Broome Broome.....

30 odd degrees, blue skies, crystal clear water, white sand and some of the best looking sunsets yet. Yep that sound like an add for Broome tourist centre, but that's what it is like. We have extended our stay by a couple of days just to enjoy it a bit more. during our stay here we have taken a trip to Cape Leveque about 200 ks up the Dampier Peninsular, 100ks of red dirt and sand and then 100ks of bitumen. We pulled into Beagle Bay (for those who read Di Morrissey, her book "Tears of the Moon" talks about a mission with a chapel that is lined with mother of pearl. The chapel has an alter of mother of pearl -


SACRED HEART CHURCH - BEAGLE BAY

At Cape Leveque we stayed at KooljaminWilderness Camp - we left the van at Broome and stayed in a tent - yes that's right Gaila stayed in a tent - well the tent did have a floor, and power, not quite "ruffing it"


'RUFFING IT' - CAPE LEVEQUE

The coast line at Cape Leveque is incredible, the magnificent crystal clear blue water, the brilliant white sand and the red pindan cliffs, a magnificent contrast of colours.



PINDAN CLIFFS - CAPE LEVEQUE WEST BEACH

Back in Broome after our little side trip we headed out on a whale watching cruise, to get to the boat we headed down to the beach and there to greet us was a thing called "Sea Legs" - a rigid inflatable boat with retractable legs that could drive on the sand, very natty. Anyway onto the boat and out about 13 miles and we were eventually joined by a 7 mt young whale, very curious -

HAVING A WHALE OF A TIME

The last couple of mornings in Broome have been interesting - we awoke to hear what we thought was rain on the roof of the van, only to find that the fog had gathered on the leaves of the tree and was dripping like rain and the dew was like what all you lot down in the colder climes are suffering. But by 9.30 all is clear and 30 odd degrees (not like you lot down south)

CABLE BEACH

We are at the end of our time in Broome and tomorrow we are heading off and we are heading east, (that's right east) and head over through Central Queensland. We have decided to leave the SW corner until we do our trip on the Outback Way (from Ayres Rock to Kalgoolie)

GO WEST YOUNG MAN

Hi all, we have reached Fitzroy Crossing. Since leaving Katherine we have visited (in no particular order) Bungle Bungles, El Questsro, Wyndham, Lake Argyle and Kununurra.

The Kimberley region is truly magnificent, half way between Katherine and the WA boarder there is an instant change in the landscape. We had two pleasant nights on the road at cheap camp sites ($6.60 a night) before we hit the WA border (those pesty little fruit fly inspectors didn't get us this time). About 40 ks past the border is the town of Kununurra, the heart of the Ord River irrigation scheme. Kununurra itself would be a livable place, reasonable services and shopping. It boasts the oldest distillery in WA, we tried the rum, forget it, the white rum has the characteristics of a very bad white spirits, one of the dark rums (won second prize in San Francisco) was only marginally better. The lady behind the bar seemed to take offence when I asked what the second prize was for (I thought maybe paint stripping), third one was the coffee chocolate liqueur rum, the better of the three but needless to say they did not receive any of hard earned cash. While in Kununurra we caught up with some friends who are working in the area and spent the Sunday at Lake Argyle with them. What a place, the lake was formed when the Ord River was dammed in the early '70s, it covers about 1000 sq ks.

LAKE ARGYLE POOL

After our day trip to Lake Argyle we decided to have a few days out there after Kununurra. While we were at Kununurra we headed out onto the Gibb River Road to visit El Questro. As you have have probably seen on a variety of travel shows El Questro if pretty flash for a cattle station with some great scenery. We started our visit with a small walk to Zebedee Hot Springs, we do love our hot springs. The view from Saddle back Ridge Lookout (4WD Lo Range with water crossing - Gaila coped well after the initial "are we going up there?") was really worth the drive. We included visits to Jackaroo's Waterhole and Moonshine Gorge


ZEBEDEE HOT SPRINGS

 

MOONSHINE GORGE

 We enjoyed our visit to Kununurra and headed out to Lake Argyle for a few days. As I said before Lake Argyle is huge, I have heard that more water evaporates each day from it than is used in the irrigation system. We decided to blow the budget and take a cruise on the Kimberley Cat, a rather large sailing cat, it was a great day sailing the Lake. We visited an island in the centre of the lake that is a mining lease for Zebra Stone. Zebra Stone is a silt stone with layers that when cut and polished resembles zebra hide. So the deal was we were allowed to take one piece each, we will see how it looks when we finish our travels.


