Blogs from South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 12

Today we’ve booked for the so-called “Time Travel” tour, which is being led again by the very entertaining Mick, our indigenous guide from last evening’s Stokes Hill sunset tour. We’re not quite sure why it’s called the Time Travel tour, and are now thinking that we probably should have thought to ask when we booked. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our transport isn’t something out of “Back to the Future“, it just looks like the bus we were on last night. Mick explains that we’ll be heading north from Wilpena Pound and then turning west onto the Brachina Gorge Geological Trail. The “Time Travel” tour title is apparently a reference to the journey we’ll be taking through 130 million years of geological time in little more than about ten kilometres of road distance. First stop is an inspection of ... read more

A 7 day driving holiday of Adelaide, the Southern Vales, Hahndorf and the Barossa Valley with good friends Peta & Paul Geisel from 12 -18 May 2021.... read more

I had an early start at Arkaroola on Tuesday morning. I packed up the car, had breakfast and checked out in time for the 8am departure of the Ridgetop Tour. The tour is probably the best-known tour at Arkaroola and while expensive, it was on my must-do list for this trip. There were 13 of us booked in so we were split over 2 Landcruisers that have been fitted out with padded seats on the back. I got in the first one and our driver was Rick, a typical outback guy with long hair and beard, and a hat similar to my own. It turned out to be an excellent decision because he was a geology nerd and had so much knowledge that he wanted to impart to us. I’ve never been big on geology, but ... read more

After three days in Uluru with barely a cloud in the sky, Sunday morning was a surprise. It was cool and cloudy, and the clouds were dark enough to suggest rain. I was going to be driving on dirt roads and camping for the next few days, so I didn’t want that. As I drove east on the Lasseter Highway, I seemed to outrun it at first. But I turned south on the Stuart Highway so by the time I reached Kulgera Roadhouse it was cloudy again. Eventually I did get enough rain to use the wiper blades twice, but that was it. Even though I had fuelled up when leaving Uluru and didn’t need more just yet, I was about to head to remote roads and wasn’t sure when I would be able to fill ... read more

I’m far from the only person to have travel plans wrecked in 2020. This year I finally got long service leave after 10 years in my job and I had plans for 4 different trips away. The first 2 were scuttled almost immediately once the pandemic hit and #4 is still in doubt. But the third trip was 5 weeks in the South Australian outback, and I was determined to make it happen. In July, South Australia almost opened the border with NSW but as they had no cases and Sydney had a small but persistent number of daily cases, that didn’t happen. I was left with two choices – cancel another holiday or cross the border and do 14 days of quarantine. As I’ve been working remotely for months, I figured I could do two ... read more