Edith Falls

Spectacular is the only way to describe Edith Falls. A nice swimming hole 100m from the camp ground. Each site has grass and drinking water and only $10/person/site.






Rose was in her element. Swimming, walking, jogging.

Katherine

Mataranka to Katherine... best mileage ever.... 12.8k/100k..... Wow!

We stayed at The Riverview Caravan Park. We stayed there once before about 15 years ago when we used to drive to Katherine down from Nullunbuy with the boys for their BMX. 

It's all become too "touristy" now, but it's still worth doing a couple of the walks.

 

Bitter Springs

Not a all bitter, but springs yes! We spent all day after the drive up from Daly Waters floating in warm water. We're camped alongside the spring, and I mean right alongside. We've just finished our evening meal, Rose is asleep and I'm catching up with the blog because we finally have some reliable internet access.








We'll be in Katherine tomorrow for a couple of days before heading up towards Jabiru for a few days then in to Darwin. We want to try and arrive after the school break.

Daly River Pub

Yep! This is the place to be. Camped at the pub after a short drive from Elliot. The moment we passed 3 Ways the traffic increased 10 fold. 9 of 10 vehicles coming the other way are towing Caravans, so I assume that's the same number going north, but we never see those. I'm reliably informed the Territory Diesel consumption trebles during these peak periods and that's reflected the number of tankers

on the road. The others in the photo are June and Glen from Newcastle.

Longreach Waterhole (Elliott)

Wow! What a place. About a k north of Elliott, turn left and drive 18k through sand, mud, clay, bull dust, corrugations and then arrive at this absolutely stunning very large waterhole (it feeds in to Lake Woods). We brought the van in, planned to stay 1 night, but ended up staying for 2. We weren't alone. We met up with Glen and June from the Marbles and Pebbles, and shared a campfire.

The place was absolutely teaming with wildlife. Thousands of Pellicans, Spoonbills, Cormorants, Egretts and all manner of other varieties were feeding on the fish morning and night. They would team up, and school the fish then turn turtle, dive or other and simply feed. The waterhole is a reserve on the Newcastle Waters station and aside from the rough ride in, is well worth the trip.

Pebbles

About 120k North of the Devils Marbles are the pebbles. It's about 4k off the road, dusty and has dunny's. It's also quiet and a god place to overnight. It also costs nothing.

We set up camp and Glen and June, whom we camped next to at the Marbles also pulled up, out came the wine and nibbles, and up popped Eric and his partner. Eric played the piano accordion so we, in the middle of the bush, drank wine, ate nibbles and listened to Eric. 

Devils Marbles

Our mail arrived at the Alice Springs Post Office, so we're finally on our way North. We're not in any hurry so we dropped by the Transport Hall of Fame for a a couple of hours. We actually found an old picture of me at Kenworth a long time ago. You could spend the day there and not get through it. It's a good place to free camp and do some volunteer work if you're on a tight budget.

The Devils Marbles are fascinating, but not near as interesting as the people. We arrived about midday. It costs $10/person/night to stay there. There were 3 other vans. By about 4pm, I counted 30 more.... note to self... replenish wine supply!

Palm Valley

Dirty, dusty, muddy, river crossings, sand, wind.... and all in 18 km's.
The Touareg just yawned and stretched it's legs. The drive out to the Palm Valley campground once we left the main road was good for a rough dirt road. We then drove another 4km's up the track toward the palm valley itself and the road roughened up a lot. We parked and walked the final k.

We're glad we took the time to come out here. What a place... well worth the trip.









Would we get the van in? Yes
Would we though? Possibly not...

We've decided that we've seen enough of the West McDonalds and decided to do the East McDonalds in a couple of years probably on the tail of a trip down the Sandover.



Today we're off the transport Hall of Fame and then we start our track north.

Alice Springs and West McDonald Ranges

We went in to Alice briefly to catch up on some washing, fill the tanks with some good clean water, recharge the batteries, and restock the fridge. We were very lucky to get a site as it was "Camel Cup" weekend. We had to settle for an unpowered site and got 2 out of the 4 things done. 

The Telegraph station and the MTB tracks around that area are great. 

The drought broke on Sunday, so we travelled out to Glen Helen Gorge. We stayed a couple of nights, then overnighted at Ormiston Gorge. Both these places are stunning. 

We also walked 20km's of the Larapinta Trail and saw some positively awesome country.

It's Hermansberg tomorrow and Palm Valley (we'll see how the car likes some dirt without the van first). 

Kings Canyon

We booked ahead. At $46/night at the Kings Canyon Resort it was a steal... not .... but it is peak season.

Another perfect driving day. Rose and I have renamed our trip "The Roads Most Travelled". We figure in another couple of years we'll again do the block on "The Roads Least Travelled".

Kings Canyon is exceptional. The rim walk especially. Is it worth the additional 300km's out and back... yes absolutely.

Coober Pedy to Ayers Rock

"OK Bruce, we're going to take it easy today. We'll probably go as far as the free camp at Marla, then on to Kulgera, then after that have a big day and drive to Ayers Rock. We'll probably see you there!"

"Hey Rose, are we ready, let's go. It'll take Bruce 3 days to get to Ayers Rock. If we do it in 2 there might be one more site available."

