Thursday 28 April 2016

Entry 6 - Mataranka


28/4/16

We were travelling through the vast areas of the Australian outback, which requires some long distance driving between highlights with little to see between.
Old wind mill
We had become somewhat unaccustomed to the requirement of long stretches of driving and both found driving tiring where we found ourselves regularly changing drivers and stopping a couple of times a day for a power nap. A typical example when we left Banka Banka we only lasted 27 minutes before we both decided we had already had enough driving for the day. 

Eventually we made it to Daly Waters Pub which was a ramshackle sort of place abuzz with lots of people.

Daly Waters Pub without bra or undies donations from me
It felt a bit too crowded for us and we continued driving for a little while till we found a quiet spot off the side of the road for the night. We do enjoy time by ourselves which we are not expecting to experience that often the further north we get. 

Our next stopover was at Mataranka where we stayed in a caravan park next to the Elsey National Park with its main attraction the Mataranka Thermal Pool, about 150 metre walk from our caravan site. The air temperature was about 33 C with the water temperature at 34 C, it was a beautiful setting and we immersed our bodies for 1 ½ hours the first day. We got out of the water with wrinkly clean bodies. All the ground in dirt that we had been trekking through over the last few weeks had disappeared.


Mataranka Thermal Pool
It felt every bit as good as it looked
There was no smell or oily feel to the water which appeared to be crystal clear. It was truly a delightful experience.

Entry 5 - Catching up with a primary school friend


26/4/16

Our next stopover was at Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve, a collection of gigantic rounded granite boulders. We walked around viewing the magical landscape of granite boulders. We could understand a setting of this nature to be of special significance to the aboriginal people.
Our visit to Devils Marbles 2011

Our visit to Devils Marbles 2016

Devils Marbles

Devils Marbles

Devils Marbles

Devils Marbles


Next stopover was at Tennant Creek where we stayed for three nights with Mary’s primary school friend Sandra & husband Robert. We spent most of our time at their home having a wow of a time socialising. The girls had a sensational time coming up with different ideas for meals and some wow factor sweets. Their two adult kids were constantly checking in to assess the days proposed meal ideas and somehow allocated time to arrive just at meal time (including lunch & tea) before disappearing again. For some exercise we did get up early one morning for the Anzac dawn service 25/4/2016.

Robert, Mary & Sandra

Jam & Cream match sticks

Vanilla Slice


 Our final day at Tennant Creek we decided on one last midday meal bash – leftovers, where Robert came home for lunch from work but unfortunately Sandra got unexpectedly tied up at work and we eventually resumed our travels around 12.30 pm. After driving about 100 kilometres we pulled into Banka Banka, a station stay, feeling rather exhausted from the last few days activities and we both immediately lapsed into an afternoon siesta.



And we spent the next couple of days without an urge to consume much food at all.

Thursday 21 April 2016

Entry 4 - Rainbow Valley


21/4/16 

It was back to days of driving with those special locations far apart with little to see other than the flat plains of central Australia. We regularly changed drivers and stopped for a power nap whenever the need aroused, naturally on the comfortable bed of our caravan. 

A pleasant night was spent at a roadside stop about 33 kilometres north of Eridunda (turn off to Uluru) then it was onto Rainbow Valley Conservation Reserve located about 100 kilometres south of Alice Springs. 

Rainbow Valley was another beautiful location with a basic camp ground provided for viewing the effects of the sunset on the cliff faces. This place had great photographic potential depending on the position of the sun and weather conditions throughout the year. It was also a great spot to relax for a couple of days to recharge our bodies before resuming the slog north.
Rainbow Valley mid afternoon

Mushroom Rock

Rainbow Valley colours changing with the setting sun

Rainbow Valley colours changing with the setting sun

Rainbow Valley campground at sunset

Rainbow Valley sunrise

Road into Rainbow Valley a bit sandy & corrogated

Rainbow Valley early afternoon
We have previously spent time exploring Alice Springs and only stopped to attend to our internet activities, restocking the pantry, fuel, having lunch at one of the clubs where we caught up with Mary’s brother Michael whom we hadn’t seen for about 10 years. It was a tiring day as our bodies were still adjusting to daytime temperatures in the low to mid 30’s. We left Alice Springs continuing north late afternoon with an overnight stop at a parking area beside the road.

 
Mary with brother Michael

Our next stop over was at Barrow Creek Pub where we obtained a powered site at $7.50 for the night which provided some nice respite in our air-conditioned caravan from the heat.

We did manage to stretch our legs walking around the old Barrow Creek Telegraph

Station opened in 1872 which was still in use up to 1980.


We shared a pub cooked “bull shit burger”, burger with the lot between us for tea with a couple of beers. Cheers everyone.
Barrow Creek Pub

Wednesday 20 April 2016

Entry 3 - What a day


16/4/16 

Hiccups galore - just in one day - pacified by some great scenery. 

After a night stopover at Pimba our aim was to travel to Coober Pedy and with a cursory glance at the map we anticipated it to be about a 250 kilometre drive.

 Well we turned onto the main road to see a sign displaying 360 kilometres to Coober Pedy. 

Oops, mistake “1”. 

