4th September 2011 - Coober Pedy

I was going to post an update a few days ago, but decided that the end of our stay in Northern Territory, was a nice demarcation point.

We have been run off our feet since our last post. Alice Springs has so much to do, and it’s all great. For us it started on our second day (1^st day was washing day, and cleaning day, and checking out the local tourist office), when we went to what must be one of the most entertaining fun filled days that we can remember. The Henley-on-Todd Regatta has been an iconic Alice event for 50 years and consists of boat races in the dry river bed!  It isn’t just one race, but an entire day of races and entertainment.

It starts with a street parade, and soon gets into ‘the events’ which are held on a section of the dry river bed (about the size of a half footy field). Rules are simple – first aim is to win, second aim is to do so while cheating: not just underhanded cheating, but blatant open and most definitely funny cheating. They have singles, doubles, 4s, 6s, 8s, and and and, well whatever.  Another funny one is a race to shovel river sand into a 44 gallon drum and this seen a number of strategies of how best to do this – do you shovel the area on one side of the drum until bare, or perhaps just dance around the drum in ever widening circles? The answer is easy – the best cheat wins.

 Alice Springs CBD

 Awesome Foursomes

Todd Cup without the winged keel

 Bathtub Races for the unclean

 Surf Rescue

 Tour d'Todd

While all the races are happening, there is an ongoing “war” between the Navy, the Pirates, and the Vikings which were everybody’s favourites because how could you not love a heap of Vikings in bright flouro bear skins.

 Are you scared - you should be.

The Final Battle

The next day we visited the Desert Park, an absolutely fantastic place where three distinct areas are set up as a sand desert, a woodland desert, and a ....... desert.  As you wander around each, you see the various ways that plants and animals survive in these harsh climates. To top it all off there is a nocturnal animal house which really shows all the fauna moving and hunting.  I can assure you that I’m not going to be walking around too many bushy areas at night any more after seeing just how many snakes and nasties are lurking.

Tuesday to Thursday we spent exploring the West Macdonald ranges and we were totally overwhelmed at the stunning and diverse scenery. Places such as Simpson’s gap, Standley Chasm (I think I may have finally succeeded in getting Shirl to call it Casm, rather than Ch...asm), Ormiston Gorge, Ellery Big Hole, and Redbank  Gap were all that we have heard of them. The last of these was the only one where we really needed to climb and clamber over bad terrain, and here it became progressively more difficult as the boulders became bigger, and the river sand deeper. Perseverance won the day as we stood looking at a true gem.

Standley Chasm - aim is to be there when the sun is directly overhead

 Simpsons Gap

 Ormiston Gorge

Ellery Big Hole

Shirl visited the Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame and spent quite some time. I queried her as to why such a place was located at the former gaol: I expect the bruises to fade within a few days.

Meanwhile I visited the Reptile Centre which I found to be one of the better ones that I have been to. A note at the entrance warns visitors to beware of “Frank”, who is a Spencers Monitor (Goanna) and is free to walk around where he pleases – a 600mm Goanna can, in my opinion go wherever he pleases.  At the conclusion of the visit, you can cuddle a 9 foot Olive Python, and give Frank a cuddle as well.

We headed off for the 477 km run to Kings Canyon on Sunday, and decided to fill up at Erldunda - $1.89 per litre. The country side was a shock as we were expecting to see sparse vegetated red desert, but found the opposite. Sure, the soil is red (everything is), but the land has a good supply of trees and shrubs plus lots of grass. Once more we were delighted with the sheer number of eagles, kites, and other raptors and I doubt a kilometre goes by without seeing a few.

Kings Canyon is brilliant – there, I’ve got that off my chest. We had a look at the rough stone steps going up to the top and chose to do the valley walk. I didn’t know that they could build steps so high! Once in the canyon, the cliffs just seem to go up forever, and it seems odd to be surrounded by lush forest growth when you know that just out ‘there’ it is dry inland stuff.

 Stairway to .......... someplace way up there.

