The Eyre Peninsula

We left Coober Pedy after handing out far too much money on tyres and headed south rather late in the morning.

This meant that we'd stop for the night wherever we were and, after seeing a few salt lakes along the way, we stopped at Spud's Roadhouse at Pimba. What a great place to stop - free camping but with access to the roadhouse with its friendly staff at the bar and bar snacks etc. 

It was fun, and in the morning we took the 5 klms drive to Woomera.

Woomera - well, at first it seemed as if the place was totally deserted - a ghost town. We didn't see a person or a car (even a parked car) until we got to the rocket museum. This place had a sign on the door saying "Closed, but will reopen on 2014". 

Yeah, it was still closed, but as most of the rocket exhibits are outdoors we could see them anyway. Interesting stuff, and the apparently bodgy nature of the build of many of the rockets was a surprise.  Check out the photos (when I post them) 

On top of the rockets and the seemingly deserted town (we did spot two people walking as we drove out) the standout feature of the town was the number and beauty of the salmon gums. Elegant trees anywhere, in Woomera they were perfect.

Sadly, Karen didn't share my enthusiasm for a rocket graveyard and together with the heat of the day (still over 40 degrees, even early in the day) she ended up sitting in the car reading the paper.

So we turned south again and passed through Whyalla (industrial stuff to its north and a pleasant enough suburbia after that) and travelled through a desert of saltbush and minor scrub until we arrived at Arnos Bay.

Arnos Bay - this is just a small town with one shop and one pub and one caravan park which is right on the foreshore. There is stuff all here apart from a pier that you could fish from, but the people are friendly and the prices cheap enough and for two people who have done a lot of driving recently (about 5,000km so far) the chance to rest up, read a book and do pretty much nothing was too good to resist. 

We moved on to Port Lincoln after three nights at Arnos Bay and what a treat it is. We had a first night which (like the last day and night at Arnos) was windy and cool and little fun, but after that the place just settled into 27 degree days (cool nights) and sunshine. Spectacular stuff.

We took a drive out to Lincoln Nat Park which is gorgeous.

What follows is a series of pictures of the park - on the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words (probably a hundred thousand of mine) I will let them tell the story with minimal additions.

I imagine that you can guess that we like the coastal side of things! 

If you have read earlier blog entries you'll know that we like our lighthouses. This one is at Cape Donington.

The main reason was to check out the camping areas and we too a decent walk along the shoreline to do just that. The big problem were the march flies. Nasty biting insects at the best of times, but Karen gets a very nasty reaction to their bites and we won't be staying anywhere that has them in any profusion. 

So, here we are in Port Lincoln, checking out the surroundings, taking on the walks and enjoying the good life.

Coffin Bay - We had heard all about the beauty of Coffin Bay so when we arrived there it was with a great deal of hope and high expectations.  The town itself is a cute little place, but devoid of anything resembling a coffee shop or cafe. There is one pub, but that is a barn of a modern pub and doesn't appeal much.

There is a really smart little oyster bar called 1802 (the year that Matthew Flinders mapped out the area)  that we patronised.

But what about the Nat Park? Well, it is mostly sand with a lot of scrub spread across it - quite unprepossessing really - but when you get to the coast itself the place changes in a dramatically beautiful vista. Sort of a littoral Sophia Loren. Wonderful stuff.

The cliffs are limestone and even walking across the top of them you are kicking over shells and coral and all sorts of the things that limestone is made up of. 

Loved all the birds on one side of this rock.

It was at the point above where the white sand stopped and the rocky ground started.

On our walk through the park we met up with a few of the locals - here are a couple.

We decided to leave the tip of the Eyre Peninsula and head up the west coast aiming at Venus Bay.  We both commented upon the fact that, after the dry, sere hills and salt marsh of the east coast the first part of the west coast was very pretty indeed. Tall gums waving in the breeze lined the road and the people were happy to wave to us as we passed. 

The countryside changed after a while with stubbled wheat fields being the norm. The coast was often visible in the form of huge sand dunes always on the left hand side.

We nipped into Elliston for lunch ( a pie and a coffee in the local bakery) and wandered around the town for a while. I know that I keep repeating myself, but this town is another little gem of a place. situated on a gorgeous bay with sandy beaches (nobody on them of course) and everything you might want to conduct a satisfyingly quiet life.

We arrived at Venus Bay but found the place full. It is a pretty enough place, but very definitely focussed on fishing. We moved on.

On our way we saw a signpost directing people to Murphy's Haystacks - well, we had to detour to check them out and the following pics show them. It was an overcast day so they are not at their best, but they are still worth seeing.

Karen giving them a little scale.

