Day twelve: Day in Mataranka Springs.

 

This morning I awoke at about 7:30am and tried to creep out of the kombi.  I lit up the stove to make myself a morning coffee when the next door neighbour came around and asked me if I’d like some breakfast.  Apparently she is missing her kids and she felt the need to mother someone.  “Mother away!” I told her and ordered two bits of toast with honey.  Louisa heard that she was missing out on something and got up to order herself two bits of toast as well.

We’d both had a crack ‘em during the middle of the night in our 1 ½ x 3m house so it was a fairly quiet morning but only had to wait till 10am to get into our cabin we’d booked, then we were both happy.

The cabin was a great idea and we went about taking most things out of Sunny and making the studio apartment look like some kind of bomb had hit it.  But the space! Oh the space.  It was like we were in a mansion of some sorts.  It had its own bathroom, shower and kitchen and there was even a T.V.  We had a bit of a laze about, made some lunch and headed down to the Matarnaka Springs for a dip.

 

The Mataranka Springs reminded me of that scene from ‘Cocoon’ where all the old folk are swimming in a pool that is supposed to make them younger.  I even heard a few of them asking others if the Springs would keep them full of life.  The Mataranka Springs were cooler than the Bitter Springs we’d been to the day before and more like an actual pool.  It was encased in concrete and had more of a sandy bottom that you could walk around on.  It also had more tourists than the Bitter Springs and more grey nomads.  There was child at the Springs that I thought looked like how Jude Tsai would’ve looked like as a kid and I made Louisa take a photo.  Such a cute kid.

 

We got back to camp and decided to go for a walk to town.  We ran in to two bird watchers and had a look at some gorgeous rainbow coloured honey eaters.  Little birds that have a tendancy to glide everywhere and not flap their wings.  There were hundreds of them flying around as the sun was setting.

 

After that we decided that we would cook Barramundi for dinner on the bbq at the cabin.  The only problem was that all the stores shut at 2pm and none of them sold Barramundi anyway.  Louisa had pre-made some chips out of a couple of potatoes and had them resting in the fridge George Coloumbaris style as she had seen on Master Chef.  I got around to making some Tuna paties Brooke Marshall style which is basically using anything that was in the canned goods and seasoning section.

Dinner turned out rather well and I have to thank Louisa for most of that.  I had some kind of quiet spell and couldn’t be bothered doing anything so she made it all while I sat on the bed and watched Funniest Home Videos.

 

 

Day thirteen:  Mataranka Springs to Katherine.  Start time 10am.  Arrival time 11am.  Odometer: 86801

 

This was the quickest and least painful drive so far.  One hour of power and we were in Katherine, had booked our site for two nights at the Nitmiluk National Park (through the Irish girl at the counter) and organized two tickets for the sunset dinner cruise down the Katherine Gorge.

We were so pleased with ourselves that we took the afternoon off and sunbaked and swam in the pool for the couple of hours we had before the cruise.

 

We went down to the reception area to have a beer while we waited for our cruise and who should pop in but some people we had met around the bbq in Tennant Creek, Jenny and Charlie.  We ended up chatting with them for most of the tour and having dinner with them at the end.

 

The Katherine Gorge is a beautiful place and I highly recommend it to anyone who is in the NT.  The tour we did started at 4:30pm with a cruise up the first gorge, followed by a short walk and a cruise up the second gorge which is supposed to be the most spectacular.  Our tour guide Mark (from Spain) was a great talker and had everyone intruiged for the whole 2 hours.  After we had done our site seeing we were directed to a boat that had been set up for dinner and I watched as the sun set as I was digging into my barramundi and xxxxgold.

 

The walk back from the cruise was very funny.  They dropped us off at the pier and about six of us started walking back to the lower car park and the campsite.  The smart people of the world had parked in the higher carpark and only had a 50m walk.  The six of us had about a five hundred metre walk in the pitch black unsure of the direction we were heading.  None of us had bothered to bring a torch so we all scared ourselves stupid with any noise but luckily the camera had enough light in it to at least light up the road in front of our feet.

 

Greatest song today: Unfinished Symphony, Massive Attack

Best bit:  Seeing a shooting star on the walk home and making a wish.

Saddest bit: Not being allowed back for seconds on the cruise.

Scariest bit:  Seeing a two metre black headed python on the road (we only found out its name after we took a photo of it and showed it around).  Apparently it’s not poisonous so we COULD’VE got out of the car and patted it.

Best slogan on a grey nomads van: ‘Adventure before dementure’.

 

 

 

Day fourteen:  Spend the day in Nitmulik National Park.

 

Today I had agreed to go on a 12km walk with Louisa.  What came over me I do not know but the Butterfly Gorge walk promised butterflies and a 33m deep swimming hole at the end so I consented and we took off about 9:30am after packing our togs and some lunch.

 

After a very steep first hill followed by an hour of some other hefty hills and some rough torrain we had missed our turn off to the Butterfly walk and had arrived back at the start of our walk.  Happy times.  I thought that would be it for the day and we could head back to the pool but Louisa had other ideas.  I wasn’t that happy about trecking my legs back up the first hill again after just completing 3.5kms but for some reason I did.  As consolation Louisa suggested we do the shorter walk that would end up only being about 10km instead of the 12kms.  I whole-heartedly agreed and we set off down a track (after the first big hill) that promised a rock pool for swimming and a beautiful view of the first gorge.  The going was tough.  The track was a mix between sand and loose gravel and by this stage it was starting to get a bit hot.  The walk guides had said the temperature of the walks was 10 degrees hotter than the actual temperature so going by yesterdays forecast of 32 degrees I guessed the walking track was getting close to 40 degrees.

 

My heart sank as we looked at the rock pool which had shriveled up into nothing more than a puddle and I wondered why we had even bothered.  We headed up to the lookout and ate our very warm sandwiches in the sun.  I gave us a very generous 7mins on that look-out to soak everything in and eat lunch.  It was getting hotter and hotter and I couldn’t think of anything but the pool.

We trudged on back to the campsite, had a quick swim and then I had a half hour nap before we went to meet Jenny and Charlie for dinner at their campsite.

 

 

 

Funniest bit:  Watching Lou walk (and when I say walk, I mean trip) in front of me with what we now call her ‘lazy left foot’.

Saddest bit: The walk.

Cutest bit:  Watching about a dozen oldies dance the quick-step at Jenny and Charlies campsite, and then exclaiming that they’d had too many wines and were too old to be dancing.

Horror story: The smell of two massive wild pigs that were dead and very stiff on the side of the road – the smell went for about 1km either way. Stinky.  Lou was dry wretching. I was laughing.

