victoria and were thinking it was getting too much for them, all the long distances they had to drive.

We drove through Ti Tree, a small town (pop 70) It is the closest town to Alice Springs. The area around Ti Tree has a population of 995 people of whom 191 are non-Aboriginal. The population is distributed between the 11 cattle stations, 6 Aboriginal outstations including Utopia, Ti Tree township, Barrow Creek community and the agricultural produce farms of Ti Tree Farm, Central Australian Produce Farm and the Territory Grape Farm. The area is an emerging centre for grapes and melons due to its year-round sunshine and abundant underground water supply.

The Anmatyerre name for the area close to Ti Tree township is Aleyaw but no one seems to know how or where the name Ti Tree or Tea Tree came from. One of the first features in the area to be named was Ti Tree Well No. 3 (still to be seen on the western side of the highway just south of the township) which was developed during the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line.

The remains of Ti Tree Well No. 2 can be found at the southern end of the air strip.

In 1888 an area of about 64 km incorporating the well was formally set aside as the Tea Tree Telegraph Reserve and in 1919 W. J. 'Bill' Heffernan was granted a lease to a parcel of land which he called Tea Tree Station. The current station covers an area of 3584 km².

Since the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line Tea Tree Well had become known for its good supply of sweet water but this was not enough to make Heffernan's labours financially rewarding. By 1935 the run was poorly improved with primitive buildings and no horse or bullock paddocks. Heffernan died in Alice Springs in 1969 and the station was carried on by his widow.

In 1975 Ian Dahlenburg took up 640 acres of the station and established Dahlenburg Horticultural Enterprise which now grows grapes and watermelons on Ti Tree Farm.

Ti Tree is the first substantial stop heading north from Alice Springs and is the largest community between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. There is a hotel, a school and a police station along with several other buildings. Petrol and other traveller facilities are available.

Ti Tree is the centre for a vegetable-producing area, producing fresh vegetables and fruit for Territory markets, with an annual table-grape harvest alone reaps $10 million.

We went through Barrow Creek, a very small town, with a current population of 11. It is located on the Stuart Highway, about 280 km north of Alice Springs, about halfway from there to Tennant Creek. The main feature of the town is the roadhouse/hotel. A number of mining companies are currently exploring in the area, although none of the current residents are involved in the mining industry.

John McDouall Stuart passed through the area in 1860. He named a creek near the current town after John Henry Barrow, a preacher, journalist and politician who was born in England in 1817 and migrated to South Australia in 1853. At the time of first European habitation of the site, he was the Treasurer of South Australia.

Barrow Creek was chosen as a site for an Overland Telegraph morse repeater station by John Ross in September 1871. The station was officially opened on 16 August 1872 by Charles Todd. It was one of 15 such repeater stations on a network traversing Australia and linking to Europe, providing essential communication services. A manned repeater station in newer buildings remained in operation until at least the 1970s. There was also a post office and telephone exchange servicing local cattle stations. The original Telegraph Station has been preserved and is now a monument to the troubles which beset the early days of the Territory.

In 1873, 5,000 sheep were overlanded from Adelaide by Alfred Giles for distribution to Telegraph Stations along the line. During 1877 and 1878 Alfred Giles and Arthur Giles overlanded stock for W. J. Browne to the Katherine River. On the 1878 journey Frank Withall, a young Englishman, was included on the suggestion of Browne to gather some colonial experience. Alfred Giles later started Springvale, Delamere and the Newcastle Waters runs.

During the Second World War Barrow Creek was used by the Australian Army as a staging camp for convoys of troops and supplies, which was known as No. 5 Australian Personnel Staging Camp. It was the first overnight stop on the northern trip from Alice Springs to Birdum.

Barrow Creek has always had a problem with both quantity and quality of groundwater supplies. This problem was already recognized in the 1870s, and only 20 years after the Telegraph Station was built there is evidence of plans to shift it about 40 kilometres further north to the crossing at Taylor Creek because of better groundwater supplies. There is still a bore at that locality called New Barrow Bore. Today, the only good water at Barrow Creek is rainwater and that is limited due to the arid climate.

