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Published: March 25th 2007
Uluru Sunset
Groooooooovey! G'day! We've done it and survived! We've been to the middle of bloody nowhere with a Martian landscape and guess wot… it rained!
It all started at 7.45am on Wednesday March 2007… Well actually it was more like 8am coz somebody sat on the toilet too long and made us late. We were starting on our eight day Wayward Bus Tour, with a suitably rugged name: ‘Face the Outback’. And it went a little something like this (although we have probably forgotten the details coz we didn’t write them down on route, and no we haven’t just copied this from the Wayward website!)…
After a few hours on the bus, our first stop was a good choice when you’re on a bus with twenty strangers and are a bit stuck for something to talk about: a winery in the Clare Valley. Here we got to try a few vinos just so we could compare with our W.A. drinking experiences. And then we were off!
The first night was spent in a swag (a kind of combination between a sleeping bag and a tent all in one - you lie in it like a sleeping bag but it
Our Tour Group
... minus Alex. The two guys in the middle in the karki are Brook and Bjurn - our guides has a mattress built in and a thick lining like a tent) in an area in the Flinders Ranges called Willipena Pound. We even stayed out in this when it was raining and while the local kangaroos jumped around next to our heads (they were really tame and came right up close to try to scab food).
Then it all gets a bit hazy… After another day or so, somehow we ended up on a dirt road called the Oodnadatta Track. By now the landscape had really changed. It really is a VERY FLAT COUNTRY (we now have a new fave musician called Soursob Bob who sings about the wonders of the Auzzie landscape) !!!!!! And there is literally nothing there but shrub bushes and the occasional cow - something that should definitely be experienced!
In the middle of this nothingness we met an unusual guy called ‘Talc Alf’, who was lovely but seemed to have spent a few too many days out in the sun on his own - he had some very alternative theories on the origins of language, but also made some really cool sculptures.
Another stopover was William Creek, halfway up the track.
Thirsty at the Vineyard
Ursula takes a swig right from the barrel This sprawling metropolis consisted of a pub and a diesel pump… oh and a campsite where we could lay our swags. The pub here was well worth the 300km (or so) wait from the last sign of civilization, but unfortunately we didn’t have a passport photo of ourselves to stick up on the wall to prove that we had actually been there (the walls were covered in photos of people who have visited over the years). Another thing to note about William Creek was the fantastic view of the stars - you can see the Milky Way sprawling across the sky as well as a million other stars in between.
Then we arrived at the Opal mining town, Coober Pedy. In comparison to everything else that we had seen for the past couple of days this really was a sprawling metropolis! It had internet access! We had a go at ‘noodling’ for opals here (i.e. hunting for them in areas that had been previously mined with bulldozers); unfortunately we didn’t find anything worth much, but it was great to imagine that you were going to find a massive opal that would fund the rest of our travels!
Oh
Our new friend
Skippy the Kangaroo and I forgot to mention… all the people in Coober Pedy are warlocks.
… OK, perhaps I got a bit carried away there, but they do all live underground in ‘dug outs’ - houses that are built into the side of the hills. The aim is to make the houses cooler coz it can get up to 50 oC out in the open there. It didn’t rain in Coober Pedy.
The next stop was the biggie… ULURU (or for those old fashioned and non-PC types: Ayers Rock). At a distance, we wondered if our visit to ‘The Rock’ (as the cool people call it) was going to be like our childhood visits to Stone Henge - i.e. your parents/guide had built it up so much as this mysterious and historical place that you were really expecting a spiritual experience as soon as you saw it; when this didn’t happen you end up just thinking it’s a boring collection of rocks in the rain. Well, upon first glance Uluru was a little bit like this; it was even raining! However, the nearer you got, the more it loomed ahead and above you - it really was magnificent!
We
Talc Alf...
The outback guru explains the meaning of life the universe and everything. spent a couple of days in this area. And every time we saw The Rock it was different. The first sunset we saw was from a distance. It was good but was probably improved by the crisps and dips that we ate as we watched it (ok so I hope you get the idea of how good that was). The first sunrise we saw was great - we did the 9km walk around the rock and were right up close to it as the sun rose. This was pretty high on the spiritual experience scale - as the sun came up the rock changed colour to a deep red.