Best creek name: Skull creek minor (and yes I’m waiting for Skull creek major)

 

 

 

Day fifteen:  Nitmiluk National Park, Katherine to Timber Creek.  Start time: 8:40am  Arrival time: 3:20pm Odometer: 87194

 

We set off from the campsite at 8:40am but didn’t leave the town of Katherine till about 11:30am.  It took about half an hour to drive into town and then we went to Woolworths to stock up on some supplies and a block of ice.  We decided to give Sunny a car wash as she’d done such a top job so far and she came out sparkling.  We had our photo taken with the car by a German tourist who was very impressed with the ‘classic car’.

 

After the carwash and photo shoot we took off towards Broome.  Yay!!!  I’m so excited about getting to Broome, and am particularly excited about going scuba diving with the 14m whale sharks and sunbaking on a beach.  I love the country side but am a beach girl from way back.

 

We stopped at Victoria River Roadhouse that is just inside Gregory National Park and had a pie and xxxxgold for lunch, served by an Irish girl.

 

We then headed off towards Big Horse Creek Campground that Jenny had told us was a real party campground, was free and had a bar, but you had to get there early because all the sites went fairly quickly. 

We finally arrived at Big Horse about 3:20pm.  It is situated 10km past Timber Creek.  It wasn’t a party site by any means but it was fairly busy.  (No bar)

 

At the risk of going a bit feral we’ve decided to stay in some free or very cheap campgrounds and rest areas from now on as we’ve probably already spent about $250 in campsites.  Big Horse campground cost us both $3.30 for the night, I shouted Lou.

 

We went for a walk down to the Big Horse Creek that connects with Vic River to see if we could test out our $10 junior fishing rod that we’d bought from Kmart.  As neither of us knew how to fish, the junior rod seemed like a smart choice at a bargain price with instructions on how to fish on the back.

 

Sharon from next door came around to introduce herself and tell us that 5pm was the time to fish.  It also happened to be the time that the crocs came around.  She happily gave us some more tips and was kind enough to let us borrow a lure of hers as she thought any bait may attract the crocs.

 

We wandered down to the river and met up with Adam and The Yettie (appropriately named – I could hardly see his face from all the hair) who looked at our fishing rod and laughed.  The Yettie cut off Sharons lure and tied a bigger, prawn like lure to the end of the rod.

 

It was very peaceful pretending to fish like that as the sun went down.

 

 

Greatest song today: Leave me alone, Natalie Imbruglia.

Funniest bit: Me getting very exited that I’d snagged a big fish when in reality my hook was just caught on a rock.

Saddest bit: My attempt at making pepper sauce as a gourmet topping for dinner.  It ended up quite floury with way too many peppercorns.

 

 

Day sixteen: Big Horse Creek campground to Kununnara.  Start time: 8:40am  Arrival time: 9:45am (WA time) 11:45am (NT time)    Odometer: 87416

 

I woke up to watch the sunrise, have a coffee and a read of my book.  There was some amazing bird action this morning, but I wish I’d known what kind of birds they were.  There were three different types flying around, a couple of eagles and one beautiful owl gliding through the morning sky.

 

I had some nutella on bread for breakfast and Lou woke up and made herself a banana sandwich.  We are about to cross the border into Western Australia today and cannot take any fruit or veg with us so we piled up a half a bag of oranges, two potatoes and two onions and left them at Sharons door with a note thanking her for her lure.

 

We headed towards the border at a leisurely pace as Louisa played Dido (yawn).  We hit the fruit inspection point about two hours into the trip and regretfully handed over our honey that we hadn’t even opened.  After that it was a short (and Dido free) half an hour until we made it into Kununarra.

 

We were both a bit slow today and decided the best thing to do would be to go to the Pumphouse café that had free wireless internet and not talk to each other for a couple of hours.  We arrived and had a coffee, shortly followed by lunch of two ceaser salads (mine had chicken, the first time I’ve had chicken in 2 weeks Veenus) and some beers.  I had a fun time downloading some photos onto the blog – it’s amazing how quickly you forget some things.

 

After lunch we headed back to a campground that we had seen had unpowered sites by the river and booked one nights accommodation.  Feral will have to wait – this place had showers.

 

We secured a spot right next to the river so we could attempt fishing again and quickly drove back into town to get ourselves some fish for dinner and some booze as our stocks were dangerously low.

 

After this I went a bit mental.

I think I am in danger of relaxing too much.

I suggested that we wait in Kununarra till the weekend so we could see the V8’s in action in Hidden Valley with the Presets playing on Sunday night.  What couldn’t be better than watching loud cars all weekend in 30 degree heat, drinking beer and then listening to dance music at the end?

Unfortunately I have itchy feet and cannot even fathom the thought of sitting still for another 2 days whilst waiting for hotted up cars.

I took myself off fishing to try and soothe the beast within and to ask myself some big life questions;

 

What the hell was I doing in Kununarra?

How old was I again?

Did I still have a tab at the pub?

Why was I catching so much seaweed?

 

Luckily a lovely man Cliff interrupted my deep thoughts and started chatting to me, informing me that there was fish in the river, there was just a hell of a lot of water in between them. It made me feel a bit better. He then told me that he and his wife had been travelling Australia for 6 ½ years!  They had decided to do it for 2 but had had such a great time that they didn’t want to stop.  They drive back to their sons house every year for Christmas but just park in the driveway and stay in the van.  Classic.

 

After that Lou and I decided to head to bocce and happy hour (not so happy – you bring your own beer, they supply nibbles) so we wandered down about 4:30pm and sat down with about 20 others that were all 50+ and just chatted.  It was lovely.  We heard so many stories about lives, retirement, what sort of vans they all have, families and life in general. (I know it may seem as though I’m being sarcastic here but I really had a great time).

 

After that Lou and I walked back to our site where I prepared a beautifully seasoned Barramundi fillet with garlic prawns while Lou made a fresh garden salad. Yummo.

(The Barramundi fillet was $2.50 at the shops – cheap)

 

Then just before bed time I cracked em with doing the dishes and went to bed while Lou cleaned up.

 

 

Greatest song today: Verdi, La Traviata – Placido Domingo

(Louisa’s rendition of this opera classic and then thanking her imaginary audience at the end was outstanding).

Funniest bit:  Louisa having to brake so suddenly and come to a complete stop as a massive bull started to bolt across the road.  She has some very bad luck with driving and animals.

Best bit: Lou agreeing to hightail it to Broome.  I can’t do any more country towns.