During 1870 some 3,000 sheep from the Lake Hope area in South Australia were overlanded to the Northern Territory, for the men working on the line at Roper River, by Ralph and John Milner. Near Wauchope Creek 900 sheep died after eating poisonous herbs. John Milner was killed by the Aborigines and Ralph arrived at the Roper River with only 1,000 sheep.

On 22 February 1874, a group of Kaytetye men attacked the Overland Telegraph repeater station at Barrow Creek, whose staff were relaxing outside the compound, immediately killing linesman John Frank, mortally wounding Canadian telegraphist and stationmaster James Lawrence Stapleton (died on the following day) and injuring several others.

Barrow Creek was central to the last major Aboriginal massacre in the Northern Territory. In the 1920s Mounted Constable William George Murray was in charge of the local police station and also the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the area. When an old dingo trapper, Fred Brooks, was killed by Aborigines on Coniston Station, Murray led a posse which killed an estimated 70 Aborigines in a series of bloody reprisals. When Murray was called to Darwin to explain his actions he was greeted as a conquering hero. When asked why he had taken no prisoners he expressed the racist attitudes which prevailed at the time by telling the Darwin court "What use is a wounded black feller a hundred miles from civilisation?" He was exonerated of all charges.

Barrow Creek has recently become famous for being the closest town to the location of where Peter Falconio was murdered by Bradley John Murdoch, and Joanne Lees was abducted in 2001. The scene of the crime was 13 kilometres to the north of Barrow Creek.

Tennant Creek is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway. At the 2016 census, Tennant Creek had a population of approximately 3,000, of which over 50% (1,536) identified themselves as indigenous.

The town is named after a nearby watercourse of the same name, and is the hub of the sprawling Barkly Tableland vast elevated plains of black soil with golden Mitchell grass, that cover more than 240,000 square kilometres.

The Barkly Tableland runs east from Tennant Creek towards the Queensland border and is among the most important cattle grazing areas in the Northern Territory. Roughly the same size as the United Kingdom or New Zealand, the region consists largely of open grass plains and some of the world's largest cattle stations. It runs as far south as Barrow Creek, north above Elliott and west into the Tanami Desert.

The region encompasses the junction of two great highways, the Barkly and the Stuart, also known as the Overlander and Explorer's Ways. The Overlander's Way (Barkly Highway) retraces the original route of early stockmen who drove their cattle from Queensland through the grazing lands in the Northern Territory.

The first European explorer to pass through the region was John McDouall Stuart in 1860, on his unsuccessful first attempt to cross the continent from South to North. He named a creek to the north of town after John Tennant, a financier of his expedition and a pastoralist from Port Lincoln, South Australia, in gratitude for the financial help Tennant had provided for Stuart's expeditions across Australia.

The Overland Telegraph that once linked Melbourne to London was constructed in the 1870s and forged a corridor through the middle of the continent that the Explorer's Way and Ghan train now travel. A temporary building for a telegraph repeater station was erected near the watercourse of Tennant Creek in 1872. Two years later, the solid stone buildings of the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station that remain on the site today, were completed by the occupants of the station. This is one of the four remaining original telegraph stations in Australia. Tennant Creek was the site of Australia's last gold rush during the 1930s and at that time was the third-largest gold producer in Australia. The Tennant Creek Telegraph Station remained an isolated outpost until that time.

The town of Tennant Creek was located 12 km south of the watercourse because the Overland Telegraph Station had been allocated an 11 km reserve. Local legend offers a different explanation for the town's location. In 1934 Joe Kilgarriff from Alice Springs built the Tennant Creek hotel on the eastern side of the telegraph line, the building supplies being delivered on the first commercial journey of the AEC Roadtrain from Alice Springs. The pub still exists and is a historic monument to the early days.