The cherry on the cake came in our second sunset… We had been arguing with a guide from the tour group stood next to us (they didn’t want us scabby backpackers to come too near to them and their champagne in case they caught fleas or something) and wondering whether with the grey skies around the rock it was really worth hanging around for this sunset. But it definitely was worth it… As the sun went down the rock was suddenly illuminated a bright orange/red colour that stood out against
Mining for Opals
Alex hopes to make his fortune the grey sky, and just to the right of it there were two rainbows. We knew this was special coz even our guide who has seen sunset at the rock a million times took a photo! And all this without any drugs ;-)
And for anyone who is wondering - we didn’t climb the rock. After all our efforts not to offend anyone in Thailand by pointing our feet at the Buddha, it would be a bit unfair to go and walk all over an area of great spiritual significance to Aboriginals. There were signs everywhere asking you not to climb and explaining the traditional reasons why (it was a path walked by spiritual ancestors during the creation of the planet, or something along those lines, also lots of people die falling off). In fact, we couldn’t have climbed if we had wanted to because it was closed off for the rain!
But all this focus on Uluru is a bit unfair. We also visited the beautiful Kata Tjuta (aka ‘The Olgas) - this in fact is of greater spiritual significance to Aboriginals. This is another clump of rocks that rise above the ground in a similar way
A Thorny Devil!
These little guys were sooooooo cute!!!! to Uluru. The name means ‘many heads’ due to the fact that there are several peaks. Actually, we thought it looked a bit like Homer Simpson lying on his back!
And the last step of our guided adventure really was pretty exciting. We had a few mishaps with our bus breaking down so we were delayed setting off on our way our way to Kings Canyon and ended up driving into the night. Then it started to piss down… and didn’t stop. Eventually the road was flooded and we had to stop. After a little while of thinking we were going to have to sleep on the bus, our tour guide managed to blag us some pretty comfy sleeping quarters in permanent tents. Big Al and I even got one of our own (felt really guilty about this coz others on our tour had to share three in a double bed).
When we finally did get to Kings Canyon it was beautiful. And despite the shear drops off the cliff edges, Urs wasn’t scared at all. Then our tour came to an end with a party in Alice Springs where we enjoyed lots of beer and kangaroo steak
Our Camper
Alex was sad that we couldn't test it out on unsealed roads and camel pie.
Then we were on our own.
We had over 1500km and four days to drive to get back to Adelaide. But a pretty cool four wheel drive BushCamper to do it in! We’d got a relocation from the hire company - i.e. they need their campervan moved from one city to another for a rental so we get to drive it there for them at a rate of $5 per day.
Four days seemed like ages (especially seeing that we weren’t allowed to drive on unsealed roads like the Oodnadatta Track) so we decided to head out to the McDonall Ranges west of Alice Springs. They were so beautiful, perhaps even more so because it felt like we had discovered them ourselves and in every place we visited there we were on our own (i.e. no guide, and no other tourists with us).
We stayed in a place called Glen Helen, and we can’t recommend it more strongly to anyone who is going to find themselves in the middle of Auz. There is a really lush ‘resort’ there (I’ve called it a resort but I’m not sure if that’s the right word coz
Look no doors!
Ursula and Jim the pilot - note the gaping hole straight to the ground where the door should be! it’s much quieter and more rustic/isolated than that).
As we pulled up in our camper we noticed a helicopter. At first we laughed, but when we realised it actually wasn’t that expensive we thought ‘what the hell’ and went up in it!!!!! Now this thing was like a tiny fly. It literally had three seats: one for Ursula, one for Alex and one for the pilot (a Scottish guy called Jim). Oh, and it had no doors. God knows how we got Ursula into it! But it was soooooooo worth it - the views were stunning, and what an adrenaline rush! Unfortunately the camera ran out of batteries half way through, but luckily we managed a few snaps of evidence before that (check them out below)!
The rest of the night was then spent sipping beers and listening to a guy called Chris Aronsten (or something like that) playing live at the resort pub. He was really cool - he played guitar, mandolin and the fiddle. We even bought a CD. Wish we also had a CD recording of the dingos howling in the night!
The rest of our trip back followed the Stuart Highway, with stopovers
at Marla (no where ville place that we were glad to reach coz it was pissing down and we thought it was going to flood again) and Wilmington in the south flinders ranges. And then our trip ended with a walk in Aligator gorge before racing back to Adelaide to drop off the camper.
The next stage of our travels is to get another camper (a much more budget version this time coz we’ll have to pay full price) and drive round to Cairns in six weeks, so only another 3500km to go… hopefully we’ll manage a few more blogs in this time!
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Gill
non-member comment
Wow!
Sounds amazing, I did almost same tour as you up to Alice, brings back loads of fantastic memories. Though I didn't brave the 'copter - the views look awesome! Had my 30th last Sat, a little early as was joint with Abby on her actual day. We dressed up like 70s morons in Briz and Jess came! Will send you some pics take care x