Stuart Highway to the Dangerzone: Adelaide to Darwin

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Leaving Adelaide

Our pickup time for our van was at the early hour of 9am. So after packing up the remainder of our stuff, we left that dingy hostel and set out across Adelaide in the taxi to our destination: the Apollo headquarters. It took a while, but we eventually found it and entered the office to pay all our remaining bills. After lots of money issues, and several bank cards being used, we were shown around our van (in literally a pit stop manner) and then he was all ours. We decided to shove our stuff in the back and sort it all out when we reached the supermarket. So nervously, I stepped into the drivers seat and away we went. I think I did alright seeming I have not driven in over a year, I only stalled three times on the way out of Adelaide!

After all our shopping was done, it was time to head out of Adelaide and start our trip into the outback. Our first drive was up along the coast to a town called Port Augusta. We arrived just before dark and treated ourselves to a powered site so we could sort everything out. We also went for a slight wander to just outside the camp gates to have a look at the stars and you could already see the difference without Adelaide’s city glow. Also, after much debating, we finally christened our van as Dan; Dan the Van.

The following day, we were up early and off on a very long drive day to Coober Pedy. We were not sure that we were going to make it before sunset but luckily we did. Along the way, we had several hours of no settlements and with the earth slowing turning red and the vegetation becoming more sparse, we were getting our first experience of the outback. Our first stop was at a place called Woomera, which ended up being pretty much a petrol station and then Glendambo which had a population of just 30 people!

I'm Going Deeper Underground

We arrived just before nightfall at Coober Pedy and checked into the first campsite we could find. We spent the evening chilling outside, playing cards etc using our next door neighbours’ outside light on their caravan. I also disappeared down to reception for a while to play with two cute and cuddly cats, although one blatantly did not like the look of me!

We got up and did our checkout thing by 10am and headed into town to a place Lizz had spotted in the Lonely Planet called Big Winch Lookout, which was a highpoint in Coober Pedy. But the main attraction was the bizarre Sculpture garden next to it which Lizz reckoned was some famous artist’s muse place, using bits of junk and leftover props from films such as Pitch Black (which was filmed in Coober Pedy, as well as Red Planet and Mad Max III). We then headed down the hill to avoid the rain and into the Old Timers Museum, which was a very interesting look into the Opal Mines of the town and underground homes.

After all this, we set off for a short trip up the road to the last town in South Australia called Marla, before heading into the Northern Territory the following day. Nothing much interesting happened in Marla, except for us being camped next to a middle aged couple constantly arguing and Lizz feeling very sorry for them! We then set off to cross the border and after a good hour driving, we came upon the sign. As soon as we stepped out of the van however, we were attacked by a swarm of flies. Welcome to the Northern Territory. We quickly took our photos next to the sign and jumped back in Dan and drove off, only to realise afterwards that there was a Welcome to South Australia sign on the back of it! Doh!

Is It Just A Big Rock?

We kept on up the Stuart Highway until it was time to turn off at Erlunda onto the Lassiter Highway towards Uluru. We had planned just to see how far we could go in a day and thought we would end up spending the night at a place called Curtain Springs, not far from Uluru but we found we had plenty of time to carry on. We passed Mt Conner, the red-herring Uluru look-a-like and kept going. We made it into the National Park a good hour before sunset and set up our spot to watch Uluru change colour as the sun went down.

There is not really anyway to describe Uluru to someone who has never seen it, but it really is the most magnificent sight. Which is surprising really because most people have seen so many photographs of it that you would expect it to be a disappointment. It really is exactly how you would expect it to be. This is best put in the words of Bill Bryson from his book ‘Down Under:

“Somewhere in the deep sediment of your being some long dormant fragment of primordial
memory…has twitched or stirred. It is a motion much too faint to be understood or interpreted,
but somehow you feel certain that this large, brooding, hypnotic presence has an importance
to you at the species level….and that in someway your visit here is more than happenstance.
I’m not saying that any of this is so. I am just saying that this is how you feel” (Bryson, 2000)

We sat and watched the colours of the sunset change in front of us, the shadow slowly creeping up over the rock until we could no longer take photos. Minus the flies, it was a surreal experience. We then had the joy of following the convoys out of the park in the dark, all heading for the Ayers Rock resort town of Yulara. After some queuing, we managed to pay for our most expensive campsite night and then head to a nearby hotel to have a beer or two. After dark, we sat outside the campsite with our chairs and watched the stars until I became too tired.