SUNSET ON LAKE ARGYLE

Lake Argyle was a great place to visit, the staff were mainly silly old buggers like us who are on the journey and have picked up a couple of months work as they go around. Lake Argyle was another place that asked you to drop the water out of your tanks and to wash your van and car, saves them having to put the sprinklers on, slowly getting used to the use of water up here, particularly after so many years of drought down south. Any way the van and car got a wash and the tanks refilled with fresh water.

The Bungle Bungles were next on the itinerary, it amazing to think that until the early '80s they remained an unknown wonder to the world. The story goes that an ABC documentary team was filming in and around Kununurra for a show on the "wonders of WA". The team met a chopper pilot in the pub at Kununurra and after some talking he said you ought to see what we have on our cattle station. Next day the pilot takes the crew to the area now known as the Bungle Bungles and the rest is history. The reason no one knew about it was that it had always been a part of private Pastoral Lease. We stayed about 1k off the Northern Highway at the Bungle Bungle Caravan Park. The park is on Mable Downs Station and has been opened for about 12 months and I found out later that they also own the Kimberly Cat at Lake Argyle. Guess what, we blew the budget again and took a 4WD bus trip into the park, well worth it. Two and a half hours on the bus into the park to the "beehives". There were a couple of walks for us to do from there, but we chose just to go into Cathedral Gorge, not a really hard walk but was very warm. Boy what an amazing piece of nature, words and pictures really do not do it justice, after a walk along a dry creek bed around a bend and you are face with a huge amphitheatre surrounded by 200mt high cliffs. After lunch we headed to the other end of the park to Echidna Chasm, a different type of rock formation to Cathedral Gorge. The walk took us along a dry creek bed of river stones for about 1k and in places the walls were not much more than shoulder width apart (yes I know with shoulders as wide as mine there would be plenty of room).


CATHEDRAL GORGE



ECHIDNA CHASM

ECHIDNA CHASM

So on to Fitzroy after 3 nights at Mary Pool, a free camp site on the Mary River. A word of warning for those planning to travel to Fitzroy Crossing - bring your own alcohol. Arrived at the caravan park and asked the manager what time the bottle shop opened. He told me that because of the licencing rules in Fitzroy Crossing that you can buy any take away you like as long as it is Hahn Light Beer, if you want a nice bottle of "Chardy" you can have Hahn Light and the pub was opened at noon. So off to the pub we go, (an interesting place) asked for the price of the takeaway beer, $57 for a slab, $34 for a dozen and $25 for a six pack - light beer I can cope with, but not at that price. Looks like we have a couple of alcohol free days until we reach Derby.

All Roads Lead To Katherine - Twice (Part 2)

See I told you all I would be back today. Something I forgot to mention yesterday about when we were visiting Douglas Daly Hot Springs. Just that you really do come across some different people doing what we are. There was a bloke there that spent all his time in string bikini bottoms - not a good look, worse than Tony Abbott in his "budgie smugglers". Even first thing in the morning he would have on a lumber jacket and his string bikini - weird eh.
So we have left Litchfield and headed to Darwin, we had a few days to relax, have the car serviced - $1300 the poorer, off to Mendil markets. We went to Mendil 5 years ago when we were last in Darwin, I don't think it was nearly as good, other than the variety of food stalls it was just like any other market around.
After our few days in Darwin we headed south again to Katherine so that we can do a right turn and go west. While at Katherine we went did a breakfast cruise on Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge. A truly magnificent place, the sheer size and to think that during the wet season the water is about 7 meters higher than they are at the moment (about one third of the way up the gorge wall). That is one hell of a lot of water.