Best creek name:  Dick creek (juvenile, I know)

 

 

Day seventeen: Kununarra to Marys Pool rest area.  108km past Halls Creek.  Start time: 8:30pm  Arrival time: 4:45pm  Odometer:  87921

 

I woke up for a glorious sunrise along the river.  It was magnificent.  It was also 5:15am.  I guess we were a bit jet-lagged with the time difference from NT.  I was still waking up with the sunrise, it’s just that now it’s a hell of a lot earlier.

 

After Lou woke up, we packed up and got on the road.  The only problem was that when we tried to check out it was too early.  7:30am and the office didn’t open till 8am – I took this time to check the oil (a little low) and the tyre pressure (fine) and went for a quick stroll with Lou. It was also the first time that I had tried to lock my petrol cap, which I thought I did.

 

We took off to do a 30min walk to see some mini bungle bungles as Sunny was not going to be able to 4xwheel drive it into the real ones.  It was a painless walk and we finally took off to Halls Creek about 8:30am.

 

Lou had wanted to only travel 200kms today but we were having so much fun we just kept driving.  In the end we made it about 500kms but with a cost - Lou cracked em quickly just when we got into Halls Creek, but had come good by the time we got to the rest area.

 

We rolled in to Marys Pool rest area and started our routine of unpacking the kombi and saying hello to anyone that walked by.  Our routine must have been a bit out though because as I went to shut the passengers side door, I realized too late that Louisa’s hand was in it.  I felt so bad.  The poor thing took herself off to the back of the kombi and moaned quietly.  I kept setting up as there was nothing else I could do apart from apologize profusely.

 

 

Best bit: Seeing the first kombi on the road.

Best bit #2: Having Barra and prawns again for dinner.

Best quote:  Lou annoyed at the broken window saying it was ‘the vein of her life’

Stupidest bit:  Realizing my petrol cap had fallen off after I’d ‘locked’ it and having to drive around town to find another one.

Best creek name:  Weaner creek (just like dick creek only smaller)

Worst aboriginal name for a rock: Head-lice dreaming.

 

 

Day eighteen:  Marys Pool rest area to Lake Ellendale rest area  Start time: 8:30am  Arrival time: 1:20pm  Odometer: 88206

 

I woke up at 5:30am with a fresh brain and did some morning mathematics to work out how much money I’d have to give Colin for petrol – it even included some long division that I haven’t done since primary school.  (Lovely Colin had offered to drive Sunny home as it wouldn’t fit on the train and Lou and I are flying home from Perth).

 

I agreed with Lou when she woke up to do a shorter drive today and to stop in Fitzroy Crossing to have lunch and to have a look around at the town.  We arrived there about 10am and went to look for the oldest pub in WA – The Crossing Inn.  It wasn’t open till 12 however, so we went and did a bit of grocery shopping and topped up our ice supply.

 

The pub was fairly average and we paid $12 to have a sandwich bar type lunch.  I tried an Emu Export with my lunch and have to say that it reminded me of the first time my dad ever let me try beer, very bitter.  I loved it.

 

After lunch we head off for our next rest area that was 150kms from town but we were lured in to the Lake Ellendale rest area by the sight of the beautiful lake.  Our neighbour gave us the history of the lake – it was manmade when they dug a big hole to use the dirt for making the roads and now was a popular cow drinking watering hole.

 

Our neighbour also invited us for drinks at their caravan at 4:15pm – which apparently was strictly a one hour thing.  We waddled over with a bottle of wine and had such a good chat to everyone there that we didn’t get back to the kombi till 6pm and couldn’t be bothered making dinner.  We had a cup-a-soup each, a game of chess, and I am ashamed to say were both asleep by 6:30pm.

 

Funniest bit:  Being recognized from the Mole - name and all.

Scariest bit:  The scary cow who nearly charged Lou and I when we went for a pee in the bushes.

Song of the day:  Sunny, artist unkown.

 

Day nineteen (my favourite):  Lake Ellendale to Broome!  Start time: 6:30am  Arrival time: 9:30am  Odometer:

 

I was ultra surprised when Lou woke up at 6am and immediately packed up the car.  I’d wanted to get an early start to Broome and had been so excited that I woke up at 5am and had been reading, but was even more excited when we took off at 6:30am.

 

Lou did the first hour of driving and I think the combination of her getting up early and not having a morning coffee made her slightly crazy.  I’ve never seen so many Jim Carrey like impersonations in such a short amount of time.

 

We arrived in Broome and went to the local markets where we ran into a girl Lou used to work with at YSAS.  She was lovely enough to invite us to stay at her house when our time at the apartment was over. Yay!  This meant that all our time in Broome (the holiday from our holiday) was going to be spent with room.

After we had spoken to Emma we made some phone calls as we finally had some reception after 3 days without.  Id just finished telling my dad how good the car had been but after I’d hung up from him the car didn’t start.  I rang my RACV total care (don’t get me started on how much I love total care – I could be doing ads for it I love it so much) and half an hour later a technician had given me a jump start.

 

We arrived at the Rendevous Sanctuary about 2pm and checked into a one bedroom apartment for some space.  It was so nice to be in a room again and just laze about.  We watched some t.v, had some wine and had a party – for the first time on the trip I think I went to bed after midnight and didn’t get up the next day till after 8am.  Good to see I can still stay up late, I was starting to worry with all the early nights.

 

As we are five days ahead of schedule we have decided to have some relaxing time in Broome and chill out with the beach and the sun.

 

Best bit: Broome

Sunniest bit: Broome

Best beach: Broome

30 degrees: Broome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day nine:  Hang out in Alice Springs.

 

This morning I woke up to see the sunrise again (I must stop making a habit of this) and to see Lou roll around with a hangover.  Ha ha.  She had had way too much fun on the pokies the night before at the campground Tavern and over-exerted herself on the booze.  She’d come out on top though and shouted me a couple of Vodka cokes. Bless.

 

We went for a quick drive into town to check it out.  It was pretty quiet so we found an internet shop to download the blog.  After that we went to Kmart to get some supplies and then Woolies for some food and that was pretty much seeing the town.

 

Lou sat down in the sun for a read and relax while I set about making a carbonara for lunch with a cognac in hand.  After eating I had a very busy day of waving to helicopters and cutting my nails.  Lou and I even managed to squeeze in one game of checkers and a bit of a read of the newspaper.  Busy, busy.

 

I was excited about the nighttime activities.  We were to meet up with Carols ex Ange who Lou hadn’t met and I hadn’t seen in over 3 years.  She had only been in Alice about 4 months and had been working almost 7 days a week, 18 hours a day and was keen to get out too.