The Head of the Canyon

We were so taken with it, Shirl (after lots of too,ing and fro,ing) decided that she wanted to do a helicopter flight. As we booked in and waited, the nerves were clearly in action, however they held up and we embarked on an amazing flight over the canyon (a number of circuits), and a number of other geographic features. It turned out that the other two guys on board had booked a half hour flight (we had opted for the 15 minute flight), and rather than send the chopper up with two empty seats, the put us on the longer flight. Just shows that the good guys win!

 Wow!  Look where we are.

 Camerons Peak - End scene Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  Also, I still call Australia Home Qantas Advert

Pilot to Co-Pilot,  are we there yet?

Each night the caravan park had a few dingos prowling around and this caused a tad of excitement among the foreign tourists. On our way from Kings Canyon to Ularu we spotted a wild camel, but before we could stop the van and get the camera out, it had moved further into the bush, thus only a pretty poor photo.  Further on we stopped near a roadhouse to stretch our legs when an emu came over to check us out. He came right to the van and pecked all around it, then tried to put his head in my window.

Filled up with fuel at $2.19 per litre  &*%$#$@#$, and moved onward to Ularu where we booked into the Yulara Resort Caravan Park. When you first catch a glimpse of the rock in the distance, it’s quite odd how a tingle runs through your body. After booking in, we set off for the 15km drive to the monster, and once more it is weird that the same feelings occur. The sheer size is overwhelming, and the colour is really red.   The true colour of the rock is a bluey grey, but the iron oxide leeches from the rocks, and once wet, it rusts – thus it should be called the “Rusty Guts” not the “Red Centre”.  We went for a walk each day, including a guided one which opened our eyes to so many things that you just wouldn’t see on your own – and it was free. Another was through the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) which proved to be almost as good as Ularu. Each evening we went to different spots and sat with beer/wine/G&T and watched the sun set over the rock.

The approach road

 The Sun about to set

almost set

 The Climb - In the 'season' 400 people per day climb this.

 Kata Tjuta (Olgas) from a distance

The Kata Tjuta walk that we did

Our visit to Ularu, Kata Tjuta, and Kings Canyon have been absolutely outstanding and totally different than we’d imagined. Truly one of Australia’s most memorable areas.

As we drove out the wildflowers were on full display. We had noticed them before, but travelling back across roads that we had used just 6 days before showed just how perfect our timing had been. Where, on the way in we had needed to stop to get a photo of a Honey Grevillia, now there were large areas full of these most picturesque plants. Elsewhere there was a carpet of yellow mallee wattle, with roadside tabledrains a flood of pink, blue, or steel grey flowers. As we moved onto the Stuart Highway, there were broad acres of the red Sturts Desert Pea. Couple all this colour with the dual background of multiple shades of green to grey/green foliage, on a palette of red earth and you have a garden effect to challenge anywhere.

We stopped last night 20 km north of the SA border at a roadhouse and caravan park called Kulgera. This place is one of the numerous locations that claim to be the true “centre” and bases its claim on being tne centre of Australia’s Gravity – if Australia was weighed, and then balanced on a pivot, it would need to be placed just to the east of Kulgera in order to be balanced.  The young bloke behind the counter was a pommy backpacker. When he gets home, I bet his mates aren’t going to believe where he worked and how far it is/was from anywhere. From Kulgera to anywhere is 200km, and when you get to there, you’re still nowhere.  Given the distances you need travel from either north or south, it is a popular ‘1 night’ stopover point; and that includes the road trains. We had 7 of them parked out front as their drivers got a bit of sleep.

When we awoke, the wind had also arrived and thus we set off into a headwind, accepting that the day was going to be (a) expensive as our fuel consumption would suffer, (b) a difficult drive.  This was true for the first 100 km, but then the wind moved to the side – this is far worse as the van cops a beating – bugger. Along the way we passed the Road Trains having lunch, but 30 minutes later they caught us and each took their turn passing. I am now accredited at being overtaken by 53 metres of swaying trailer.

We arrived at Coober Pedy this afternoon and are amazed at the landscape – millions of small (1 mtr high to 4 mtr high) mounds of earth where opal miners have dug shafts. It looks quite bizarre.  Not sure how long we’ll stay.