After our few days back in Katherine we are getting ready for our journey westward. Our first stop will be Kununurra but before hand we are stewing apples and making vegetable soup. WA is not keen on letting fruit and veg or honey into their state.

Sorry about the crazy layout but this thing has a mind of its own. Until next time stay safe.

All Roads Lead To Katherine - Twice (Part 1)

Here we are some 3 weeks since my last episode (it appears that my fingers have healed), time sure does get away from you when you are retired. Since the Daly Waters Pub we headed to Mataranka Springs Homestead, this area was used in the filming of the 1950's film "Jedda" and the 1980's film "We of The Never Never" and the hot (well warm anyway) springs. Rainbow Spring flows through the pool at the rate of 30.5 million litres per day, that's a lot of spring water. The water that comes out of Rainbow Spring is so clear that it was impossible to judge the depth of the pool.

RAINBOW SPRING

During our stay here I took a side trip out to Roper Bar about 175ks out from Mataranka on the Savannah Way. The Savannah Way is an iconic road that goes from Cairns to Broome via Normanton, Burketown and the Gibb River Road (a trip we would like to do another time with more suitable equipment).

ROPER BAR

After Mataranka we headed to Katherine for a couple of days to stock on supplies etc., before going to Douglas Daly Hot Springs. Now they were hot springs. The camp area was in the National Park at the outrageous cost of $13.20 per night. A nice camping ground and although the Hot Springs weren't that deep they were certainly very warm. There are to water courses that flow and join up, one being hot and the other quite cool, so you would plonk your self down in the hot spring to par cook and the scurry over a small sand hill and cool off in the other stream. Very nice indeed. There was plenty of wildlife in the area - they told us later that there was a fresh water croc upstream - none too happy about that, they tell us that they won't attack humans - I would prefer not to tempt them. Plenty of birds of prey in the area.                                         

WHISTLING KYTE - MEAL TIME

Our next port of call was Adelaide River, a lovely little town on the highway, a really nice caravan park, but it has a couple of claims to fame and they are that it was a major evacuation point during the bombing of Darwin during WW2 and consequently there is a War Cemetery there, the ages of those killed was quite sad. The other claim is that it is the resting place of "Charlie" - who is Charlie I hear you ask. Charlie was the Water Buffalo from Crocodile Dundee, he has pride of place on the bar of the Adelaide River Pub.

"CHARLIE"

Getting closer to Darwin now, but we head off to Litchfield National Park for a few days. Litchfield has some good water falls and swimming areas - away from the "salties" and some good 4WD tracks. One of the good ones took you out to Blyth Homestead and it include a couple of minor creek crossings and one out to the area called the lost city (full of corrugations - my hands have not long stopped shaking, but well worth the drive), a collection of stone out crops that look like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.


THE LOST CITY

Part 2 will come tomorrow - I promise

FLORENCE FALLS

Week 18 Devils Marbles, Banka Banka, Newcastle Waters Daly Waters.

We camped for 2 night at Devils Marbles after leaving Alice Springs and staying one night a a roadside rest area. Devils Marbles is a very popular camping spot, we arrived at about 1.30 and we were lucky to get a spot, there would have been about 20 or so caravans, campers, motorhomes, buses and fifth wheelers.   Devils Marbles are (you are going to get bored with this) an amazing formation, in particular just before sunrise they take on an ethereal red glow, beatiful.

 The only wild life sighted was a lone Dingo, he would wander through the camp at any time of the day or night, showing no fear and not really careing about much at all, other than on the second morning it took an interest in one of the campers' little dog, oh well it missed out on the feed.

THE DINGO TOOK ........

SUN RISE ON THE MARBLES

Seeing this rock formation, you ask your self how the hell do they stay there?

