October 2011 - Beachport, Horsham, Daylesford, Ocean Grove

The process of moving from one location to the next is, at first somewhat haphazard. Who does, or should do the jockey wheel? Or the utilities hoses? Or the wheel chocks?

It soon works itself out – Shirl does what she wants, and I do the rest!  I guess I’ll pay dearly for that little comment. 

In truth, Shirl packs and secures the inside stuff, while I do all the outside things which includes installing the towing mirrors and tow ball on the car. At some stage Shirl calls me to close the roof hatches and wind down the TV aerial (she can’t reach ‘em). Once all is ready, I jump in Tom (Cruiser) to reverse onto the ball while Shirl guides me. We then share, and counter-check each other as we do the chains and other connections between the van and tug.

Last thing is for Shirl to disconnect the power cord, and switch the fridge to 12Volt (we leave it as last thing because it (a) draws a fair bit of battery power, (b) 12v is not as efficient as 240v .

All this is completed normally within 30 minutes, or less if we’re in a hurry.

Once we’re on the road, the distance that we cover each day varies quite a bit. Our preferred range is somewhere between 250 and 400 km, but like all rules of thumb, this gets amended as needs be. For instance, when crossing the Barkley Tableland from Qld to/from NT the distances between fuel stops is not ideal, particularly when one of those stops is exorbitantly expensive. Thus 470 km is required. Once we’re on the coast (any coast), we may well reduce our daily range to slip into somewhere we really want to explore.

This distance thing is a nice little transition into where we went after Adelaide. With the rain falling, and the wind blowing we ventured forth from Christies Beach to traverse the suburbs of Adelaide, then up, and up, and up the seemingly never ending climb along the road to Murray Bridge. It was approx 20km in 2^nd gear of either climbing, or descending before we got to flat country.  From Tailem Bend the road becomes a little bouncy as you run beside the Coorong (magnificent to see it full to overflowing after so many years of drought). Finally after 420 km we arrived at Beachport which is a quite small lobster village on the Limestone Coast. The village is dominated by its 772 metre jetty and is perhaps most known for its “Pool of Siloam” which is a pool of water 7 times as salty as the ocean.

 Beachport Jetty and Rivoli Bay.

The Jetty

I had two great aims at Beachport – firstly, to sit on the jetty and reel in multiple fish. And, secondly, I really wanted to float in the “Pool of Siloam”.  You see, I must admit that I cannot float. I jump in the water, lift my legs, gently kicking, arms spread wide and waving serenely, and promptly sink.  I feel that should I ever take up SCUBA diving, I would excel at the diving bit, but would perhaps struggle somewhat on the surfacing stage.

I never got to achieve either aim because the weather was atrocious – wind so strong that should I have attempted to cast a line, it would’ve landed in Tasmania, perhaps even Antarctica. Needless to say, the thought of getting my kit off to try for a short float was not too good either. We did enjoy the area as it is very picturesque but it was a pity that the South East of Australia decided to have a cold and windy snap at that particular time.

We did manage to do a little local sightseeing and found what must be one of Australia’s greatest feats of “Up yours”.  Murray McCourt was a farmer who had a large portion of his land rendered useless by swamp. Murray lobbied the local council, the state Government, and even the town drunk to get a channel dug through the mountain that was causing the problem. Everyone told him that it was too hard: it couldn’t be done: and that he was dreamin’. Murray said ‘bugger ya all’ and he and one of his farm hands dug a 1 km long channel, which is 28 metres deep (93 feet for all you old guys) and is 1 metre wide at the bottom, extending to 20 metres at the top. The interesting thing is that he only used a D7 dozer, two earth moving dozer attachments, and a home modified dragline to complete the Woakwine Cutting in 3 years. He showed ‘em.

The Cutting - through rock, not dirt.

 We also go to see a wind farm of 135 units at Millicent. This farm provides 1/8^th of South Australia’s power needs and is truly amazing to see all those blades turning at what appears to be a co-ordinated rate. It’s worth noting that they are preparing to install an additional 180 units in the surrounding area.

After 5 nights we pushed on into Victoria – you may think that the transition into daylight saving time is a tad confusing, well think about us as we moved from SA time into Vic time (forward ½ hour), then the next day go forward (or was it backward?) 1 hour for DST. Also consider that we have a part of our family in Qld, which still remains in the dark ages and thus causes us to run a clock on Pre-Columbian time.