18th august 2011 - Alice Springs

As promised, it’s been some time since I updated our travels. We’ve gone from Charters Towers to Alice Springs in 18 days, and with lots of fun and excitement along the way.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for us has been that the entire trip has been through country that is entirely different than what we’d imagined. Where we expected almost desert like terrain, we found scrub filled rolling hills, and where we thought we’d be rolling along flat featureless plains, we were in chain after chain of ranges.

After leaving Charters we entered the dinosaur belt. Did you know that the large triangle of country bounded by Hughenden, Richmond and Winton is lauded around the World as one of the great dinosaur centres? It is. Way back when Australia had an inland sea (called Eromanga), Hughenden was on one bank, Richmond in the middle, and Winton in the shallows. For some 40 odd years, fossils have been popping up all around the area, with almost every farmer/grazier/pastoralist fully aware that the next time his shovel or plough hits something; it may well be another great piece of history. Both Hughenden and Richmond have very good museums with real skeletons of dinosaurs and really large fossils.

 I'd hate to walk out of the Hughenden pub with a few beers too many.

 Richmond Dinosaurs went swimming.

Inside Richmond Museum

After immersing ourselves in ancient history, it was good to move forward to recent stuff at Cloncurry. John Flynn was the father of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), and subsequently the School of the Air – not a bad CV. Cloncurry was where all this took place, as well as it being the landing place of the first Qantas flight. The juxtaposition of this item and the RFDS are not unrelated as Flynn witnessed what Qantas did, and his lateral thinking went into overdrive.

Along this section of the road was where we first encountered our first road trains: all 53+ metres and 120 tonnes of them. They come in all sorts of combinations such as the common 3 trailers, or the 2 trailers and a B-Double, or a B-Double with 2 trailers behind, or 2 B-Doubles.  And once you cross into the Northern Territory you find that they hook 3 B-Doubles together.

After 4 nights in Mt Isa, we were getting ready to leave when we had a little mishap – to be honest; it was a bloody big stuff up.  When rolling the awning up, we decided to clean it and the only way that I could reach it was to drop the tailgate of the Cruiser to use as a platform. All went well until the last section, when Shirl went inside the van, and in my impatience, I decided (spur of the moment thing) to reverse up without her guidance – jumped in the car, didn’t remove thongs, open door and lean out looking backwards, foot slips out of thong, off brake onto accelerator and BANG. Into side of van goes the tailgate and breaks van door plus tailgate.

The park owner gave us the name of the local van repair guy who comes around and repairs door – insurance says that they will consider it a temp ‘make safe’ repair until we get back home. We checked with local panel beaters and find that they can’t get a new tailgate for 4 to 6 weeks – bugger. Further checking reveals that there are nil, none, nought second hand tailgates in Mt Isa, and the panel beaters are not prepared to ‘chase’ one down through Darwin etc – double bugger.  However, a saving angel appeared in the guise of the guy on the adjoining site. Their son works at a Toyota dealer near Brisbane, and could source a good unit down there. Even better was that he was about to drive up to Mt Isa (to see his new nephew) in two days time. This guy is our new hero. The end result was that we did the deal and our new second hand tailgate, which the insurance people agreed would also be regarded as a temp ‘make safe’ until we get home, arrived and was fitted.

Thus we ended up staying in Mt Isa for 11 nights rather than the original plan of 5 nights and this gave us the opportunity to go to the Mt Isa Rodeo which is reputed to be the biggest in the country. It was funny to go to an event where everyone wore cowboy hats, jeans, country shirts, and riding boots. The blokes wore similar. The award for “Mr Kool” goes to the bloke in the Steer Wresting who came out of the gate at a zillion kph, jumped from his horse onto the back of the racing steer, slid up along the animals back until he could grab the horns, dropped down as he twisted the beast’s head until both were on the ground, then manhandled the horns until the steer was upside down while the bloke tied it’s legs together. Not so special you think? They all do that. But how many do it without dislodging their hat, and whilst wearing their designer sunnies? (sorry, no photo)

 Note that the horse does most of the work.