As we were excited about our night out we headed into town early to have some drinks and dinner.  Lou spotted a saloon bar and we headed in.  What a pisser.  It was the kind of place that had ‘tourist’ written all over it and that’s exactly what we were.  The best part was that the place streams live to the internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  We set about texting everyone to see if they could see us.  Marty was the only one who actually saw us but it was still pretty funny.

 

After the saloon bar we went for Thai food and then off to the Todd Tavern to see Ange.

It was splendid to see her.  She’s a great chick.

Except for when she bought me a fairy bomb.  It was the most disgusting drink I’ve ever had.  Absynthe with some kind of liquorice tasting mixer. Of course I had to finish it but was feeling quite ill by the end of it.  So there was nothing left to do but head off to the casino! 

 

We were stopped out the front of the casino by the guard to check our I.D and he asked us if we had been drinking.  I thought to myself that if this man could not smell that fairy bomb on my breath then there must be something seriously wrong with him. So I answered yes.  He told us to stay calm when we were in the casino otherwise it would be a short night for us. 

It was a very small and quiet casino and in no time at all we were laughing above the maximum noise limit. Naughty.  We found a roulette table and decided to make our fortunes.  And that we did!  Ange started with $20 and ended up winning $220 and Lou and I had a shared $50 that ended up being $135.  The best was the last roll of the night when we put $50 each in $2.50 chips on black and it came in.  That tower of chips was hilariously high and I can’t believe we didn’t get thrown out over that.

 

Shortly afterwards (as all good casino nights go) we were surrounded by men in suits offering to buy us drinks.  Of course we said yes and then politely made small talk before the three of ran off into the night giggling hysterically.

 

Funniest bit #1: The big sign out the front of the Alice Springs hospital proudly stating that it will be smoke free as of July 1^st 2009.  What????

Funniest bit #2: Ange promising one of the suits she would go on a date with him soon.

Funniest bit #3: Thinking I’d seen Michael Jacksons children but they were only normal kids with fly nets over their faces.

Funniest bit I’d forgotten to write about yesterday: Lou turning the one finger raise hello while driving into a peace sign, or a small wave, or a big wave or a hail Hitler type wave.  She’s really going to some lengths to secure a wave.

 

Day ten:  Alice Springs to Tennant Creek via the Devils Marbles.  Start time 8:45am  Arrival time:  2:45pm  Odometer: 86058

 

It was Lous morning to drive and as our rules go – the driver chooses the music so I popped my head phones in.  I don’t think there’s ever a right time for Enigma.  You might as well throw Enya, Michael Bolton and some pan flutes in and just blow my ears off.

 

We headed out to the Stuart Highway where the road signs told us we could do 130km/h and we both laughed.

 

It’s exciting to be heading to warmer and warmer weather especially when you hear reports of hail and snow in Melbourne.  Ha ha.  Tennant Creek is reportedly 23 degrees.  Katherine is about 26 degrees and Broome is looking at about 31 degrees.  I can see my tan now.

 

We passed over the tropic of Capricorn line shortly after leaving Alice and then came to the Tanami Road.  Many of the local men at The Park Hotel had told me to take this road as a short cut to Broome.  They said my drive was too long and by taking this short cut I could relax a bit more instead of going all the way to Katherine and across to Broome.

Two words. 

Wolf Creek.

Actually lets make it more than two words.

There was no way I was taking my horror movie loving brain across an unpaved road to drive through Wolf Creek for a short cut. 

On we drove.

Our next stop after a quick fill up at Ti-tree was Wycliffe Well – the U.F.O centre of Australia.  The petrol station was painted black and silver with lots of alien heads stuck all over it and they’d put up alien like creatures around in the gardens.  Too much time on their hands I say.  I had a quick photo before Louisa and I hastily took off.  (Lou had managed to pay for someone else’s cheaper fuel at $33 instead of our price of $62.)  Hopefully they’ll blame the aliens.

Shortly after alien-ville we pulled in to have a look at the Devils marbles.  So called because if the devil had time I’m sure he’d be playing marbles.

They are actually amazing rocks to look at.  They look like they have different textures.  Some look like giraffes, some like sponges.  Uluru looked like it had a cross between eczema and acne.  We took a quick look around, made a quick sandwich that we shared with the flies and drove on.

 

Our next stop was Tennant Creek.  The suits at the casino had told us not to bother as it was a horrible town so we were both looking forward to checking it out.  We were also planning on meeting up with a lovely boy we’d also met at the casino Nick who had a dad that lived in Tennant Creek.  We drove to the Outback Caravan Park, a lovely little lush hideaway, and headed to the bbq to cook our dinner.  We had some great chats to the men around the bbq.  Everyone thinks it’s so hilarious that we are doing the road trip in six weeks.  One of the men at the bbq was doing exactly the same trip as us and taking eight months.  Ha ha.  They also remember the kombi if we pass them.  I’ve had a couple of people say “Yeah the yellow kombi, kinda hard to miss”

 

We met up with Nick at the memorial club and had some beers.  The great thing about the NT is that you can still smoke inside so Lou and I went home about 11pm with dry, red eyes.

 

 

Greatest song today: Whatever will be will be, Doris Day.

Funniest bit: Trying to beat Nick in a beer sculling contest and getting absolutely demolished.

Saddest bit: Not seeing one other kombi on the road since Melbourne. Not one!

 

 

Day eleven: Tennant Creek to Mataranka Springs.  Start time 6:00am.  Arrival time: 1:20pm     Odometer: 86633

 

Sunny and I decided to get an early start today so we snuck out of the caravan park at 6am with Louisa snuggled up sound asleep in the back.

I get pretty excited when my alarm goes off in the morning and I have a solo drive planned.  I jump out of bed, pull the pop top down, lock it into place, brush my teeth and take off.  I am already dressed as I just sleep in the clothes I’m going to wear.  This saves me a lot of cold naked time in the morning and unnecessary discomfort trying to get dressed in a cramped car in the pitch black.

 

The sunrise this morning was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.  I’m going to try and explain it but just to let you know I once tried to explain my cousins wedding dress to someone as ‘white’ with ‘bits’ on the sleeve.

It’s all about the burnt orange colours really.  The beautiful, deep, rich orange line that goes on forever, streaked with striking red and patches of yellow.  I’ve never seen such stunning colours in all my life. It was hard to keep my eyes from looking at it and I had to remind myself a few times that I was behind the wheel of a car.  Driving by yourself at this time of morning and watching the sunrise makes you feel like you are the only person on the planet and I find it very peaceful and good for the soul.  Anyway, after about half an hour of those amazing colours the sky changes into some bodgy pink colours until that big ball of fire rises and makes night into day.  Poetry.