As we traversed the Glenelg Highway we marvelled at just how good the country looked. Everywhere we looked we seen sheep and every one of them in prime condition as they fed on awesome pastures.  After a short stop at Hamilton (now on our list of places that we intend to return to), we made our way to Horsham where we set up on the banks of the Wimmera River.  This was to be our base camp as we explored the Western Victorian wheat belt as well as the Grampians.

First exploratory trip was out though Nhill to Jeparit, Warracknabeal, Minyip and back. Nhill was a disappointment because it is in real need of a good lick of paint and a real dose of civic pride – a once great rural town gently fading into the past.  Jeparit was similarly focussed on rotting away without anyone seeming to care.  This is a pity, given its claim to fame. Jeparit was the birthplace of Robert Menzies, our longest serving Prime Minister, and regardless of your politics of choice, we do owe some form of respect for those who have achieved the ultimate leadership of the Country.

The birthplace of Bob Menzies - note the public conveniences in the background.

Warracknabeal was a pleasant surprise because of its size.  A four pub town is one that deserves a degree of respect – although, one of them is for sale for $680,000.  Is anyone in need of a home with lots of bedrooms for guests, plus a really large kitchen and lounge?  It also has a great bar; if you were so inclined, you could entertain what would become many friends.

Pub for Sale

We noted that Kiwis are banned from Warracknabeal. The local council are sick of repairing the statues that they have in the middle of the round-a-bouts on the main street.

Statues in middle of Round-a-bout

Those of you who were of TV viewing age about 20 years ago would have seen many views of Minyip as it was shown as “Coopers Crossing” for the Flying Doctors television series. It still looks the same.

The next day we headed off to Stawell where we stood on the ground where the Stawell Gift foot race is held. The ‘Gift Museum’ is something that can occupy your thoughts for quite some time.  It was fascinating to compare the actual shoes worn by the winners of 80, or even 30 years ago with those worn in current times. What times would the old timers have run if they were availed of the technology of today?

Stawell Town Hall - Figures at base of clock tower do a mining action every hour

After Stawell we headed to Ararat and we delighted by what we found – a thriving town that is clearly doing well. One of the places we toured at Ararat was the old Gaol, now known as “J Ward”.  It only operated as a prison for 20 or so years, and then became the Victorian Prison for the Criminally Insane for the next 100 years.  It is quite horrendous to comprehend that we, as a supposed humane and civilised society treated people like this as recently as the 1990s.  A second institution that Ararat hosted for even longer is “Aradale”, the Victorian Lunatic Asylum. Started in the 1860s, closed in the early 1990s.  The longest serving inmate entered via the gates in 1932, and left in a coffin in 1995 – 63 years in an insane asylum. He was 107 years old!

Ararat Town Hall - ain't it a doozy?

From Horsham we towed the van across to Daylesford which is located about halfway between Castlemaine and Ballarat, and sits right on top of the Great Divide.  The area is known as Australia’s spa capital. 

I’ve oft made the boast that there isn’t a hill that I can’t climb whilst riding my recumbent trike – I now need to eat my words after seeing the roads within Daylesford and Hepburn Springs.  I am of the view that it isn’t the water that keeps the locals healthy: it’s the exercise that they get just going to and from their daily activities.

Again we completed a few day trips. The first was a loop that took in Clunes (something wrong there as they have 1300 citizens, 4 churches, and only 2 pubs), Talbot, Maryborough (Must have the most impressive railway station ever built outside our capital cities), Maldon (sadly going downhill from what it was when we were last there 16 years ago), and finally Castlemaine.

Maryborough Railway Station - It is huge!

Our second day trip took us up to the famous hanging rock of movie fame. I warned Shirl not to go up there: I’m still tossing up whether to start searching for her!  The next stop from the ‘Rock’ was Mount Macedon where a huge cross was built as a memorial to those killed in the Great War. We’ve seen many memorials to our war dead but this one was particularly moving – it just grabs your heart and head and turns them towards why it was built. Given that the Mountain is just on 1000 metres altitude, the memorial is visible for many kilometres.

Just wander up this way to Hanging Rock

I think this is where I lost Shirl

A particularly great memorial

The weather at Daylesford was ..... ..... ....   .... bloody cold. The caravan park reception office has a photo taken Oct 16^th 2010 that shows the park under inches of snow. I understand that this year it was way too cold for snow to fall.  One of the oddities of caravan air-conditioners is that they won’t work beyond certain temperatures – think about that, your air conditioner won’t heat if the air is too cold, nor will it cool if it is too hot!  At Daylesford, our unit wouldn’t work each morning so we needed to resort to our little electric fan heater to heat the van enough so that the air con would turn on.