Cecil Armstrong was one man who made a contribution to the early development of Tennant Creek. He arrived in April 1935 and began baking bread the next day. In 1937 he built Armstrong's bakery and cafe where he lived and worked for over twenty years as baker and cafe proprietor. The building still stands today, albeit under a different guise. Cecil's telephone number was simply the number 1 and his Post Office box was also number 1.

Another important contributor to Tennant life was Mrs Weaber, wife of the blind owner of the Rising Sun Mine, one the richest gold mines in the district before World War II. A devout Catholic, Mrs Weaber paid for the old church at Pine Creek to be transported to Tennant Creek plank by wooden plank, thereby establishing the Tennant Creek Catholic Church. Mrs Weaber also started the Tennant Creek Christmas tree event when, in the early 1930s she held a party at her husband's gold mine and gave every child on the gold field a present. Mrs Weaber's generosity continues into the present day. Every year the town erects a public Christmas tree and every child, local or visitor, is given a present. The Weaber family left Tennant Creek in 1940 following a series of personal family tragedies. They sold the lease to what would become Tennant's richest post war mine, Nobles Nob, before they realised its potential. Nobles Nob was named after Jack Noble, an old friend of the Weaber family from the days when they all lived in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.

Gold Mining was all but shut down in Tennant Creek in 1942. The only mine to remain operational was a large mine with its own crushing plant. During World War II, the Australian Army set up 55th Australian Camp Hospital near Tennant Creek. The Royal Australian Air Force utilised Tennant Creek Airfield as an emergency landing ground.

The main Aboriginal body within the town is the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation which plays a major role in providing training and employment services for the Aboriginal people in Tennant Creek. It has developed a construction capacity and provides contract services to the Town Council such as recycling. Julalikari also provides community services within the township such as Homemakers, aged care, and the night patrol.

The police district covers almost 22,000 square kilometres and has a strength of 25 officers. The force includes two Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) officers.

Tennant Creek was once the third largest gold producer in Australia and is still highly productive. Over 210 tonnes of gold have been mined in the area. Notable mines include, Nobles Nob mine and the Peko mine. The Bootu Mine to the north of town exports manganese to China. Major mining companies are continuing to explore for bauxite, lead-zinc-silver and copper around the area. Exploration has commenced to the southeast of town for unspecified minerals. Mining in Tennant Creek was very hard work because Tennant Gold is found in Iron Ore.

Tennant Creek is also the centre of the rich pastoral industry of central Australia, with vast cattle properties stocked with herds of Santa Gertrudis and Brahman cattle.

Tuesday 14th May 31C (269kms)

Heat at last. We have left the cold of the south behind and expect temperatures only to vary slightly around max 33C min 25C for several months. Yipppeeeee!

Late pack up as not going far today, fuelled up and headed for our overnight stop at Newcastle Waters Rest Area

Newcastle Waters Station is a pastoral lease between Alice Springs and Darwin, supporting about 45,000 cattle in a notably well-watered area of 10,353 square kilometres. Kerry Packer was once a partner in the station, and sent his son James to work there for a year as a jackeroo.

Occupying an area of 10,353 square kilometres (3,997 sq mi) of open plains, floodplain and wooded sandhills the property carries about 45,000 head of cattle including about 20,000 brahman breeders, and annually turn off about 13,000 for export to Indonesia.

John McDouall Stuart, the explorer, reached the area in 1861 established a base camp near the present site of the station. He described the river running north from Lake Woods as the most splendid reach of water and named it "Glanfield lagoon" after Edward Glanfield the mayor of Adelaide and later changed by the expeditions sponsor to "Newcastle Waters" after the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary for the Colonies.

Established in the early 1880s by Dr. W.J. Browne of Adelaide who had also established Springvale Station near Katherine. Alfred Giles managed Brownes properties and had renowned stockman D'Arcy Uhr overland a mob of cattle from western Queensland in 1883. Browne's business interests failed and he was forced to sell the lease to John Lewis, also from Adelaide, in 1895. The Lewis family held onto the lease for the next 50 years.