LOOK MUM NO CEMENT

After our couple of nights we headed off and planning to stay at Banka Banka Outstation. Banka Banka was in years past a cattle station which had an area for visiting caravanners. The station has been purchase by the Aboriginal Land Corporation, their plan is to turn it back into a cattle station and use it as a training facitity to train young Aboriginals in the workings of a cattle station. They plan to keep the caravan park as well and I assume that they will also be trained in that. Bank Banka is a little green oasis in the middle of red dirt and dust, supplied with and never ending supply of spring water. The manager encourages you to empty your water tanks to help water the grass and to fill up with spring water, you are also encouraged to wash you vehicles to help keep the grass in good nick. Happy hour was usually held behind the bar (licenced) where they had a large fire pit, a few hours of pleasent conversation with other travellers was had there.

BANKA BANKA STATION

Following our couple of nights at Banka Banka we headed off towards Daly Waters Pub, on the way we decided that we would have a free night at Newcastle Waters. This free stop appeared very popular, so we were lucky to get a spot. We arrived around 1.30 and there was probably 10 vans etc in by then, but by 3.00 the place was chockers, about 30 vans, motorhomes etc had set up for the night. We had a fifth wheeler pull up next to us and after setting up the wife decider to go for a walk in the bush behind the stop - luckiy she took a 2 way radio with her. She had lost sight of the vans and didn't have a bloddy clue where she was, after some time of stumbling around we could hear her talking over and above the 2 way. Her husband told her to turn off her radio and to follow his voice because she was so close to the rest stop. She managed to stumble her way into camp and her husband said that her directional awareness was hopeless, turn her around twice in a shopping centre and she's buggared. Anyway Newcastle Waters itself is a cattle station and has a memorial to the drovers how lost their lives droving in the Territory in particular out of the Newcastle Waters area.

NEWCASTLE WATERS

So we finally make the infamous Daly Waters Pub, reasonable caravan park, $24 per night with power and water (plenty of water, empty your tanks and refill with our great water). The pub is well known for its interior decor, knickers and bras hung over the rafters and cash stapled to the walls. The pub is a territoy institution for its meals, the specialty of the house is "Barra" and Beef, at $27.50 a head although it was nice it was a little over priced. They do about 14,000 a season, so with the attached caravan park which they put about 90 vans a night for the season. Thats before you start adding up the beer sales - of which there was plenty, not a bad earner. There was entertainment every night, firstly from 4.30 to 7.30 was a girl playing the sax - her act was called "Sax and the Single Girl". She was really good, played all sorts of music, from rock and roll to ballards, she was folloewed by "Chilli", he sang and told stories and "took the pi.." out of anyone in particular - very entertaining and humerous, a lot of old jokes but very good. after Daly Waters we are heading off to Mataranka Springs Homestead for a week of R&R, this is very exhausting you know.

DALY WATERS PUB

Weekl 17 No Town Like Alice

Alice Springs is not a town that really grabbed us, however we were both really impressed the the set up the School of the Air, so impressed that we are considering doing some relief out station tutoring - we will see how that pans out. Anyway back to the important stuff, we took a trip out to Hermansberg Mission, this was the place that Albert Namatjira was born and developed his magnificent skills as a water colour painter, seeing the landscape you can see how someone with the talent could do such magnificent paintings. on the same day that we visited the mission we took a trip to Palm Valley. As we turned onto the road there was a sign describing the road - you know the type, 4WD vehicles only, 22kls and expected travel time of 3 hours return. So after deflating the tyres a little we headed off, as you know Gaila is not too keen on 4WD'ing however I think the scenery distracted her sufficiently so as not to complain about the road/track too much. The track followed the Finke River, crossing it numerous time and driving along the river course it self (it was dry). The hills surrounding the road was brilliant, it looked like huge bricks had been laid. To get to Palm Valley you travelled through the Cycad Grove, a area of magnificent ancient Cycad plants. Scientists have estimated the age of these Cycads between 200 and 300 hundred years old, some of them were here before ol' Jimmy Cook discovered our fair land.The Palm Valley was still some way off and the was getting a little rougher but all credit to Gaila, she coped well with the bouncing around, but it was really worth it when we arrived, it was truly stunning.