We are now on The Bellarine at Ocean Grove and just across the river from Barwon Heads (Sea Change TV series location).     

The best known town around here is Queenscliff. Almost every tourist brochure or publicity document includes a photo of at least one of the Queenscliff pubs. Many old shops and public buildings dominate the streets, as do a number of magnificent old mansions (mostly converted to B&Bs). Like many places around Oz, there is a tourist steam train that runs to another town called Drysdale. What makes this one special is the range of special trains they operate – each week they do a ‘Jazz’ train that includes a feed and some really good jazz musicians. They also have the best Thomas the Tank engine that we’ve found. Not only Thomas, but Henry and ... ... ... the other ones whose names just escape me! Each weekend they do an entire show with a full PA system and some quite talented kids entertainers. Each kid is made feel very special.

We drove over to Torquay yesterday and were quite amazed to see the huge number of surfers in the water. Of course they all were wearing wet-suits, but their hands and faces must have frozen.

Torquay main beach

The Famous Bells Beach

We then pushed on and drove the Great Ocean Road (well, ya just gotta’, dont’cha?), as far as Lorne. Its 16 years since we’ve been through here and the growth of Lorne just blew us away. What was once a pleasant seaside holiday town is fast becoming an upmarket yuppy-ville with the main street dominated by apartments.  Perhaps one of the best indicators of Lorne’s push upwards was the sculpture exhibition that they held on the beachside – this one is for sale @ nearly $100,000!

And this one is $335,000.  Maybe you should buy a pair so they will offer a balance to your entry (might as well, since your bank account won’t be balanced).

we're now less than 4 weeks from home, and looking forward to seeing the family. After a few more days here, we're heading across on the ferry to Mornington.

28th September 2011 - On our way to Beachport.

This post is to fix up an omission from a previous post.

Our stop-over at Woomera had a purpose other than just somewhere to park for the night.

Way back in the early 50s, a surveyor by the name of Len Beadell was tasked with selecting the site for the British Government to undertake some nuclear testing. It was Len who chose the site of Woomera. He was then asked to find a route through the inland such that when they fired the rockets, they wouldn’t go too close to any towns or villages.

Okay, it’s time to get your map out because Len plotted a route from Woomera to the West Coast just north of Port Hedland, thus becoming the longest possible human habitation free land route in the World.  He then needed to build roads to access this route at many locations. These “roads” were really just tracks that Len and his team of 6, with a bulldozer, a grader, a stores 6x6 truck, and Len’s Land Drover used to bash through the scrub.

These roads still exist! Gunbarrel Highway (Len liked straight roads), Connie Sue Highway (Len’s Daughter), Anne Beadell Highway (his wife), plus many others.

Beadell was Australia’s last true explorer. If you get a chance to listen to his CD, grab it with great haste because he is also a very laconic and dry humorist.

Our visit was so that we could pay respects at Len’s grave in the Woomera cemetery.  

27th September 2011 - Christies Beach Adelaide

South Australia seems to be undergoing a housing explosion, and not just small workers cottages, but quite large McMansions.  The extent of this boom became very evident when we arrived at Wallaroo. Here is a town of approx 2500 good folk and now has a large marina and canal estate with the accompanying extended housing area which is full of large McMansions that would enhance the best new suburbs of our larger cities. Clearly the obvious question is “Who the hell has bought these”.

Wallaroo, Kadina & Moonta are known as the copper triangle or “Copper Coast” because in the 1860s that precious metal was discovered on a property where Kadina now stands. Wallaroo was created as a shipping port and was, for some 60 years, Sth Aust 2^nd largest port. Soon after, a second mine was established at Moonta thus for a while, making the area the World’s largest copper supplier.

What remains are three towns just 12 km from each other, and each full of old stone buildings both commercial and housing, that are just so picture perfect.

While the Copper Coast was magic to look at, it did have a significant weakness – the bloody weather.  What happened to Spring? Why was the wind so constantly blowing from the Antarctic?  For the first time in 12 months I had to wear long trousers.