 

My plan was to get half way to Mataranka Springs before Louisa woke up.  I see it as a little challenge.  When sleeping beauty finally awoke at 8am I was about 50kms from Elliot – the halfway point.

Lou took over the driving at Elliot and we pioneered on to the historic Daly Waters pub that all the men around the bbq the night before had told us was a must.

 

On the way to the pub we saw a very large bull on the side of the road with a massive hump on its back.  It was just staring at us and we slowed down to a crawl to get a good look at it.  Hump included it was probably about the height of Louisa. He was a scary looking creature.

 

Anywho, the Daly Waters pub was a fantastic little oasis.  Lush and green with lots of ‘aussie type’ signs around and the obligatory Irish chick behind the bar.  How the Irish get to these small pubs and decide to start working, I will never know.  We were only going to stay for a coffee but decided on an early lunch of Barra bites and a Barra burger.  Barra being wild caught Barramundi.  The burger was the freshest, tastiest thing I’ve eaten all trip – except for the first five nights of Lou’s tuna pasta of course – and we dug into it with a NT draught.  After lunch Louisa bought a blue ‘wife beater’ singlet and I bought a similar one for my nephew Will.

 

The termite mounds out here are amazing – there’s literally millions of them along the highway.  The biggest one I saw was about the same size and width of Lou.  For a minute I actually thought it WAS her outside hiding in the bush before I came to my senses and realized that she was driving the car.

 

 

Louisa just told me she really feels part of the ‘road community’ and scarily enough I may have to agree.  You see the same cars and caravans, see a couple of the same people, wave to everyone, say “hello” to everyone, swap stories and generally be very, very friendly.  It’s horrendous.  People are even starting to wave as they overtake us.  Too much waving cannot be good for anyone.

 

We took off from the pub about 11:15am and headed towards the Mataranka hot springs listening to Fleetwood Mac.  I can’t wait to soak my tired little brain and body into 34degree mineral water and relax and extra notch.  Even my fingers need a relax from all this heavy typing.

 

We made a quick pit stop at the Pink Panther hotel (world famous) and had a look at the bird sanctuary.  Then Lou drove for one more hour (and past two very big road trains) before we rolled up to the Mataranka caravan and campsite.  We quickly changed into our bathers and headed 100m down the road to the Bitter Springs.  Heaven.  It was crystal clear, warm, lovely and made me very happy.

 

Greatest song today: It’s very hard for me to go past Black Box, Ride on time.  (The Fleetwood Mac album and the song ‘Don’t leave me this way’ come in a very close second)

Funniest bit: Lou coming perilously close to hitting a beautiful ibis looking bird while driving and yelling out “not again!”  (Poor thing’s still a bit fragile after the galah incident)

Saddest bit: Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Best town name: Threeways

Best creek name: Attack creek 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the two Judes:

Jude Marshall my mother because she is a teacher and has always pointed out spelling mistakes to me and,

Jude Tsai my flat mate who is some kind of grammatical genius.

I apologize for any grammatical errors, any punctuation problems or any incorrect sentence structuring in the following blog.

 

 

Day one: Melbourne to Mildura.  Departure time 6:10am

Arrival time 1:10pm.  Start odometer - 82304

 

After my cop friend reminded me not to pickup any hitch- hikers. Not to help anyone who had broken down, not even if they had kids or were pregnant. And after dad gave me a baseball bat and a knife for protection, I got into my happy van ‘Sunny’ and started my big Australia road trip with Louisa.

 

Whoever told me that having going away drinks the night before you leave was a stupid idea was a genius.  I truly thought that my 6pm-9pm drinks would finish on time and I would be tucked up early enough to get a good enough sleep to get going at 6am.

I got to bed at 12am.

Getting up at 4:45am was not too bad but my first two hours of driving in the dark, while it was raining was a struggle.

After two hours our rule is to swap drivers and I couldn’t wait.  My eyes were about to fall out of my head and my legs were already sore.  Louisa took over the driving and I got some much-needed shut-eye.

We had a quick stop for a roadhouse coffee (my favourtie thing to have on a road trip) and two potato cakes before we made our next two-hour swap-over and Louisa fell straight off to sleep.

Needless to say the first leg of our trip was quiet and not as party like as I’d imagined.  The radio was pretty much turned down low and sleep was the order of the day.

Wow – we are so much fun…

 

We stopped in Red Cliffs at the local bakery to have a famous local pie before we did our last 30kms into Mildura and tried to find a camping ground.  After having a quick look at the camping ground and being extremely tired we hired a hotel and hopped straight into bed and had a two-hour snooze.  When we woke up from our snooze it was time to go to Stefano’s.  Yum.  We had a five-course degustation menu with matching wines.

You don’t get told what you’re eating until it comes to your table and there is no wine list.  You can’t make any changes to anything unless you have any allergies. So you basically get what you’re given and enjoy it without complaining.  What an excellent idea – I’m thinking of doing this at The Park Hotel.

First course – smoked salmon with basil, fennel & sauv blanc

Second course – Soufflé with Gorgonzola sauce & nebiolo

Third course – Homemade ravioli with quail & Shiraz.

(By this stage Louisa was quite tipsy and a little bit crazy so I banned her from a drink on course four)

Fourth course – Lambs neck with cerelic mash and snow peas & another Shiraz.

(I wasn’t crazy about the lamb’s neck and after my last Shiraz was also getting tipsy and a little bit stupid so I banned myself from having a dessert wine)

Fifth course – Custard in a filo pastry cup with fresh cream on the side.

We both were basically asleep in our desserts by this time and had asked for the bill to come with our last course, paid, went back to the hotel and passed out.

 

Greatest song today – Baby animals ‘rush you’

Favourtie town name – Carwarp

Animals hit – 0 but two birds came bloody close.

Best buy so far – my thermal armbands.

Things thrown out – 0

Funniest thing – Louisa being asleep with her seatbelt somehow wrapped around her head with her mouth wide open.

 

 

Day two: Mildura to Port Augusta.  Start time 7:30am.  Arrival time 4pm.  Odometer reading: 82837

 

We started off with a quick and early breakfast at the hotel and took off to Port Augusta.

Sunny loves the road at the moment and is purring along quite happily on the highways.

What a difference some sleep makes too.  Louisa and I both managed to stay awake the whole time the other was driving.  I’m not sure I would classify this as being the best news though.  Louisa is what I would call a ‘moving passenger’ or basically someone who can’t sit still.  She described herself yesterday as Donkey from Shrek.  I guess someone who moves around and talks a lot.  I guess that would make me Shrek.  I’m fine with that.  I’ll have to keep an eye on this analogy and how it’s progressing.