I took a walk around the rim of the valley, truly incredible, again photos do not do the spectacular scenery justice, it just goes to show how small we are in this world of ours. The way that the landscape and vegetation adapts to the conditions is amazing, next to each other on the rim walk were two groups of trees, one group were native fig trees, they are usually found up in the tropics and the other group were white Cyprus pine, they are usually in the south of the country, they were there when the landscape was very different and over the eons of time they have adapted to the climate of the area.
The following day Gaila decided to stay at the van while I visited both Standley Chasm and Simpsons Gap. This prooved to be an expensive day, $8 for Standley Chasm and a new camera for simpsons Gap, yep that's right I stuffed my camera, the only made steps on both walks and I trip over the, drop the camera, rear screen busted, no so bad as I could have used the veiw finder, however, the two chips on the lense tended to put two soft focus spots on the picture.



STANDLEY CHASM

SIMPSONS GAP

PALM VALLEY



CYCAD GROVE











Week 16 - Yulara, Uluru and Kata Tjuta

It's another Thursday morning and it's time to hit the road. We are heading off to Ayres Rock (Uluru) and The Olgas (Kata Tjuta). Today we are only travelling about 300 to 400 ks and we will stop at one of the many rest spots on the way. Travelling up the Stuart Highway Gaila and I were both amazed at the amount of vegetation evident, far more than we had been expecting. It really showed the great seasons they have had in the area over the past couple of years. We pulled in for the night a Agnes Creek rest area about 50 to 60 ks from the NT boarder. A large area with some shade and a few already set up for the night or even longer. We joined a couple who pulled up near us for the obligatory happy hour and discovered that they spent the majority of their time on the road. They have a base in Howlong but most of the time they travel, they have a small business that they operate on the road - Electrical Tagging and testing. they do it all over the place, Darwin, Alice Springs, cattle stations in western Queensland down through Wagga Wagga, all over the place. We had a pleasant evening with them swapping stories of our travels etc.
The following morning we headed of towards Yulara, but our plan was to spent another night on the road somewhere along Lasseter Highway. Our second night was spent at Curtin Springs, a roadhouse and camping area about 85 ks from Yulara. They unpowered camping was free or $25 for a powered site, we went unpowered. While travelling the highway to Curtin Springs you come over a rise and there off in the distance to you left is the 300 mt high Mt Connor - a truly awesome sight.


MT CONNOR

The following morning we headed off for Yulara - Ayres Rock Resort Campground. I don't know if it was an optical illusion or not but the road always seemed to be going up, beats me. Again just over a rise there came into view Uluru - the deep red of its sandstone really standing out in the surrounding landscape and blue sky.
Just behind the campsite was a lookout that gave a 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape. We were treated to a great view of "The Rock", "The Olgas"and a pleasant sunset.

As magnificent as "The Rock" is The Olgas are a truly magnificent sight, the closer you get the more breath taking they become. I remember seeing photos taken many years ago (I was probably in 6th grade) by a very close friend of my parents and although you sort of knew the the Rock was big you didn't appreciate the magnificence and sheer size of The Olgas. I think I preferred The Olgas.

It was really worth the extra 50k drive to get right to them.

On our second day we went into the "Park" $25/head for a 3 day pass. Heading off to The Olgas, the walk through one of the gorges was almost reverential in a way, the sense of the place was quite mystical, it felt like the place spoke to you.

We joined the throng of people for the sunset viewing of "The Rock" and it showed some of the different colours the she is famous for, Gaila chose not to join me on the sunrise viewing, again I joined the throng of people, it was OK but nothing too spectacular.

SUNSET

SUNSET

The cultural centre at Uluru gave a very informative and interesting indigenous history of the area and the clans and tribes that used Uluru as their place of ceremony, we joined a guided tour of one of the areas of "The Rock" that was used by the Mala people for ceremony and that gave us a really good insight to a small part of the culture and customs.

