Heading north from Kings Canyon we had a choice of route – take the Mereenie loop which is a gravel track and is only 332 kilometers or take the black top which is 473 kilometers. I was excited about taking a proper 4WD track, but chatting to a fellow traveler, who had significant red dust on his caravan, he told me he had taken the Mereenie loop and it had taken him 5 hours and broken his caravan in a number of places due to the 30 cm deep corrugations. We decided to take the longer route on the black top and arrived in Alice Springs early afternoon.

Alice Springs is an interesting town, being the site chosen by Sir Charles Todd as a Telegraph repeater station in his plan to link Adelaide, Darwin and Great Britain with a superior communications infrastructure – a sort of early NBN. The site for the repeater station was chosen close to a billabong that was named Alice Springs after Alice Todd, Sir Charles Todd’s wife. The town subsequently grew up around this repeater station and is now bustling hub and attracts a variety of people.

We stayed at the G’Day Mate Caravan Park which had electronic gates which were locked at 7:30pm sharp. Once we were set up we drove into the centre of town to replenish our stocks of wine. I was flattered to be asked for my ID by a policeman stationed outside the shop, thinking I must have been looking much younger away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. It turns out he had a ruggedised tablet which he used to check mine and the credentials of each and every customer. Apparently here in NT there is a Barred Drinkers Registry (BDR) that needs to be checked if you intend to purchase alcohol. Any one who is convicted of drunken driving, alcohol related domestic abuse or any other alcohol related crime is recorded on the BDR and can be barred from purchasing alcohol. Sounds like a great idea to me!

Leaving Alice, heading north we arrived at the Devils Marbles. The Devils Marbles are a spectacular collection of boulders piled one upon the other in a seemingly impossible arrangement that defies logic, situated in the middle of nowhere, on a completely flat landscape,with no apparent rationale as to their formation.

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There are two explanations for their existence. The first one, which I am sure the expert geologists amongst you, (and I know of at least one following this blog, you know who you are!), will concur, is that they are the result of a millenia of erosion of a once solid rocky outcrop as described below. The other explanation, which I prefer and is much more credible, is that they are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent.

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Leaving Alice we entered termite country. Thousands of termite mounds as far as the eye could see, Bizzarely some of these termite mounds had been dressed in T shirts and other clothing. Who did it and to what end, we had no idea, but it was slightly disturbing!

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Now driving to Tenant Creek and turning right and eastwards towards the pacific ocean.

The vast distances between any sort of habitation in the desert means that there needs to be some way of alleviating the boredom and of course re-fueling between towns, so the roadhouse was invented. During our journey up the red centre from Adelaide to Tennant Creek, a distance of some 2000 kilometers, there is very little to punctuate the desert landscape and so the appearance of a roadhouse on the horizon was a cause for excitement.

These roadhouses are strategically placed so that just as the needle on the fuel tank creeps below the 1/4 mark and the possibility of running out of fuel in the middle of the desert is causing the level of stress to rise to potentially bowel moving proportions, a roadhouse suddenly appears on the horizon and the relief is tangible.

Each roadhouse is very individual and offer a range of services.

The first roadhouse we stopped at was Spud’s Roadhouse, briefly mentioned a couple of posts ago. Spuds Roadhouse consisted of a shop, a bar and a dining area and a very large dusty unsealed area labelled ‘Caravan Park’. Spud’s specialty was collecting car registration plates. We refueled, parked up for the night and left early the next morning.

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The next roadhouse we encountered was The Kulgera Roadhouse, again cunningly located in the middle of nowhere, 413 kilometers north of Coober Pedy and 275 kilometers south of Alice Springs. Their speciality was a vast collection of ladies brassieres that had been, for no apparent reason, fixed to the ceiling of the bar. There was also a handwritten notice on the wall of the ladies toilet, (not the men’s though), requesting that the toilet seat is closed after use to avoid “surprises”. Upon further enquiry, we found out the “surprises” are the snakes which regularly visit the toilets in search of water and are disappointed when they find the lid has been closed!

Just as we were leaving a media circus arrived escorting the solar cars doing the solar car challenge from Darwin to Adelaide. The cars were very small single seater contraptions, obviously covered in solar cells. It was a very windy day and we heard that several of the cars had been blown off the road by the force of the wind. No-one was injured thankfully. The vast number of vehicles escorting the environmentally friendly solar cars, however, were definitely not helping the planet.

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Next was the Wycliffe Well roadhouse. Wycliffe Well roadhouse advertises itself as the UFO centre of the Australian Outback. The site was established as a result of “frequent” UFO sightings in the area and a guy called Lew Farkas decided to capitalise on the notoriety. The car park was full of strange alien mannequins and crashed spaceships. We refueled, purchased some embossed alien themed shot glasses and left in a hurry. The shot glasses have since started to lose their embossing so they are now mostly just shot glasses.