 

Our first stop was at the border where we had to join in the fruit eating party at the side of the road.  We’d forgotten that we had bananas and set about eating them at a mad pace.  I don’t know why we couldn’t have just thrown them instead of having to chow them down madly but it was quite funny.

 

Our second quick stop was at the Big Orange.  Yes, we’d finally made it to our first ‘BIG’ thing and had to stop and take a photo.  Unfortunately the Big Orange was closed but was clearly visible from the side of the road.

 

We then had to do some wine and fruit stockpiling for when we hit the dessert in a small town called Berri.  (Note the order of importance)  It’s amazing that the locals can tell we are out of town-ers.  Not sure if it’s the big, bright yellow van we’re driving or the way we look but by any means everyone we have met has been ultra lovely and very willing to help us out with any questions.  In the Berri wine store the lady gave us directions to Port Augusta twice and then twice again once she’d gotten her map out.  It turned out we’d already decided on the same route but it was a very friendly gesture.

We bought six bottles of various reds so we don’t have to pay $xxx prices in the outback.  We also picked up a bag of oranges at the fruit stall, a bag of avocadoes and some sultanas.  We politely refused the fruit mans generous offer of $2 for a huge Italian butternut pumpkin because it has no place on our trip.

 

We stopped next at Burra for lunch.  We’d bought some fresh bread rolls and made some ham, camembert and roasted capsicum and cashew pesto and ate them down by the lake.  Yummo.

 

Unfortunately we had forgotten that we could not take booze into the Woomera Prohibited Area and actually had to pass through a booze patrol section that would check your car.  I thought about the fruit party we had on the side of the road earlier and wondered if we could do something similar with six bottles of red and a bottle of cognac.  Luckily the booze patrol was closed and we cruised through the town pretty quickly.  When we next stopped I made sure out booze was hidden under the bed just in case we got pulled over.

 

We’d made a decision to not make it to our original destination about an hour North of Port Augusta.  We were both still a bit tired and decided we’d stop about an hour from Port Augusta and pull over to our first camp-site.  We’d chosen a camping site because I’d started to fret about staying in a rest area.  Basically a rest area is just a dirt road pull off on the side of the highway and all my horror movies roared back into my head at the thought of it.  We pulled into a camp ground and spotted a family of emus.  We looked around for the camping area and found not one soul there.  I instructed Louisa to keep driving to the next campsite so at least we had some company.  An hour and a forty-five minutes later and due to my extremely poor map skills – we were in our original destination of an hour North of Port Augusta and in a rest area.  Too funny.

We were the first ones to pull in as the sun was going down but shortly after about four grey nomad vans pulled in.  I guess they can pull up later because they can cook and keep warm in their vans.  I started a small fire while Louisa put the chairs and tables out and started an anti-pasto platter.   No canned goods tonight!  We cracked a bottle of red and chilled out for a bit before making a yummy tuna pasta.  Unfortunately we were harassed by a wild cat (and I thought I didn’t like normal cats) and had to pack up quickly and retire for the night.  It was 7:30pm.  This is when we both cracked the shits.  Packing up, trying to get changed, trying to move everything around, putting up the curtains – everything was very, very annoying.  One of the curtains decided it was going to stretch and therefore not cover any of the window.  In the half dark Louisa and I did an emergency C-section to fix it.  Thank god Dads tool kit he gave me included some pliers.

Once we lay down we both felt a bit better and had a laugh about cracking it.  We tried to watch The Pelican Brief but fell asleep by about 9:30pm.

 

 

Greatest song today –  Ice house, electric blue.

Animals hit – Louisa x1 Galah and a very close Roo.

            - Brooke x0

Favourite town name – Booborowie.

Things thrown out – 0

Funniest thing – Louisa not being able to say one town name properly today.  Not one.

Saddest moment – inspecting the stone chip marks on Sunnys face today.  A part of my heart broke.

Things broken – drivers side mirror.

Things broken on me – left wrist, both legs and back.  Nothing a good stretch won’t sort out.

 

 

Day three: Port Augusta – Coober Pedy Start time 9:10am.  Arrival time 3:00pm.  Odometer reading: 83936

 

We started off this morning at a grey nomad time of 9:10am.  Some of them actually beat us off.  Disgraceful.  We had some toast with avocado, vegemite and egg – packed up and took off.

 

I could tell I’d done a stellar job fixing the side mirror.  The minute we hit 100km/h it flopped down and is now facing the road.  If Jude pub were here that thing would be so well fixed you couldn’t angle-grind it off the car.  Pity.

 

I decided to listen to one of my all time favourite tracks: Jam and Spoon, Ride in the night.  It started my two hours of driving off extremely well and from then on it was trance all the way.  I’m not sure what was going on with this morning’s energy but even Sunny decided to take it up a notch by doing 120km/h.  We even hit 130km/h once going down a hill.  We made a short stop about half way so I could drink a roadside coffee from Spud’s roadside diner and then continued.  I’m not sure what they put in those coffees but I love them.  They taste like crap but after one you become obsessed with driving.

Basically Sunny and I chewed up 230kms faster than I can drink red wine.

 

I discovered today that there is the wave to other cars just like there is the kombi wave.  The only difference here is that you don’t wave to the grey nomads.  I can only assume they have a secret wave themselves.  It’s not a full wave either, just a one finger lift kind of thing.  It’s a good idea cause it keeps your mind on something else to do.  My mind tends to wander off every now and again and the wave brings it back.  You also have to drive with your lights on 24 hours a day.  It must be the same thing as the wave.  Looking at the same scenery all the time and concentrating for two hours gets hard.  The lights of an oncoming car even during the day, gets your mind back on the job.

 

We stopped quickly in G…. to make some sandwiches and get our last fill up of petrol before Coober Pedy.  We had about 260kms to go so we filled up two 5litre petrol containers too just in case we didn’t make it on the tank.

 

Louisa was driving the second and final leg to Coober Pedy and is still a little worried when she sees birds on the road due to the Galah killing.  I swear she hit another little bird today but she insists she didn’t.  We did see some beautiful wedge-tailed eagles about six of them feeding off a dead kangaroo in the middle of the road.  It wasn’t such a beautiful setting with the dead roo but they are amazing looking eagles.