We went back into Uluru national park the following morning, but first headed towards the other, often forgotten about monoliths in the park, The Olgas. We went to a platform to get an overseeing view of the Olgas (where we got attacked by flies) and then headed to the rocks themselves. We only did a mini walk around the Olgas because we wanted to have a closer look at Uluru then get to Curtain Springs by dark. We then stopped off at the Cultural Centre to see the Aboriginal display work about Uluru and in here was where we saw all the apology letters sent from around the world, back to Uluru National Park, apologising to the Aboriginals for taking away rocks. The place was also covered in “Please do not climb Uluru” signs. The climb up Uluru is of spiritual importance to the Anangu people as it follows the route taken by ancestral Mala men.

It was then time for us to go in for our close up. It was not too far from the cultural centre to the rock itself and we parked at the Mala climb section where people can climb the rock. And people were. Most people I have heard since talking about the climb either did not do it because of the sheer suicidal-ness of it or they did climb it. No one other than Lizz and I so far, that I have met, did not climb out of respect. That night in Curtain Springs, there was a group of us talking about the climb. Everyone there (other than ourselves) agreed that it was their right to climb due to the monolith having existed before the Aboriginals came to this land. What a crap excuse. Not many other religions nowadays place any spiritual prominence on the land so it is hard to make comparison, but that is like saying anybody can do what they like around the Vatican because the land was there before the Christians built on it. These people also argued that if the Aboriginals really did not want people to climb, they would not have a route open. Whilst on my walk around the base of Uluru, I heard a lady ask a ranger this question. He stated that it was purely for monetary reason. Apparently, 97% of people who come to Uluru, come to climb it and everybody is worried these numbers would decline if the route was closed. Especially the Aboriginal people, many of whom depend on the tourism (though I can’t help but think they probably do not get half the money that is paid by tourists in this place). But the ranger also stated that they were hoping to change this and with all the warnings up, the number of people climbing had declined by 12% in the last year, so he hoped in the future, it would be closed altogether. Though I guess the human damage would be done by then.

We spent two nights at the free campsite, Curtain Springs so that we could have a lie in and have a day off from driving. The first night we had the bonfire with a big group of people, though the bonfire was a disaster due to Lizz and I not knowing what we were doing and lack of wood around. The next day we woke to a tapping on our window only to open our curtains and see an Emu there (which Lizz proceeded to feed with sticks). We had planned to spend the day hunting for wood but there were just too many flies so we retreated into the van for the day and chilled out. The next night our fire wasn’t much better due to the wood we’d collected being too fresh!

Kings Canyon

Our next adventure was to take us slightly out of the way, to Kings Canyon as we had been told the climb was amazing and having not done Uluru, I was dying for a climb. So we drove for several hours to reach the Kings Canyon resort, only to find it was hideously expensive. So we drove 30km back the way we came to another campsite only to find it was the same price. We just decided to stay put and spent the night chilling out with some drinks and watching the camels in the pen.

Subsequently, I did the climb the following day. It was an easy enough climb, though steep for the first 10 minutes, but once at the top, it was an easy walk around the Plateau and only took a few hours and I was back in the car, driving down back to the Lassiter Highway. Just before the turn back onto the Lassiter Highway, we found a free campsite at the side of the road for the night, though in my haste to pull in so Lizz could use the toilet, I went into some deep sand and Dan got stuck. Lizz was useless as she couldn't stop laughing so I had to try and reverse the van and dig us out at the same time! Eventually we got free though and parked at another spot for the night.

Such A Nice Name For Such A Lifeless Place

It was then back east on the Lassiter Highway and north once more on our old friend the Stuart Highway. Now we were heading for the major hub of the outback: Alice Springs. On the way, we passed the Ernest Giles road which linked Kings Canyon to just below Alice, although it was an unsealed road so we couldn't use it in our van. “Damn you to road hell” (complete with fist shaking action) became our screaming point for things on the road which annoyed us (including people driving caravans at 70km in a 130km zone and Road Trains). We arrived into Alice Springs shortly after lunch and went straight into town to have a wander around. Once again, we forgot that it was a Sunday and everything was shut. After much debating about whether or not we were going to risk sleeping in the car park overnight, we decided to go to a campsite just out of town instead.

That evening, we headed back into town to go to Bo Jangles, a saloon type bar. We treated ourselves to a nice, but overly huge meal before heading back to the van. The following day, we headed back into Alice to buy tickets for the 'Sounds of Starlight' show that was recommended by all the guidebooks and then had a wander around the shopping centre to buy things we needed. There was not much else to do then so we sat in Dan for a bit before I went off to try and find an ATM. This resulted in me circling the city as every one of them was out of use. So I turned up back at Dan in a bad mood and Lizz's wasn't much better and so we quickly decided that we didn’t like Alice and started on a get the hell out of Alice mission. So we just drove wherever we felt like going, which ended in us going 40km out of Alice towards the West MacDonnell ranges before we realised we had very limited petrol and had to do a U-turn back to Alice. So we filled up at the first stop and stayed at another campsite for the night before heading back into town for the 'Sounds of Starlight' show.