One of the waterholes at the base of Uluru, the one is at the end of the Mala walk at the base of Kantju Gorge. This was obviously a very special place for the Mala people, however they never took water for themselves from here, this was left for the animals, they would wait for the animal to have its drink and when it was leaving the waterhole they would then hunt them. The Mala people took their water from soaks some distance away from the waterhole. This always ensured that they had good hunting in the area.

One of the many Wedgetail Eagles that we have seen since since Wilpena Pound. This one was on the road from Yalara to Alice Springs. To get this photo we had to creep along the road verge so that it would not scared off, they are truly magnificent birds.

Tomorrow we head off to Alice Springs, about 440ks away. Today I filled the main and aux fuel tanks at $2.13/lt, $235. Luckily we filled up at the resort, on our way in Curtin Springs was $2.30/lt. In this vast country you really do use the fuel. Since leaving Bairnsdale in December last year we have used about 2,900lts, travelling about 20,800kl (about 9,400k towing the van), costing approx $4,600 at about 13.9lts/100kl or about 20mpg and you know what it has been worth every cent of it..



 

WEEK 14 AND 15 - PT AUGUSTA, WOOMERA AND COOBER PEDY

Well here we are heading to Port August from Wilpena Pound, again a cold morning but with expectation that the temperature will climb to a pleasant level. We travelled through Hawker onto Quorn for morning tea. A very nice cafe serving Devonshire teas using Quondong jam (you guessed it, yummo, that’s for me). Just outside Quorn we entered the Pichi Richi Pass and the fuel light came on – I knew I should have put some fuel in at Quorn. Anyway we motor on towards Port Augusta and reach Stirling North, that will do, and I’ll fuel up here.  Main tank full, aux tank full and 2 jerry cans full, $235 later and we are good to go.
At Port Augusta we stayed at Central Augusta Footy Club, $7 a night with water, they averaged 15 vans/motor homes a night. Not a bad little earner for them. We stayed in Port Augusta of 3 nights (we plan to stay longer when we come back from the West), visited the native botanical gardens and Mathew Flinders Lookout (the Red Cliffs). The lookout over looked the top of Spencers Gulf, lots of bird life and dolphins having a good feed.
Onto Woomera for 4 nights, what an interesting place if you like missiles and the like. The park was used to be the senior officers’ compound. There were three barrack buildings reminiscent of the ones I slept in in days gone by and where the caravans were parked there used to be 3 bedroom homes for the married officers, long since demolished. Roxby Downs is about 85ks from Woomera, a green oasis in the middle of dust and dirt . Certainly a company town, I think what BHP says goes. After lunch at the Sports club (certainly not the best steak sandwich we have ever had) we drove out to Andamooka, an old Opal mining town. I believe that they still get a reasonable quantity of quality opals out of the ground. We visited a couple of stores, one was ok the other a little dodgy in appearance. There are some of the original dugouts opened for the public to view – certainly not the mod-con s that we are used to and very rough.


ANDAMOOKA DUGOUT

On the way back to Woomera we stopped at the Woomera cemetery, what a sad place. The amount of baby and still born graves was very sad. One can only imagine the causes.
On the Wednesday, the day before we were leaving to head off to Coober Pedy I was reversing the car into its parking spot and clipped a tree with the passenger side mirror frame. Now the mirror frame hooks over the door and the window slides up and down next to it. The frame twisted and the window shattered. Now being in Woomera there are not too many services available, a quick call to Pt Augusta, a window was organised for the following morning and they would install it at 8am. So up at 5.30, move the van because our site was booked and I didn’t know what time I would be back to pick it up. 180ks to the repairer, one and a half hours to kill while they fixed it and 180ks back to Woomera to pick up the van and Gaila and then 365ks to Coober Pedy, it certainly made for a long day, us old retirees don’t like going more than 400ks at a time.