 

We had about 20km’s to go when we hit some road works coming into Coober Pedy.  Louisa had to slow down to 40km/h which Sunny was clearly unimpressed with.  Louisa also tried to go through a roadwork block with a man holding a stop sign.  I must admit I said, “just keep going” – clearly neither of us was thinking.  The men just laughed when we finally pulled over and asked us why we were in such a hurry.  Silly.

 

Finally we crawled into CP, filled up with petrol and went straight for a beer.  But alas, no beer without food.  We continued on to find The Desert Cave Hotel and then went straight to the underground bar and had a beer.  I tried the West End Draught it wasn’t too bad.

We booked a tour through the Backpacker joint ($80 cheaper than the hotel) and went to find the Italo Resto and Bar for dinner, and what a find it was. It was a fair walk from our hotel and obviously not too touristy.  When we walked in the smell reminded me of my Nan’s house and I soon found out why.  Not only had we made it in time for happy hour drinks but also it was $10 roast night.  Yum.  I don’t think we talked to each other while we were eating.

 

After dinner we walked back to the hotel where we fell into bed at 7:30pm (my idea of heaven but not Lou’s) – I was asleep by 8:30pm.

 

Greatest song today – Jam & Spoon Ride in the night.

Animals hit – Louisa x1 (I think 2 secretly.)

            - Brooke x0

Favourite lake name – Lake Young Husband.

Things thrown out – 0 (but getting closer to chucking a lot)

Funniest thing – Louisa re-enacting her mouth open sleep to a hysterical me after roadhouse coffee.

Saddest moment – When the mirror flopped down.

Things broken – drivers side mirror again and now Sunny has lost her eyelash and grate to protect her eye!

 

Day four:  Coober Pedy town tour.

 

Cracked the shits this morning.  We moved to Ribas Caravan Park and Louisa asked me to put up the shade attachment that joins to the kombi.  I thought this was a ridiculous idea seeing as we had a town tour in a couple of hours and we were only staying one night, and went about letting her know this.  Louisa was trying to cook breakfast but it was too windy. 

We both cracked the shits with each other. 

Then we both had a glass of red wine and had a laugh.  Who said wine wasn’t any good before 10:30am?

We cooked breakfast in the trangia (thank-you Lauren Lewis for this awesome piece of cooking equipment) in the car and forgot about the shade attachment thing.  The whole stupid thing was that we could’ve used the caravan parks kitchen area which would’ve saved us a lot of time and saved us the 1000 flies that soon swamped into the kombi and around our faces.  Gross.

We’d bought a bag of ice and to my horror it hard started to leak out of the eski.  Mainly because I had forgotten the eski plug.  When Louisa asked where it was I told her it was still on the sink at home.  We did an excellent job of blu-tacking the hole up on both sides and have put the eski on a 45 degree angle just to make sure.

Ask the Leyland sisters.

 

The tour was brilliant.  Coober Pedy is an amazing town with way too much to write about.  For a town that just looks like red rock there is a hell of a lot going on underground.  Our tour guide Jimmy ‘the runner’ was a lovely man who had come straight from Greece about 46 years ago and hadn’t left. He was very interesting and clearly loved his town.  He took us to some places that he wasn’t supposed to and ran the tour half an hour over the specified time so he could show us more.  My favourite was the CP golf course.  How anyone could play golf on those rocks and find it relaxing is beyond me.  If you could beat that course you could play on any course in the world (including Mars). 

Another amazing site was the Italians house.  They didn’t give a hoot about how much money they had to pay for water as long as they had some olive trees, lemon trees, a water fountain, grass and a beautiful garden.  It was quite surreal seeing this lush oasis in the rocky out-back. 

Crocodile Harrys place was also a standout.  An eccentric man who clearly had a passion for women with big boobs.  His dugout was filled with women’s underwear and bras and had massive statues that he’d made of previous lovers.  He’d even made two of the statues into massive wine bottle type thing and when you poured yourself a glass it came straight out of her area. Classy.

 

Unfortunately for us we had booked nighttime mine tour with our caravan park earlier in the day and had to go over all the information again.  Louisa ran off towards the end to drink some wine and I shortly followed.  Neither of us have a great attention span and to have two tours in one day was a stupid idea.  However it is the first day that I have felt like a tourist and on holiday and I guess only a tour can give you that feeling.

 

Greatest song today – The song in the CP public toilets.

Animals hit – Louisa x1 (I think 2 secretly.)

            - Brooke x100 flies

Weird things found – Carols work apron in the kombi.

Funniest thing – Running away from Jimmy the runner when we saw him coming back to where we were having a beer.  The poor thing asked us if any of us were having a beer as he would join us but we couldn’t listen to him anymore after 5 hours.

Saddest moment – Finding out Crocodile Harry was dead and having to tell my brother-in-law who had said to me every time I’d seen him before the trip “Make sure you see Crocodile Harry – he’s a champ”.  He was devastated.

 

 

Day five: Coober Pedy Start time 6:50am. Uluru Arrival time 3:50pm.  Odometer reading: 84688

 

Anyone that knows me well knows I love my alone time.  This mornings alone time was awesome.

Louisa and I had discussed the night before that we needed to get an early start for our drive to Uluru.  We agreed that because I love getting a good start and because Louisa is a horrid morning person that I would get up and drive while she kept sleeping.

I set my alarm for 6:30am, packed up the car, ate a can of cold baked beans, put on my bare feet and took Sunny on a gentle early morning drive while the sun came up.  It was spectacular.  Carol would’ve loved it.  The colours were beautiful and the sun didn’t fully come up till 7:30am so I had a good half an hour of amazing, changing colours.

 

Louisa woke up with 50km’s to go and took over the driving as soon as we made it into Marla.  Our next stop after Marla was the Northern Territory border for photos and then quickly onto the Kulgera pub for a xxxxgold for me and a carlton stubby for Louisa.  We made a quick sandwich and another emergency C-section on the egg carton that had gone soggy and broken, spoiling an egg into the eski, and headed off to Uluru.

 

Nothing quite prepares you for the rock.  Especially when you see the wrong rock and think it’s Uluru.  We started cheering hysterically and filming before I started thinking how different it looked to last time I saw it and before Louisa finally said that it didn’t look like the pictures she’d seen.  Apparently it is the forgotten rock the local petrol station attendant told us.  Aptly named because neither of us can remember the name she told us.

Another 130km’s on and we finally saw Uluru.  After five big days of driving and ever changing scenery the rock stands out like – well, a big rock in the middle of the desert.  It is beautiful.  We managed to secure a powered site for two nights at the Ayers Rock Campground in the resort and took off for the sunset.  It wasn’t the best but it’s sure nice being here.