Now, this show had been advertised as a musical experience of the aboriginal outback with the didgeridoo. So we at least thought the instruments would be played by aboriginals. But no, they were white fellas. I thought the show was alright, the music was good but the slide show was quite amateurish. Lizz however felt that she may have just started to understand what on earth was going on, had she been on acid. The highlights were when the lights went out and the main hippie guy came bursting out into the audience playing a didgeridoo with a light on the end and pretending to be an aeroplane (whilst spinning around). Another was when everyone in the audience was forced to partake and play an instrument. I was a drummer and Lizz was just given two sticks to play. Lots of laughter was had.

Let's Get The Hell Out Of Alice

The next day was definitely a get out of Alice day and we headed on up north to our first stop, the tropic of Capricorn line. After a photo, we carried on driving till we had to fill up on petrol at a little stop called Barrow Creek. The man inside was so nice and showed us around the place that was covered in writing, money and photographs of people from all around the world. He even showed us some of the new English money which was strange to see. We soon parted ways with him and carried on north to Wycliffe Well: the UFO capital of Australia. After taking photos of all the warning signs, we went inside to see the green aliens and newspaper clippings of all the UFO sightings. All very curious. After leaving without being abducted, it was only a short way up the road to our camp site for the night, the Devils Marbles.

These marbles are huge granite boulders which completely cover the landscape and according to scientists, are the rounded remains of molten lava. We parked in the campsite right behind the main ones and up I went, with my camera and book and sat for hours staring out over the view until sunset. I then went back down and got Lizz in case she could not find me and we went back up onto the rocks with a blanket to look at the stars. We were also on the hunt out for UFOs but all we saw were satellites.

We headed towards Renner Springs the next day, though we did not know that then. After leaving the Devils Marbles, the first town we arrived at was Tennant Springs, where I realised tonight was the night of the Champions League. So our mission was to go as far as we could and but find somewhere I could watch the footie. And this was how we ended up at Renner Springs, a place in the middle of nowhere which had internet access. So we sat and had a beer in the bar, watching some documentary on TV about the series ‘lost’ and chatting to the staff. Then at 4am, I headed back to reception to use the internet. However, all the lovely English sites would not allow me to watch as I was out of country and even Radio 5 live would not let me. So I spent the entire first half trying to find somewhere I could listen to it whilst keeping updated with BBC live vidiprinter. I got to hear bits of the second half but did not really matter by then. After it was all over, the campsite was starting to come to life with lots of army folk wandering around and after a quick call home I went back to bed.

Getting Eaten Alive

The journey the next day took us to Daly Waters pub for lunch, which is apparently a really famous pub for being the first place in NT with a liquor license. The place is also covered in all sorts of mementos from car plates to bras that people have left behind! Then it was onto a small place just outside of Katherine called Mattaranka, which was home to some thermal pools. We found our free campsite, which didn’t result in being free as the park attendant caught Lizz and made her pay! We arrived just before dark, so I had a quick wander down to the river, which you could swim in but may have crocs and then headed back to set up a campfire with Lizz. Luckily, the previous occupants of the space that had left us an amazing amount of firewood!

Unfortunately, the next morning we discovered that Lizz had been eaten alive all over her legs. However, the show had to go on and we headed down the road to the thermal pools which were gorgeous. Though the whole time I was scared of crocs even though they could not get in! After a while floating around, chatting and trying (and failing) to catch tiny fish, it was time to head on up to Katherine. Well, there’s not really much to Katherine to be honest. The next day we went out to the gorge there and did some canoeing which was a fun experience, though after an hour we were both exhausted and there was no way we could keep in sync with each other. Also after seeing the empty crocodile traps, we felt a bit unsure and headed back (it was safe and free of Salties, they just say that sometime they move into the area undetected!)

Imagine The Opposite Of Alice

It was then on to Darwin! It did not take us long to get there, though city driving after being in the outback is slightly unnerving. We headed straight to Carl and Tasha’s place (friends from OzIntro in Sydney) near the city, who had kindly said that we could crash at theirs for our time in Darwin. After a few drinks, Lizz, Myself, Tasha, Helen and Zoë all went down to Sand Bar at the Casino for a few drinks whilst watching the famous Darwin sunset.

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