Sheep were once grazing at the station with the first flock of being moved off in 1897.

The station was turning off large numbers of cattle since the early 1900s, 1,100 were turned off via Hergott Springs in 1905 and another 1,260 being droved to Oodnadatta in 1910. Large number of cattle have been produced of the property since.

Following a dry season in 1928, heavy rains came at the start of the wet season in 1929, causing the creeks to flood and waters to rise almost to the front steps of the police station.

The government resumed an area of 1 square mile (3 km2) from the station in 1930 to create a townsite. A works depot and a police station already existed in the area at the time. By the 1960s it was a virtual ghost town as road trains had replaced droving to transport cattle to market.

The station and surrounding area were devastated by a large scale bushfire in 1951. The fire burnt out over 1,000 square miles . over a 20 miles front. Station workers had to backburn in an attempt to control the flames.

Ted Egan, the folk musician and former Administrator of the Northern Territory, was the sole teacher at Newcastle Waters in 1965 and was stranded at the property for six weeks when the creek flooded. During this time no supplies were able to be delivered so Egan had to hunt for animals, such as bush turkey for his dinner. He later returned to the station in 2012 for the book launch of, Middle of Everywhere, about life in the area.

Kerry Packer was a partner in the station along with Ken Warriner, Peter Baillieu and Tony Chisholm when the group purchased the property in 1983. Packer later attempted to purchase the prestigious Victoria River Downs in 1984 only to have the deal blocked by the state government. He was also was responsible for selling Newcastle Waters, along with 16 other properties that made up his family's pastoral portfolio, in 2009 to the Australian company Terra Firma for A$425 million.

A bushfire burnt out a large area of pasture in 2012 when a car caught fire on the Stuart Highway, the fire to the east of the highway was extinguished but the area to the west was controlled by station workers to keep it away from stock. The fire eventually came to Lake Longreach within the station where it burnt out in the damp conditions.

Wednesday 15th May 32C (285kms)

We left late morning as we didn't have far to go today. We had booked in to the caravan park at Bitter Springs for the night as we missed these hot springs last time and were told they were far nicer than those down the road at Mataranka, which they were. Bitter Springs is in the Elsey National Park (210,000 acres), a 500m waterway fed by an underground spring that gently flows down a watercourse lined with cabbage palms and paperbark trees.After booking in and setting up we donned bathers and walked a short way to the hot springs (30C). The crystal clear water was fabulous and a gentle current took you down to another set of steps to enable you to walk back to the start. I had bought a noodle in Perth for this moment and it was bliss floating through the woodland. I saw a very unfrightened crimson finch too. We had such a good time there and it was nice to cool down. Never in the last few weeks did I expect to be saying that. We even sat out at night although there was a couple with two barking little dogs - not the best.

Thursday 16th May 35C (144kms)

Another late start as we hadn't far to go. We had booked in at the Manbulloo Homestead caravan park, about 12kms out of town and the cheapest we could find. And what a find it was, lovely park, lots of shade and very quiet and on the banks fof the Katherine River. Met people who had paid $54 a night in town - ours was $35. Manbulloo (Established 1917) was a 2.47 million acre station and site of the first commercial mango plantation in the Northern Territory. There was also an airstrip here during WWII of which nothing remains. We parked under one of many beautiful mahogany trees in the park.

In the afternoon we went into Katherine (another unsafe place) to get beer. Very restrictive alcohol laws here - two police guys at bottle shop checking ID and wanting to know where we were staying. Only one 2 litre cask of wine per person per day, beer unrestricted as are spirits - go figure, plus your drivers license is scanned so you can't visit another bottle shop the same day and anyone with a conviction is banned from buying any alcohol at all. Same rules with a few variations in the whole of the NT, not impressed at all.

Friday 17th May 33C (87 kms)

Today we went to the Katherine Gorge National Park - 2,946.64 km² to take a helicopter ride over the gorge.