After four quite busy days, we hitched up and moved 160km further south to Edithburgh at the ‘heel’ of Yorke Peninsular. Here we had a thriving metropolis of 400 people in a quaint little historic port town that was once one of Australia’s largest grain exporters. It’s once great jetty is now used by fisherfolk.  It proved to be an almost ideal base for us to explore this now quiet and interesting peninsular. While at Edithburgh we took the opportunity to do the 80km trip across to the Innes National Park located on the ‘toe’ of the Yorke.  We found an absolute gem. There is only one small community at Marion Bay, and then an awesome coast with wild seas, great cliffs, shipwrecks, amazing wildflowers, and so many baby emus that we lost count. Once more we discovered a lost industry. 90% of Australia’s gypsum used to be mined around Marion Bay, but the plunder is now completed and nature is recapturing it for itself.  And, yes, we also found a new plush housing estate on the Marion headland with homes of great size and splendour – who buys these things?

After 9 days on the peninsula, we hitched up and moved across to the south of Adelaide. It seems odd that it is only 50km across the water of the Spencers Gulf, but 280km by road. Initially the road was fairly bumpy and undulating making things a bit slow, but after we went around the top and headed south, things changed to ‘great’. Flat, straight, wide, all the way into Adelaide.

Our park is located right on Christies Beach about 25 km south of the CBD, but only 2km from a huge shopping mall (and 10km from McLaren Vale wineries).

We went to the movies on our first day here, and seen “Cowboys and Aliens” which was quite enjoyable – never gonna win any awards, but great light entertainment. Day two was washing day for Shirl, while I took ‘Tom’ Cruiser up to the local Toyota dealer for a service.

On the Saturday, we travelled down to Goolwa which is where the Murray River joins the sea. What a great little town (and new large, expensive housing estate) with lots of old buildings and a long history.  A few years ago there was a long series of court actions aimed at preventing a bridge being built across to Hindmarsh Island, and thus impinging upon the site of “secret women’s business” for the local indigenous population. The bridge was eventually built, and if there were any such sites, they would now be buried under ...... you guessed it, a huge – make that bloody huge – marina and canal estate that, judging by the size of the boats, and the brands of the cars, is a long way from a working class area.

 Murray Mouth - behind the 4x4s (bet they'll have a rust problem)

I guess they don't want people to go to the beach!

It was really special to stand about 150 metres away on the area directly opposite the mouth of the Murray and watch the waves break on the beach, followed by the water surging in and out the mouth. A feeling of awe overcame us as we looked at what was the final fling of this great waterway, as it completed its journey from the slopes of Mt Kosciusko. Although if you sought to trace the waters greatest length, you would find that you needed to go to far off Queensland.

After we returned to town and had a bite to eat, we followed the other bank of the river down to the barrages which are 8 km upstream from the mouth. These are really fascinating in how they are used to stop the salt water flowing upriver.  In the 1930s, after 100 years of agriculture along the Murray, the flow at the mouth had dropped such that salt water now spread some 250 kilometres upstream and made the river useless for farming. Thus a solution was needed. The barrages are really a very low dam across the river that holds the fresh water at just a small, tiny, wee bit above sea level, and as either salt or fresh rises or falls, they add or remove big concrete panels to keep it just right. It’s ironic that the solution fixed the squeaky wheel, and allowed even greater plunder of the river’s resources such that even after the floods of the last two years, only 27% of the water reaches the mouth.

Standing on a Barrage in the middle of the Murray - this is one of the concrete blocks they drop into the barrage (see slot behind it.)

Next stop was Victor Harbour where we had hoped to go for a ride on the horse drawn tram along the 600 metre wooden causeway to Granite Island. However, it was out of use while they were doing some major upgrade works – bugger.  Not to be beaten, we went to the whale museum instead.

Yet again we were totally discombobulated by the plethora of new expensive homes being built.  We know why the Queenslanders are having trouble finding tradesmen to rebuild things after the floods and cyclones – they’re all in South Oz building great big McMansions around Marinas!

As we drove ‘home’ via the long scenic route that included Cape Jervois, we commented that the Fleurieu Peninsula is indeed, a damn fine bit of beautiful country.

Sunday. What can you do to keep yourself entertained on a Sunday?  Well, if you’re only 10km away from McLaren Vale wine district, you could go there. So we did.

Great wines, great lunch: all round great day.

Yesterday, Monday was our “Adelaide” day where we drove into town via a convoluted criss-cross route. The homes in the older suburbs are truly magnificent with their stone walls and slate roofs. Rather than knock ‘em down and rebuild a modern disaster, they have retained and maintained whole suburbs of these glorious homes. And, when you go to the old working class suburbs, you find the same approach. Street after street of stone built cottages, and each of them in good knick.