We drove from Coober Pedy to Erldunda today, about 480km's stopping only for lunch at Marla. We drove in to the caravan park at Erldunda, straight into a powered site, and right alongside Wendy and Gary, whom we met in Coober Pedy at the underground bar. They had put in a big day too. We had a couple of drinks with them.... and a pretty slow start the following day!

We arrived at Ayers Rock resort at pretty much the same time as 49 million school kids and Chinese tourists. It seems we're smack bang in the middle of the SA and NT school holidays... go figure!

The drive in to the Resort was the best. No wind, no traffic (we must have been ahead of most of it), 13.5lt/100 with the fully loaded van was exceptional.

The Ayers Rock Resort has an overflow park. We spent 2 nights there for $10/night with full use of facilities. A powered site there is worth $46 during holiday season. The atmosphere in the overflow park is also excellent.

A brisk ride around the rock that afternoon and a quick 18k back to the resort saw your's truly very early in bed. Park entrance is $25/person for a 3 day
pass which ncludes the Olgas.

Out to the Olgas the following day early. The walks out there are magnificent. We did both of them. Once again early in bed with a bit of a "flu" taking hold.

Wilpena - Pt Augusta - Woomera - Lake Hart - Coober Pedy

Wilpena...

"Are we ready? It's only 7:30am, we must have forgotten something?" The drive from Wilpena to Pt Augusta is pure magic. It's very picturesque, but we were on a "mish" so no time for pictures.... We had to get to Pt Augusta for the "BIG SHOP".

Pt Augusta...

Not the most impressive city we've visited but we found most of the things we were looking for.  We booked in to the Shoreline Caravan Park. Really nice relatively speaking. Another early start and we're heading north. We get the feeling that we're doing all this too fast so time to slow down some.

Let's drop by Woomera

Ah! brings back visions of my old Army days. Everything in it's place and a place for everything. Not a blade of grass anywhere, but lots of raked gravel. About as much character as a boot lace. Would I recommend a visit, of course, it has some great history, but it's soooo dull. If we used the place for asylum seekers, they would be on the next boat home...

C'mon Rose, let's head off

Lake Hart

We found a ('wet') salt lake with some history just north of Woomera. It was used as a firing range. There are signs all over the place "Beware, unexploded ordinance may be encountered beyond this point".






A pretty odd notice when you consider the main rail line runs inside these signs...  go figure!

PS. I found the double stacking of these containers pretty interesting. I've not seen it before.





We stayed a night a Lake Hart and left very early the following morning. The night was cold, more ice on the windscreen...... the diesel heater is still getting a hammering.

"Hey Bryan", there's large ant hills everywhere. We were 50km's out from Coober Pedy. Imagine spending 8-10 hours a day in a vertical hole, then going home to your own horizontal hole, having a drink in yet another large room sized hole.... that sort of describes Coober Pedy.



We stayed at the "Op Shop". It's a camp ground about 1km from town, that costs $15/night. The proprietor lives in a bus on the property which can fit about 6 vans. We stayed there with a physio, a sheep farmer and a couple of retired couples. The proprietor "Gary" talked a lot about Opal, and he definitely had the bug, his enthusiasm was infectious and saw Rose and I out "noodling" the following day.... yep, no luck, we will still need to work I think.

The Old timers mine, the Underground Bar  and the Breakaways are all great places to see. We stayed a second day to do some of these places justice. It grows on you.... the people are genuine and engaging and the mix of cultures both local and generally european is amazing.

Janet, Bruce, Rose and Bryan at "The Breakaways".









We left Coober Pedy and headed further north. Not much to see from the main road. We feel that we've just barely scratched the surface but the long road and the expansive desert in every direction makes one feel so small and insignificant.... much more to see the second time around!

I think we'll be at Yularu in the next couple of days.... school holidays... could have planned that better perhaps.... we'll see!

Wilpena Pt2

The weather gods are once again smiling. Today has been absolutely stunning. We even had the awning up and did some other odd jobs. Cliff, our neighbour and life long friend from Gympie came over and is a wealth of information and handy tips for newbie travellers like us. "Mornin, Cliff", "Bryan". "Do you remember we were talking about ......... last night......". So we sat in the sun at 9am and let it all sink in, Cliff left about an hour later, and we went (scrambled) off for our ride.

Cliff and his wife are quite honestly really great people actually. He's an ex postie, and she's an ex teacher. Their daughter believe it or not married a copper, and she also teaches in Gympie. Does that sound familiar.

We decided to do a section of the Mawson trail, to the north of our camp. Rose looked at the trail path with some trepidation, as we all know "Rose does not do dirt". Well after a tentative start, she was riding through creeks and over rocks like she was borne to it. We had the mountain range to our left and we were in a valley floor and rode for about 10-15km's mostly slightly downhill on the way out.
If we were following a creek it must be downhill... right!.... der! 

The ride back took a little longer.

We spied this little critter on the way

Note the slope of the track...

We're departing tomorrow. Heading back toward Pt Augusta to stock up, then we're heading north. We may end up at a little place about 60km's short of Cooper Pedy (Lake Hart) in the next day or two...