Katherine Gorge, a deep gorge carved through ancient sandstone by the Katherine River, is the central attraction of the park. Katherine Gorge is made up of thirteen gorges, with rapids and falls, and follow the Katherine River, which begins in Kakadu. During the Dry, roughly from April to October, the Katherine Gorge waters are placid in most spots and ideal for swimming and canoeing. There may be freshwater crocodiles in most parts of the river, as they nest along the banks, but they are harmless to humans. Saltwater crocodiles regularly enter the river during the wet season, when the water levels are very high, and are subsequently removed and returned to the lower levels at the onset of the dry season. Thus, swimming in the wet season is prohibited. Cruises of various lengths go as far as the fifth gorge.

We decided to treat ourselves to the helicopter as the cruises were only marginally cheaper and you had to get out of the boat at every gorge to embark onto another boat as the water was so low due to the very poor Wet Season this year. What a fabulous experience, Mark, the nice pilot (from North Wales) explained everything and we were supposed to be set down at the eighth gorge for a ten-minute photo shoot, but he reckoned the tenth gorge was much better so we went there and walked where very few people had walked before. Stunning views and a beautiful sky made it an experience never to forget. Apart from joy flights Mark also does search and rescue and crocodile surveys with the park rangers.

After that we went back into Katherine to check out the Katherine Hot Springs which were very busy and not half as nice as Bitter Springs.

Saturday 18th May 34C (144kms)

We decided to stay another night and visit Edith Falls in the Katherine Gorge NP The Edith Falls is a series of cascading waterfalls and pools on the Edith River in the National Park, located approximately 60 kilometres north of Katherine.

The falls descend from an elevation of 176 metres above sea level and range in height between 8.7–12 metres. There are trails to the top of the escarpment, allowing visitors to view the waterfalls. Edith Falls is connected to Katherine Gorge via the 66-kilometre Jatbula walk, which we didn't do, neither did we swim as the water was freezing. What a lovely place, just a pity the waterfall we saw was not too impressive because of the poor Wet Season. This, however seems to have encouraged burning off and the roadsides from Tennant Creek north all seem to have been set alight recently. The Spear Grass grows very tall and is a danger to traffic.

Sunday 19th May 33C 176kms

Our next overnight free camp was at Brocks Creek site of an old goldmine and WWII military detention centre, police station and hospital, we called in to Pine Creek, a small town(pop 378) which is the fourth largest town between Darwin and Alice Springs.

Pine Creek is just off the Stuart Highway and is still a notable tourist stop. A number of events are held each year to promote the town in the region. These include the annual Goldrush Festival, featuring the NT Gold Panning championships and Didgeridoo Jam, the Pine Creek Rodeo and Pine Creek Races. In 2005 a prominent resident of Pine Creek, Edward Ah Toy, was recognised as the Northern Territorian of the year.

Pine Creek was traditionally the junction of three large indigenous ethnic groups. Stretching south-west from the Stuart Highway towards, and across, the Daly River was the land traditionally associated with the Wagiman people. The land east of the Stuart Highway and south of the Kakadu Highway, stretching to Katherine, was associated with the Jawoyn people, and north of the Kakadu Highway was land traditionally associated with Waray.

During construction of the Overland Telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin in 1870, workers first crossed a creek that was notable for the pine trees that grew on its banks. In 1871 workers with Darwent & Dalwood digging holes for the telegraph line found gold in the soil, triggering another Australian gold rush. The town grew rapidly with the influx of miners, many of whom were Chinese immigrants brought into the Territory from 1874 as a source of cheap labour. By 1873, a telegraph repeater station and police camp had been established. By 1875 there were two hotels, The Royal Mail and The Standard, competing for business.A public school opened in the town in 1899. By the 1890s, up to 15 mines were operating in the area, and the town's population exceeded 3000 people.

The Territory's first tin mine commenced operations near Pine Creek in 1878, but was soon eclipsed by the deposits at Maranboy.