Another glorious feature in Adelaide (actually all of South Aust), is the vast number of 100 year old stone pubs. Everyone one of them would be a great place to have a beer, or four. Perhaps one of the better examples is found at Largs Pier – see photo.

Largs Pier Pub

18th September 2011 - Edithburgh

I’ll bet the above heading has you all grabbing for your aussie atlas. Be patient, and we’ll get to it.

Coober Pedy is somewhat of an enigma in that first impressions are not too good but before long, they do grow on you.  There are limited supermarkets (an IGA and a ‘no name’), only one bank (which says a lot about the pathological financial secrecy of the citizens), and very limited other typical town type shops.  This weakness is more than made up by the unending supply of opal cutting and trading shops, all of which Shirl tried to visit.

We decided to take a town tour which proved to be an absolute winner – without it, we’d still be wandering around trying to work out how the place operates. The real deal opal fields were the first place we visited and it was amazing: just the place to film a movie about the end of the World.

The Breakaways - set of numerous movies (Priscilla, Red Planet, Mad Max)

 Open Cut, after normal underground run out.

 Dug-Out business and homes.

 There are warning signs everywhere you go both in town and around it.  The local saying is that if you see a mound of dirt, there will be a mine shaft behind it, and if you don’t see a mound, there will most likely be a shaft there.  Given the temperature range at Coober, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find that more than 65% of homes are underground (locals call them dug-outs).  They range from the small 2 bedroom model, up to at least one which is over 80 squares in size.  They are really quite practical in that if you have an addition to the family, just grab your tools and dig out another bedroom. And best of all, nil heating or cooling costs as they remain at a constant 23 to 25 degrees.

 Even the churches are dug-outs, with the Serbian church being the standout winner as the most impressive. All machine dug and completed within 2 weeks.

Serbian Church

With the nature of the country, sport can be a bit problematical as their golf course shows. It should be noted that the Coober Pedy golf Club is the only one in the world that has reciprocal rights with the famous St Andrews of Scotland. Think about that:  for the cost of an annual membership at Coober Pedy ($100) you can play lots of games at St Andrews!!!!!.

 Greens (Blacks?) and Fairways

A Tee  -  not all are this flat, some are elevated.

The second tour that we did was the 577km day trip with ‘the Oodnadatta Mailman’. He does this 12 hour trip twice per week and takes 13 passengers in his 4x4 OKA bus and tows a heavy trailer behind. It should be noted that apart from the main street of Oodnadatta & William Creek, which total less than 1 km, it is all on gravel roads: 500km of this is corrugated.  Along the way he (Peter Rowe)  goes through the famous dingo fence (longest fence in the World), and also pops into various properties to deliver the mail. It’s quite funny to watch all the passengers run for, and then line up for the toot at each of these stops. Lunch is taken at the thriving metropolis of Oodnadatta where you have the chance to try the famous Oodnaburger. Neither of us tried it, so we can’t say what was in it, or how it tasted. However, we can report that the evening meals at William Creek Pub was great – a menu and cuisine that wouldn’t be out of place at a quality city restaurant, and this is served up at one of Australia’s most remote pubs. Between these two meal stops we dropped into a number of properties, including Anna Creek; Australia’s largest property at 24,000 square kilometres and running 18,000 cattle. We expected to find a large mansion there, but instead found an old stone home of far less generous proportions.

Main Homestead of World's largest cattle station

 Watch the Traffic !!!  Main Street of Oodnadatta

 Oodnadatta Movie Theatre

William Creek Pub

A fair boast (enlarge the photo) 

A few days before leaving Coober Pedy the wind arrived, and despite our hopes, retained its vigour beyond our departure. Pushing into the wind really hurt our fuel consumption despite dropping the speed down below 80 kph.  Luckily we had only planned a short run to Woomera so the slow speed wasn’t important.

The next day we moved on to Port Augusta where we were able to replenish the pantry and fridge, and get to see reasonable diesel prices. A couple of amusing signs adorn the exit roads from Port A – if you head west, about a km out of the CBD is the junction of the Eyre & Stuart highways where the big green sign reads:  “Darwin: Northern Territory” and “Perth: Western Australia”.  Meanwhile if you head south, you come to a sign reading “Sydney: via Broken Hill”. Surely this must make Port Augusta the ultimate intersection?

We are now at the very heel of the Yorke Peninsula in the very small town of Edithburgh and camped right on the water facing the Gulf of St Vincent. I’ll leave the report of our trip from Port Augusta to here for our next post.



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.