There was a strong wind buffeting us, increasing our fuel consumption by about 50 percent, with our average fuel consumption of about 20 litres per 100 kilometres increasing to about 29 litres per 100 Kilometres. Our thoughts turned to questioning if we had enough fuel. 

Problem number “2”. 

It wasn’t long before a magnificent looking eagle flew up from the side of the road and we had forgotten to have the camera out at the ready. 

Oops, hiccup “3”. 

As soon as we could we stopped to get the camera out from behind the passenger’s seat which took quite some effort pushing against the wind and to top it off, we were engulfed by flies all intent to get into our eyes even with glasses on. 

Problem number “4”, bloody awful flies clouding our vision and we continued to be swamped by flies the rest of the day every time we alighted from our vehicle. “The flies just love to welcome people to outback Australia.” 

Naturally from then on we didn’t see an eagle or anything worth a photograph whilst driving. 

We arrived at Coober Pedy and drove straight to the information centre only to find it had closed at 1.00 pm, just 20 minutes prior to our arrival. It was a Saturday. 

We missed it by “that much”. 

Oops, hiccup “5”. 

Our main aim was to visit one of the publicised attractions of Coober Pedy, the “Breakaways”, which was described as colourful mounds that have risen from the desert floor. 

We spoke with an attendant at the local service station who advised that they had run out of area maps and we were provided verbal directions for the route to the Breakaways, which was about a 40 kilometre drive from Coober Pedy along a dirt road. 

About half way along the dirt road we noticed one of the caravan windows was open. An inspection showed that a window latch had snapped in half but luckily at that point in time only a small amount of dust had entered the caravan. We quickly taped the window shut and were on our way as the optimum time for viewing the breakeraways was mid to late afternoon with the setting sun which was almost upon us. 

Problem number “6”, a broken window latch. 

On seeing the Breakaways all our days’ heartaches were forgotten by the magnificent scenery and colours with the background of a beautiful blue sky. There were three main viewing areas and we were pleased that we had made the effort to drive around to each one. The views were all a little different and special in their own way. 

We spent about 2 hours gazing at the beautiful colours of the outcrops with a background of flat gibber plains of nothing ness. 

At about this time we noticed that one of Mary’s $350 hiking shoes was missing from the floor behind the passenger’s seat. We could have lost it at any one of our stops, over the day. We disconnected the caravan and travelled back about 20 kilometres to our various stops along the way but were unsuccessful in locating the shoe. 

Problem number “7”, one lost hiking shoe. 

By then the sun was long gone, it had been a long day but the beautiful scenery of the breakaways rising up from an otherwise monotonous desert landscape had pushed all our days’ hiccups into the background.
Travelled along the 5000 km long dog fence for a while







Entry 2 - Andamooka


13/4/16

 Leaving York Peninsula we headed north where our initial plan was to travel up the centre of Australia as quick as possible to the north eastern corner of Western Australia to explore while conditions were still reasonable, due to the area suffering from a not so wet, wet season.

Our first night was spent parked off the side of the road about 40 kilometres north of Port Augusta. 


Overnight camp
The main north/south highway was about 150 metres to one side of us with the train line about the same distance away on our other side, providing spasmodic noise on either side throughout the night with the occasional “surround sound” effect with road trains and goods trains passing by at the same time. 

It felt good to be travelling again. We were in such a good frame of mind that we happily chattered the time away and it didn’t seem long before we had clocked up several hundred kilometres.

 
Travelling north it wasn't long before the landscape changed

Day two and the novelty of long distant driving had already diminished. It was time for a break and we deviated off the main road to explore the mining town of Roxby Downs. Unfortunately the absence of any charisma in the township saw us moving on after a couple of hours and we made our way to Andamooka.

 Andamooka oozed with character. It was an old opal mining town with miners homes nestled on a honeycomb of underground diggings.



Campground just in front of the mounds, Andamooka
We drove around the streets viewing all the shanty shack type homes with yards full of rusty wrecked vehicles and equipment.

Sunday 10 April 2016

Entry 1 - Commencing our 2016 Travels


Our relaxing nomadic lifestyle travelling throughout Australia over the last 3 years seemed to come to an abrupt holt near the end of 2015 with the caravan being parked at home for a few months where we attended to other life things.

There was the wedding of Mary’s brother, Steve’s family get together for his parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, Christmas functions, son Timothy’s wedding with Penny when our daughter spent 3 weeks with us before flying back out to Scotland, house and caravan maintenance requirements seemed to go on and on.

It was a busy period and we longed for the return to a nomadic lifestyle exploring new places with our caravan.

1st April we recommenced our travels with our first stop over on York Peninsula South Australia a drive of about 250 kilometres to a gathering of Bushtracker caravan owners (a mini muster of about 11 caravans) hosted by Rob & Glenda in a scrub setting in one of their farm paddocks.

We thoroughly enjoyed the bush setting, with plenty of conversations and the magnetism of sharing a fire with other fellow travellers. It was an exceptionally relaxed environment enticing a calm sense of wellbeing placing us in a sound mind to commence our 2016 travels.

Mobile gatherings

Everyone cooking up something different to share for tea

The fishermen

Enjoying the mornings catch

Shared tea

Maintaining the fluids of our production line washer uppers

Many hours each day spent chatting around the camp fire