We also did an underground mine tour which opened our eyes to the noise down there. Huge machines do most of the work these days, and as each section is worked out, they just ‘bury’ these monsters because it’s cheaper to buy a new one, than dismantle and recover the old.

The future for the mine appears to be interesting – they are currently working on the business plan that they will gradually close the underground workings down over the next six years, and replace it with the World’s biggest superpit at 16 km long and ??? deep.  The smelter is already being shut down. I guess that eventually they’ll dig deep enough to find a lot of old buried scrap metal!

The transit from QLD to NT is “interesting” but only if you like 630 km of almost straight road (one section went 63 km without even a hint of a bend). The vegetation changed every once in a while, but soon went back to one of the earlier 2 or 3 types that had passed before. We stopped at Camooweal for the night, and after parking the van we went for a walk around the town – this took about 5 minutes. Night out here on the Barkly is dark – very dark. I understand that the locals walk around with their eyes closed because they can see better that way.

 Peak Hour at Camooweal

Other than Camooweal, the only other sign of habitation in all that distance is the pub and roadhouse at Barkly Tableland. Diesel is $2:20 per litre so we didn’t stop. However, we should be fair and admit that once past Tennant creek and heading south, the road is dominated by long stretches of 40 odd km without a hint of bends. When they do come, the bends are so gentle that you almost miss ‘em.

Barkly Highway

More Barkly Highway views



Speed Limit? what Speed Limit?

Tennant Creek has some nice little items that are worth a quick look. The old telegraph station is the best preserved of all the original 11 between Adelaide and Darwin – makes you think just how lonely and isolated the operators were. Such pioneer buildings also highlight how we should be constructing houses, as the original house was built of local stones (300mm thick), with 2 mtr wide verandahs on all walls. Step into the house and the temperature drops 10 deg.

Given that Tennant really took off when they made the last significant gold strike in Australia, it’s no surprise to find one of the major tourists thingy’s is the old gold battery. The photo shows that health & safety weren’t such big items back then.

The caravan park at Tennant has a campfire with a local bush poet each night. Bush tucker is the campfire menu and yes, we did actually eat freshly cooked witchetty grubs which we found quite tasty (like freshly roasted peanuts).

Just over 100 km south of Tennant are the amazing Devils Marbles. We had always thought that they covered just a few house blocks in area. Boy, were we wrong, they seem to go on forever.  Spent some time looking and marvelling about how they could retain their balance for so many centuries, while we did the touristy thing and set up some posed photos.

We spent the night at the UFO capital of Australia; Wycliffe Well. The caravan park is the only thing there, and given that it sells alcohol, the evening ‘entertainment’ put on by the locals is something that all the park guests would’ve preferred not to have. It seems that banning alcohol in the communities produces other consequences such as the grog being consumed at the point of sale – and then driving home!!!!  Again, when the sun goes down and darkness falls, it does so with a vengeance – dark so dark that you can’t see the locals at all.

I couldn’t resist a photo of the Hulk when the army convoy rolled in to fill up. Maybe I should start a ‘caption’ competition.

After leaving Wycliffe we headed to Alice Springs where we will stay for 10 nights. On the way we trundled through a roadhouse call Aileron and found that they have these giant statues of 10 metre tall aboriginal folk – very impressive.

29th July 2011 - Charters Towers

Okay, I’m sure that most of you have worked out that there is something funny about the date that this has been posted – I write it using “Word” (lot easier to edit), then download the photos, then go online and copy it across. All of that happened, except the last step. I Didn’t realise until 5 days later. Sorry.

Since our last post we have had 4 nights in Townsville and six in Charters Towers. Townsville was, as expected, a very large country city with numerous shopping malls with everything so standardised that you wouldn’t know if you were in Perth, Hobart, Canberra, or Cairns. The waterfront area has been recently re-built and it is quite marvellous. Locally, it is known as ‘The Strand’ and truly deserves that elegant title. Great areas for kids, teens and adults with a glorious view to Magnetic Island are all built into the design.  Another area that former residents may not recognise is Palmer St on the south side – it now rivals any trendy yuppy cafe latte street in the country.