COOBER PEDY
As you drive through the country side you are confronted by this landscape like we had never really encountered before, sure we had been to Andamooka but that did not prepare us for the foreign landscape before us. For miles around there were mullock heaps and generally where there was a mullock heap there was a mineshaft. Once a shaft had been sunk by law you are not allowed to back fill them, you see because a lot of the mine tunnels become interconnected and therefore if there is a collapse in the mine then by back filling the shafts you could very well be sealing off any escape route and then consigning that miner to his or her death.
We took the obligatory tourist trip around town, visiting an underground church (underground buildings stay around 24 degrees c at all times - good in summer when it is approx 50 degrees c), the golf course (different), visit to the mine fields and so on. We also visited an underground home; this home was owned by a lady by the name of Faye Naylor, she purchased this property in 1962 when all it was was an underground garage built in the early ‘20s, she and 3 lady friends in their spare time dug out by hand a three bedroom home. Faye later had a swimming pool built which after a couple of summers had a room built around it to prevent evaporation. Faye had one of the first tourist businesses in Coober Pedy and after some 20 odd years she sold up and moved to Qld where she bought a pub, apparently she has retired and is living a healthy life in Brisbane. I believe that she is about 85 years old.


FAYE NAYLOR'S LOUNGE ROOM - WHY THE FIRE?

THE PAINTED DESERT

YOU GUESSED IT - THE PINK ROADHOUSE

We had planned to take a drive to William Creek and take a flight over Lake Eyre, after speaking to a couple who had done that a day or so earlier and said that the flight they took only went over Lake Eyre North and that there was very little water to be seen that we decided not to take the flight.
I know I said previously that we only like to drive less than 400ks a day, but we headed off on a two day adventure.

We left the van at Coober Pedy and headed for Oodnadatta, the home of The Pink Roadhouse (currently for sale for around $1,000,000). Our drive took us through the Dog Fence, on to The Painted Desert and then to Oodnadatta. The landscape is something to behold, the Moon Plain and the colours of the Painted Desert were magnificent, plenty of photos taken but they do not do it justice. Not only that but we got rain in the desert, just enough to dampen the dust and firm up the road. That day we covered about 240ks on dirt road. We had tea at the Roadhouse, bought a few bits and pieces and hit the rack. The following morning after much discussion it was decided that we head off to William Creek and then on to Lake Eyre South (we were told that you could see the water from the road). Travelling the Oodnadatta Track was a great experience, the road was in really great condition and far better than some of the bitumen roads that we have travelled on since we started our travels. I’m glad that I didn’t have to fill up with fuel at either Oodnadatta or William Creek it was $2.27 and $2.30 respectively, I suppose we will see worse prices in times to come.

WILLIAM CREEK HOTEL - INTERESTING DECOR

 

LAKE EYRE SOUTH

We reached Lake Eyre and it was a spectacular sight, the water was about 500mts from the lookout so I can just imagine the sight of it in full flood. Travelling the Track was amazing, we saw everything from a bloke on a pushbike, numerous 4WD with and without caravans and campers, a full size tourist bus, a few campervans and motor homes to half a dozen semi trailers, so as you can see it is a very popular road to travel. Gaila and I would really love to see more of this road, not this time but maybe in a couple of years we will do all of it and link into the Birdsville Track.
Today (Wednesday) we went out to an area called The Breakaways, (for all of you Priscilla Queen of the Desert tragics, some of it was filmed here) again magnificent scenery, similar to the Painted Desert, my photos just don’t do it justice.

THE BREAKAWAYS

An interesting thing about Coober Pedy, the water here is some of the best in the country; the locals pay about $5 per kilolitre. It is source from an artesian basin, put through a desalination plant and reverse osmosis filter plant and it is crystal clear, we cannot hook up to water at the van park so I have been filling up two 20ltr jerry cans at the outrageous cost of $0.20c for the lot, small price to pay.
Tomorrow we head off for Ayres Rock, staying two nights on the road, so stay safe and we will catch ya later.