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We arrived at the Kings Canyon Caravan Park late afternoon. We setup and started to cook our evening meal. Just after we started the dingoes came out and inspect new arrivals to see if any of them are foolish enough to feed them. They have become very bold and trot through the park looking from side to side as if they owned it. Later that evening, as we were enjoying a drink (or two) in the aptly named Thirsty Dingo Bar, attached to the caravan park, a dingo appeared and trotted through the bar, apparently completely at home and comfortable to be there, he must have been one of the regulars.

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The next day we got up at dawn and traveled to Kings Canyon to do the Rim Walk. We wanted to start early to avoid the heat of the day, which was forecast to reach 38 degrees C.

The Rim Walk necessitates a climb, more of a scramble really, up the sheer face of the canyon, some 500 steps, although calling them steps is a bit of a stretch, they were more like irregularities in the sheer rock face. Upon reacing the rim there was then a six and a half kilometer walk around the rim and a steep descent back to the floor of the canyon.

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Upon reaching the rim we were presented with the most amazing sights. The view over the surrounding landscape was truly breathtaking, but even more breathtaking were the colourful rock formations that had been laid down eons ago as sediment in the bottom of a lake and had been eroded by the weather over the ages. Here are a few examples.

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By the time we reached the end of the walk, the sun had well and truly risen. The heat was intense and the flies were even intenser (or should that be more intense?) and we were glad to get back into the car and switch on the aircon.

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Next day we continue our journey up the Red Centre to Alice Springs.

Unfortunately we arrived at Uluru just days before climbing the rock was prohibited. Unfortunate, not because we wanted to climb the rock, but because of the frenzy of people who had also arrived trying to climb before the ban. It was terrible to see the crowds queuing up to join the continuous line of climbers hauling themselves up the rock and then hauling themselves down again, despite the requests from the indigenous custodians of the land not to desecrate their sacred place.

We arrived in good time to set ourselves up at the designated viewing area to photograph the setting sun. I climbed on the roof of the Patrol to setup my camera and tripod to await the momentous event, while Jules set up a camp chair behind. As we were patiently waiting, a couple of young guys in a beaten up Holden Commodore parked next to us, got out each holding a beer and proceeded to setup a small gas barbeque and load it up with a dozen eggs and a whole packet of bacon for their dinner. One of the guys said hello to me and then spotted Jules and started to regale her with stories of their adventures and how much fun they were having. Eventually they popped the question – “So are you here on your own?” “Have you left your husband and kids at home?” She responded that she didn’t have any kids and her husband was up there, pointing to the roof of the Patrol. They saw the funny side, I wasn’t impressed and Jules was disappointed that they then seemed to lose interest and focused on their dinner, which apparently was the same as breakfast and lunch that day, and would be for the following three days of their trip. With cuisine like that on offer, it would have been hard to persuade Jules to join them. The setting sun on the rock was spectacular and well worth the wait, despite the ignominy!

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The next day we got up in time to see the sun rise over the rock and then we cycled round the base, some 10.5 km. Some of the formations are quite fascinating up close.

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Now off to Kings Canyon.

Sorry for the radio silence but we have been in the bush with no signal for several days so I am only now catching up. Here is the next post.

The town of Coober Pedy was not established until 1915 when opal was accidentally discovered by 14 year old Willie Hutchison who stumbled on a bunch of them while he was wandering around the camp. Willie’s dad had taken Willie and a camel train to the area on a 700 km trek from Adelaide looking for gold. The town now supplies most of the worlds gem quality opals, and it is estimated that only some 10% of the opals have been mined so far. The landscape is pockmarked with hundreds of mines and there are warning signs like this everywhere.

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We spent a leisurely day in the town, looking at opals, having a beer and then looking at some more opals. There is not much to do unless you are into noodling. This is the popular local entertainment of sifting through piles of rock looking for opals. We didn’t do any noodling, it was too hot and I estimated the success rate to be unworthy of the investment required! We did buy a small one though which was very colourful!

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Jules has been looking out for ‘Big Things’ along our route and so was very excited to find the Big Winch, which is located on a pile of dirt just outside the town centre. However it did seem a bit neglected, you might notice that the sign that says ‘Coming in 2017’ has not been updated for 2 years and the car park was deserted. We also found an underground chapel and an underground bar.

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Tonight Jules’ Roadside Restaurant is serving Chicken Salad with Roasted Pumpkin, Tomato and Fetta.

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Tomorrow we are heading off to Kulgera, a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, on the road to Uluru and Kings Canyon.