Our van site adjoined a Sizzler’s outlet, and we couldn’t resist a couple of visits (Shirl had Ribs and I had Steak & Prawns). We decided that we really miss Sizzler’s now that they aren’t in Canberra.

On our run up to Charters Towers on Sunday we came across our first road train. I noticed him slowly catching me so I backed off a bit to let him past and was amazed to find that he was hauling a dog trailer plus a B double: 4 trailers in all. I guess he was empty because he was certainly moving it along.

Charters Towers was once the 2^nd largest city in Qld and even had its own stock exchange: these days it is about 8,000 people. There are many old buildings that have been restored and the entire commercial/shopping area looks great, and there are many “touristy” things to see and do. A general theme of some has to do with ‘Ghosts of Gold’ where they have various means to have 3D or ephemeral ghostly images pop out and tell their story.

 the former Stock Exchange, and Australasian Bank.

Not all Target stores are over 100 years old. All original inside.

 Shirl finally go to see a cattle auction, and was somewhat underwhelmed. Some bloke that she couldn’t understand, yelling at a heap of other blokes who didn’t seem to move – then another bloke painted a coloured letter on the rumps of the cattle, while all the other blokes wandered along to the next pen. More fun watching the horsemen move the cattle in, out, along, and into different pens.

I know that it may sound just as boring, but we spent a bit of time wandering around the local historical cemetery (which is also the current one), and discovered some interesting items. A bloke was killed way back in 1904 when he fell in between two railway trucks and was run over. He was buried in section 4, 6 & 9.  Another was working at the bottom of a mine shaft, when a hopper fell 900 feet and squashed him. His grave occupied all of section 24.

Queensland’s last official bushranger is buried here – he and his brother were both convicted with the brother being hanged, and this guy got ‘life’ only to be released after 14 years. He lived for another 24 years!

And poor Bridget Clancy, here she was enjoying a bit of slap and tickle with her sisters hubby when the so and so dies. Rotten sod he was. Bridget was so upset that she goes to the pharmacy and gets some strychnine “for her sick dog” and tops herself! What was she thinking? She was a good looking 30 year old who owned a pub – I repeat, she owned a pub. Surely a line of eligible men were all hers for the asking.

It offered some amusement when we found that when the gold was discovered, the authorities decided to establish the town at what is now an outer suburb of Charters Towers (because that was where the nearest water flowed) and called it Millchester, but the miners said “up yours”, or something similar, and set up their own town closer to the gold. A number of other mining towns have such actions written into their history – West Wyalong vs Wyalong in NSW, Yerranderie in the backwater area of Warragamba Dam are but two that spring to mind. You have to love the larrikin Aussie attitude, dontcha?

The official gold stamp & mill were established at Millchester and this mill still exists. It is not in full working condition, but it did continue working up until 1973. The tour of the complex explained the very detailed process needed to extract the gold dust from the ore. We were fascinated to the extreme. 

The School of Distance Education is another place that we visited and listened to a class of Yr 1 & 2s being taught by telephone. Gone are the days of radio, the system now works over the telephone network and uses computers (doesn’t everything?). Again, the process involved to get books, reading info, homework, and parent guidance out to the students homes is amazing. We were also intrigued to learn that the students include those on outlaying properties (many hundreds of kilometres away), students whose parents chose home schooling, students who have been subjected to school bullying, as well as overseas youngsters.

Yesterday we drove over to a small gold mining town called Ravenswood. This was Queensland’s first inland town in 1869 and remained a large and vibrant gold town until WW1. Interesting to see photos taken in the early 1900s and compare with today. Many very large and substantial buildings have simply totally disappeared with not even a foundation left. There remains about a half dozen decent buildings with two of them being pubs. Fascinating fact as to the quality of the gold at both Ravenswood and Charters – it was, and remains the highest grade ore in Australia at twice the grade of any Victorian field, and 75% higher than WA Kalgoolie.  Ravenswood already has a big hole being dug right on the edge of the town, and I’ll bet my kids will see another “Superpit” developed at both these Qld towns – pity about the actual towns, because the richest seams are under them.