The Eleanor Reef at Pine Creek was discovered in 1880, some 9 years before the railway reached the town. The Jensen Gold Mining Co. established a mine on the reef about a mile from the southern boundary of the Pine Creek Railway reserve. A battery was built in 1893 to crush ore from the Eleanor and another reef and, concurrently, they ordered tramway materials from England. The tramway was operational by 1895. The tramway was still in place in 1912 when surveyors plotted the route of the extension of the North Australia Railway from Pine Creek to Katherine, but was abandoned by 1914 when construction teams arrived. The locomotive was moved to the Maranboy Tin mines in 1916.

The first stage of the North Australia Railway was built between Port Darwin and Pine Creek reaching the town in 1889. Additional sidings were added to the rail yards in 1914 in preparation for the extension of the line south to Emungalan (Katherine) which opened in 1917. A poorly maintained unsealed road was constructed in the 1930s, following the railway line from Adelaide River to Larrimah, passing through Pine Creek. Much of this track would later become the Stuart Highway.

This line would close in 1976. The old railway station (1888) and some rolling stock remain, including locomotive NF2, built in 1877 which was restored to operational condition in 2001. The Adelaide-Darwin railway (used by The Ghan) now passes near the town.

During World War II, the Australian Army set up 65th Australian Camp Hospital near Pine Creek. An airfield was constructed between May and July 1942 by the US Army 808th Engineer Aviation Battalion as an emergency landing ground and to serve the military units based in the town. Unlike many Top End towns, Pine Creek was not bombed by the Japanese during the war, although Japanese reconnaissance aircraft are reported to have overflown the town on at least one occasion. It was also during the war years that sealed, all weather sections of the Stuart Highway were constructed, providing transport alternatives to the railway. Work on the road was completed in this area by 1944.

Pine Creek Goldfields Limited opened an open-cut gold mine in the region in 1985; however, the mine is now closed and its main pit, the Enterprise Pit, has been carefully filled with water to prevent acid build-up. In June 2007, Territory Resources (trading under the name Territory Iron) commenced mining iron ore and gold at their Frances Creek mine, 58 km north of Pine Creek 1 km from Frances Creek itself and 500 m from Lake View. Iron ore was previously mined between 1967 and 1974, and consists of haematite with some goethite and limonite. In October 2014 it was used in an episode of filming for the UK television programme Top Gear. This mine ceased operations in January 2015 leading to the departure of many local employees.

We passed Emerald Springs Roadhouse but didn't stop. This is a write up on it :

"Sliding off the Stuart Highway just north of Pine Creek in the Top End of the Northern Territory is Emerald Springs. It used to be just a roadhouse, serving lukewarm coffee and milk arrowroot bickies to passing truckies, before it was closed down and boarded up for nearly four years. But Dallas and Belinda saw its potential, and on the good advice of supportive and cluey locals, completely transformed Emerald Springs into six landscaped acres of tropical gardens with 40 rooms, a caravan park, licenced restaurant and bar, conference and function facilities and an enormous hardwood deck that begs to be relaxed on. And that’s only the beginning. Plans are now in motion to construct 10 eco-friendly cabins around Lake Emerald – the property’s lily-covered, spring-fed lake. They’ll match the new Buley Rockhole-inspired swimming pool going in this year. Stop in for a meal, try the homemade ice-cream or just grab a coffee – with the only cappuccino machine between Darwin and Katherine it’s the best coffee around."

Monday 20th May 33C (193kms)

We arrived at Dundee Beach for our next adventure …………………………………………………………..

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Photos

Yorke Peninsula
We just about covered it

Lake Tyrrell
Where we stayed at the free camp

Plushs Bend, Renmark
The River Murray

Yorke Peninsula
A road less travelled

Yorke Peninsula
One of many old jetties

Yorke Peninsula
One of many caravan parks, next to the ocean

Tropic of Capricorn
North of Alice Springs

Larrimah Northern Territory
The Pink Panther Hotel

Elsey National Park
En route to the gorges

Pandanas Tree
Katherine Gorge

Katherine Gorge
The Adventurers