 

We had some more tuna pasta (only one more night of it left) and head out for the outback bar where we had two NT draughts and then headed home.

 

Greatest song today – Total eclipse of the heart – I was singing it for most of the morning as the sun was rising.

Animals hit – Louisa x1 (I think 2.)

            - Brooke x150 flies.

Funniest thing – Louisa saying “really?” in the biggest woggy accent I’ve ever heard come out of her Italian mouth.

Saddest moment – hitting my head on two separate occasions getting into the kombi.

 

Day six: Uluru walk.

 

We slept in till 7:20am and started to watch Blood Diamond the movie but became antsy after about an hour.  We made breakfast and packed a small lunch (I’m being ironic here because Louisa made me carry food for about twenty).  The Rock is about 20km’s from the campground and we arrived there at about 11am.

To cut a long story short we walked around the rock in two and a half hours stopping briefly for lunch and power walked the last 2km’s because I desperately needed the toilet.

 

Walking a refreshing 9km’s around the rock after five days of power driving was intense.  Louisa and I watched the end of Blood Diamond with our sun kissed faces and went into total ‘blah’ mode.  I drank about a half a bottle of wine and decided it would be a good time to update my blog.  Currently that’s what I’m doing while Louisa cleans out the eski.

Good times.

Connecting to the internet has been non-eventful and painful.  Any internet facility out here is either not working or not connecting. 

 

 

Day seven: Uluru to the Olgas, walk, then drive to Kings Canyon Start time 6:30am.  Kings Canyon Arrival time 4:00pm.  Odometer reading: 85180

 

We got up at 6:30am to catch the sunrise.  Only problem was the sun was already coming up.  We high-tailed it to the sunrise viewing point and watched as the colours changed on the rock and in the sky.

Then Louisa drove to the Olgas outlook point where we went about making breakfast.  I’ve decided baked beans on bread with butter is about as much as I can be bothered doing in the mornings.  Louisa goes the whole hog and makes eggs with avocado and toast, and then I clean it up while she’s eating.  Not sure about this deal. 

The toilets in the viewing area were my favourite – just a big drop hole.  So interesting, yet so uninteresting to examine.  Enough said.

 

The walk around the Olgas was a little rougher than Uluru and much more enjoyable.  It kept you on your toes.  Or off them.  It was about 8km’s and we chewed it up in under two hours. I now know that I get bored after about 5km’s and just want it over and done with.  City girl.

 

After the walk Louisa drove for another hour before losing the plot and I finally took over.  Lou climbed into the back for a snooze while I drove the final 160km’s with Veruca Salt and Hole playing loudly into my earphones.

 

We arrived at the Kings Canyon resort with not much petrol and paid for a powered site for the night so we can recharge our only links to the civilized world and went straight to the bar for a NT draught.  Although I am wary of sounding like an alcoholic – there is nothing better than a beer at the end of a 2hr walk and 4hr drive in the sun.  I even heard one of the grey nomads on the walk today eagerly talking about the taste of her first beer when she got back.

 

Can’t wait for bed.

 

 

Greatest song today – Hole, dying.

Funniest bit – My Aussie breakfast of baked beans while Louisa was making a full latte with the perculator.

Saddest bit – My breakfast compared to Lous.

 

 

Day eight:  Drive from Kings Canyon to Alice Springs via the unsealed Ernest Gilles Road.  Start time: 8:30am  Arrival time: 4:55pm.  Odometer: 85521

 

Louisa had a big crack em this morning and took herself away to the showers while I made myself some baked beans and packed up.

We left the camp about 9-ish and drove down to walk the 6km Kings Canyon walk.  I did this walk about 5years ago and remember it fondly apart from the first 300m which is basically straight up the side of the canyon = killer!  And it was just how I remembered it.  Luckily for us a film crew from England was filming a documentary and we had to stop half way for a breather.  No one was complaining about that.

The canyon walk is hard and beautiful and so worth the climb.  I won’t do it any justice in trying to explain the rock formations and colours so I’ll just say that if you get the chance to walk it, do it.  It beats the Uluru walk and the Olgas walk hands down.

 

After the walk it was my turn to drive us to the meteorite site and then supposedly onto Rainbow Valley reserve.  Louisa wanted to see the Rainbow Valley however I was happy to go straight to Alice.  I gave in but eventually won in the end.

The first hour of the drive was quite pleasant.  We even stopped at the Kings Creek petrol station and was surprised to get a decent coffee and see some camels and a sexy gold chopper about to take off with some tourists in it.  Then we looked on the map and decided we would indeed take the unsealed road as it was only 100kms long and would cut about an hour of our trip.

Wow.

Sunny did an awesome job shaking along that road.  The speed limit was 100km/h but the best Sunny ever got to was 80km/h.  All I can say is that thank god I played Sega Rally on my playstation as it prepared me for gravel driving and sand sliding.  I loved it.  Louisa was shitting her pants but I would’ve been too if she was driving.

It was hairy.

I can laugh about it now but it was pretty full on.  The funniest bit was when a 4xwheel drive hooned past me at about 110km/h allowing me to as they say, “eat his dust”.

The scenery was spectacular and both Louisa and I agreed it looked like an old western movie.  We both half expected some cowboys and Indians to ride past us with their bows and arrows. 

The Henbury meteorite reserve was 5kms from the end and we turned off to go have a look at the big hole in the ground. 

Next stop was Stuarts Well where Louisa informed me that there was a dingo that could play the piano and sing.  His name was dinky.  When we pulled in Dinky was asleep next to the piano and fast asleep.  That dingo was so old and fat there was no chance he was going to play, let alone stand up.  However there were pictures of his glory days and lots of people standing around cheering.  All I got was a “Don’t pat him, he might be having a grumpy day and bite you” from the owner.

Luckily for me the owner of the Stuarts Well pump house asked us where we were going.  When we told him we were going to Rainbow Valley he told us we had no chance of getting there because of such bad road conditions.  It was going to be another 25kms of shaky road in and out and he told us we had a good chance of getting bogged.

Yay! 

On to Alice we drove.

We arrived about 5pm and booked into Hevitree Gap campground where the lady gave us directions to ‘Red Centre Dreaming’ non powered campsite.  To be honest it was more like Brown Dirt Rubbish.  It was horrid and right next to a dumpster.  Unfortunately we’d booked for 2 nights but found a sneaky section away from the dumpster where we set up camp, then straight to the Tavern.

 

Greatest song today: All of the songs on the duke box at the Tavern.  Very country.

Funniest bit:  Me wetting my pats driving along the unpaved road.  Literally.

Saddest bit: As above.