 They don't make pubs like this anymore

 I had to do it - my artistic streak just bubbles over sometimes.

 Post office - tough times mean that you just need to diversify into other fields.

Parked out front of the other pub - I think the drivers are on a bit of a bender.

Mr & Mrs Butler raised 21 kids in this tin house. They lived in it until 1981

Off to Hughenden tomorrow, then Richmond, Cloncurry, Mt Isa, Camooweal, Barkley Homestead, Tennent Ck, Devils Marbles, Ti Tree, and finally we will get to Alice Springs.   Since most of these places will only delay us for a single night (Mt Isa will be 5 nights), we won’t be posting another update for about another fortnight or so.



20th July 2011 - Mission Beach

Co-incidence or what!  From the time that we started caravanning, we have followed the blog of a Melbourne couple, Mike & Minette. They sold their house and have been on the road full time for nearly 3 years, and every step of the way Min has entertained and delighted us. They'd been camped at Exmouth & Coral Bay in West Oz for some time, and then we followed them as they rather quickly moved up the coast to Broome (very short stop), and across to Darwin. Meanwhile, we were moving up the east coast and around far north Qld before setting up at Mission Beach. What do we find on day two – the fellow two sites from us was working on his boat, and I struck up a conversation with him. Wheels started to churn; facts seemed to be meshing; his name was Mike, he had a boat, he drove a Toyota LC200, he had a South African accent. Yep, it was they. Hopefully we’ll bump into them again, and share another drink or two. 

The entire ‘Cassowary Coast’ is certainly showing the aftermath of cyclone Yasi. Where once there was thick and lush rainforest, there are now many fallen or bare trees with huge areas that are impenetrable because of the debris.  Dunk Island is but a kilometre or so offshore and suffered the full force of Yasi, is still closed and will remain so for 12 months or more.

Paronella Park (google it) is 20 or so km south of Innisfail and what a magnificent place it is. But, it used to be even better! Cyclone Larry in 2006, then Yasi this year has caused major damage to some buildings. Because of the unique nature these buildings can never be fully restored to what Jose Paronella created all those years ago. If you ever find yourself wondering just what you can achieve, or doubt how much you can do by yourself, visit Paronella. 

Another interesting place is Innisfail. Way back in the early 1900s the town was virtually flattened by a cyclone. The vogue architecture of the era was Art Deco, so many of the new buildings were of that style. Seeing the individual flair that this gave the town, the civic leaders chose to apply pressure to anyone doing a commercial building to use that style. The town now has a specific and definable visual appeal that clearly identifies it as Innisfail. Pity other places didn’t follow and create their own special character.

One of the odd and interesting results of Yasi relates to the amount of damage to the cane crop(s). We did a tour of the Tully sugar mill and were amazed at the range of rubbish that is scooped up by the harvesters – yes, everything including the kitchen sink. It seems that a local was in the process of doing a bit of home renovation and had his new kitchen stored under the carport when Yasi came along and redistributed it into the middle of a nearby cane crop. Come harvest time, it ended up at the mill where the sorting machinery pulled it out and diverted it to the junk bin with all the roof panels, guttering, carports, cycles, and farm machinery.

As we were leaving the mill, our tour guide handed us small packets of “Tully Sugar” with the advice that this was the only way that we could get Tully sugar in Australia!  Tully is now owned by a Chinese Govt company and doesn’t hold a licence to sell within Australia. The entire output is exported to China. 

Mission Beach is a wonder to behold (even in its Yasi modified guise) as it seems to go forever, with each step backed by tropical rainforest or palms, and fronted by an island dotted sea of aquamarine. Typical of Queensland beaches, it is quite shallow and you need to walk out a fair way before you get your bum wet.

Our caravan site is totally surrounded by rainforest that, like all this area, holds small populations of cassowaries.  We had the magical experience of a male and his chick (yep, the female walks out as soon as she lays the egg) visiting the park and just wandering around like a movie star.

Packing up now and moving out to Townsville.