Jules is a very good cook, but she has decided to keep it simple while we are on the road and we have vowed to try to purchase fresh produce from the roadside along the way. When we stopped at a bush camp in Coonawarra, the camp site owner let us help ourselves to his herb garden and in Port Pirie we were out for our morning walk and happened across a fresh fish shop, run by two Italian brothers. One of the brothers regaled us with stories of the other brother who was on My Kitchen Rules, he gave us some recipes that he had created and invited us to breakfast (which we politely declined). We ended up buying some Snapper fillets and some chilli smoked Salmon.

Some of the ‘simple’ meals that Jules has rustled up so far have been;

• Pan fried Salmon with chilli and charred veg
• Snapper fillet with garlic and parsley linguine
• Pan fried flathead tails with mango and noodle Asian salad

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Driving the Stuart Highway from Pimba to Coober Pedy, 376 kms of nothing except desert and bush (which are hard to differentiate). The scenery is spectacular, vast areas of nothing interspersed with the odd salt lake or small hill topped with a lone tree or the occasional dust storm. One particularly long straight stretch had been designated as a RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) Emergency Road Landing Strip complete with chequered markers at each end of the runway and landing gear tyre marks. It was slightly unnerving to be driving down a runway and I was relieved to reach the end without an aircraft appearing in my rear view mirrors.

To preserve fuel and reduce the strain on the vehicle, we settled into a steady 85 kmph which was somewhat slower than the enormous road trains that hammered down the highway at the maximum speed of 110 kmph. Luckily we were equipped with a UHF radio tuned to channel 40, so we could hear exactly what each truck driver thought of caravanners! It was consistently derogatory and X rated but luckily there was no-one under the age of 18 in the car, so no-one was offended.

In all seriousness, they did have a job to do while we were just enjoying the scenery, so we did try to anticipate their arrival on our rear bumper and pulled off in good time to allow them past or coaxed them round us when we reached a long straight stretch. The slipstream when they went past was quite exhilarating (NOT), as the caravan wanted to wander onto the wrong side of the road or take off into the bush!

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The long distances and with very little to look at meant that the slightest event caused great excitement. One of these events was when an oncoming vehicle came into sight in the distance. There is a tradition in these parts that the drivers wave to each other when they pass. I say ‘wave’ but its more of a laconic expression of indifference, and each driver has customised and individualised their ‘wave’ to suite their character and the way they wish to be regarded. Sometimes, with less experienced drivers, like tourists, it is a full on wave, but more often it is a brief raising of a finger or two of the hand resting on the top of the steering wheel. I spent some considerable time perfecting my own version of the wave until I was happy that it represented how I wanted to be remembered by that passing driver.

After a 4 hour drive we eventually arrived at Coober Pedy, a town famous for the presence of Opals, only an estimate 10% of which have been mined so far. More of that in the next post.

We left home on Wednesday 9th October, about an hour later than we planned , mainly because we kept locking up and then unlocking and going back into the house to get things we had forgotten, for Jules to retrieve her phone and to go to the loo (several times!) Eventually we managed to hit the road! Here we are leaving our driveway. It was raining.

First three nights were at Naracoorte, Murray Bridge and Port Pirie, passing through Penshurst which claims to have the best tasting tap water in Australia, and later Angaston which claims to have the best Pizza in Australia. How lucky were we to hit two Australia wide bests in the first couple of days!! I can only hope our good fortune in this regard can continue. I will be keeping an eye out!

A quick side trip to Greenock in The Barrossa to buy some wine from a vintner who we had discovered on an earlier trip. Mick Schulter, who has named his wine Schadenfreude because, when all the other local vintners failed to produce any wine in 2010, Mick cracked on and managed to create, against their advice, a fabulous Shiraz which is now the talk of the town.

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The highlight for me of this first few days was the silo art in Coonalpyn. Amazing images painted on grain silos, apparently attracting hundreds of visitors and transforming the local economies in these fairly remote tiny communities.

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The highlight for Jules was the Big Rocking Horse!

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We have now reached Spuds Roadhouse, about 470km North of Adelaide at the junction of the Stuart highway and the Olympic Dam Highway and many kilometres from anywhere. A thriving business selling all manner of things including fuel, pies, hats, key rings and beer to a constant flow of trucks, utes, cars and caravans. We are staying the night here for a voluntary donation of $5 per person. Tomorrow we head off up the Stuart Highway to Coober Pedy.

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I realised that I have not updated this blog to reflect our current plan, which is now not A or B. After spending some time planning a whole year off, we decided that it would be too hectic and expensive to try to do all the 4 Plan B trips in 12 months, so we decided to scale it back. We are currently only planning to do the East Coast trip now, and we will then both go back to work to save up for the next one.

We will be heading west initially, then up the red centre, turning right at Tennant Creek until we hit the east coast, head north for a while and then heading back south, keeping to the coast all the way back to Melbourne. Approximately 10,700kms.

Trip 1 starts on 9th October! Just need to load up!