Streaky Bay. It feels like coming home again - a lovely town and a lovely feel to it as well. We walked into the town after setting up in a very busy van park and sat on the deck just looking out at the jetty and saying "Ahh" as we de-stressed. Dinner was local caught whiting and chips'n'salad and it was lovely.

The next day we decided to take the drive down to Point Labatt to check out the sea lion colony (the only permanent one on the mainland) and we were in luck - there were lots of them on the beach.

At one point a female sea lion came out of the ocean and started calling. She was replied to by a pup who scrambled to meet her as she came out onto the beach. When they met they curled their necks around each other and sort of hugged. It was a real David Attenborough moment and they went up the beach so she could feed the pup. It brought tears to our eyes - a magical moment.

There was a specially built lookout so you could see the animals but not get too close - great work by the SA people.

The ic below is of the mother feeding her pup.

Driving back we decided to have our lunch (Karen had cut sandwiches for us) at Sceale Bay, but first port of call when we entered the tiny township was a visit to the loo.

It is pictured below, but have you ever seen a more quaint long drop in your life?

We found a place down by the water and ate our lunch looking at this scene:

Yes, we had to go and have a paddle and yes, it was bloody cold!

I decided to take a few photos of a more considered (arty farty?) nature - what do you think?

The sky over the township and beach:

The steps down to the beach from both left and right

After seeing the sea lions (and we were alone there - nobody to interfere with our enjoyment) we decided to loop around Westall Way and have a look at that.

We stopped at Speed Point where there is a camp site that we should have been using.

This is the view across to the point

In the pic below you can see where the camp site is - just perfect positioning isn't it?

Further round, and Smooth Pool, we took a drive along the beach. It is a smooth, firm 2WD surface (apart from the climb back out) and is so beautiful that a decent photographer could turn it into an advert for Mitsubishi.

A little further on we stopped at The Granites and took the 110 step stair down to the beach. Easy going down, but harder going up! 

The rocks have the same red algae on them as those along the Tasmanian shore and glow red in the sun.

The pic below shows the stairs - 110 steps, but easier because of the level parts between sets of steps.

Just about our first non-bird bit of wildlife in SA was this sleepy lizard (like a bluetongue further north) which was a joy to see.

The next day we decided to take a look at the other "Tourist Loop" near Streaky Bay and have a day checking out the beauty spots.

The first stop was at a wonderful (and deserted) beach with a gentle surf washing up onto the beach of clean sand. Yeah - we had to have a walk along it, just to feel the sea breeze in our hair (well, Karen's hair and my scalp) and to have a paddle.

Here's a warning to one and all though - this ocean and its currents come from Antarctica and the water is COLD!

Even in these less visited areas the SA parks people have catered for us very well - the steps down to the beach were well made and safe

How's this for a quiet beach?

Well, maybe not THAT quiet! 

A little further on we came to a limestone cliff that has blow holes and whistling rocks. The difference being that water jets out of the first while only air comes out of the second, but they do indeed whistle.

We had missed high tide so the blow holes were not working, but the platforms are built impressively close to them.

Our last day and night was a bit of a foodie festival - lunchtime we went to the cafe in town and had the best coffee we have had for YEARS - literally. It was superb, but it equalled the slice of orange and almond cake that accompanied it. All in all, it was a real treat for the tastebuds.

But then we went out to dinner that night to a restaurant that is right on the water next to the jetty - it's called Mocean and it unsurprisingly feature seafood highly.

We shared an entree of abalone (flash fried in butter and served with a fresh salad) while Karen had a bluefin tuna steak that was a revelation. We have eaten yellowfin and skipjack tuna before, but the bluefin was magic. I had a white fish called a Kapuka which was delicate and beautifully presented, but the tuna was the star. 

Well, it was until we had a dessert - salted caramel tart served with peanut butter ice cream and a berry coulis - it sounds a little odd, but it was just wonderful. The whole meal was accompanied by a bottle of pinot gris and followed by coffee. 

I can only recommend both of these places - they were wonderful treats.

It was with some sadness that we left Streaky Bay and headed off to Ceduna. We stopped at the Shelly Beach caravan park as the town has a reputation for some "disturbances", especially on a Friday and Saturday night.

Just a stopover for us - we hit the Nullarbor tomorrow.

Coober Pedy

After fitting the spare wheel to the van and dumping the shattered remains of the old rim we continued on to the Stuart Highway and turned south. Fuel at Erldunda was $1.69 a litre - better than the $2.12 we paid at Curtin Springs.

We rolled on through to Marla where we bought food for the night and dumped the very few things that hadn't spoiled in the van fridge failure.

We stopped at a free spot just south of Marla and tucked into some lamb chops. The flies were awful so we stayed indoors and sweated in the 40 degree heat - the a/c only works on 240v so no cooling for us. 

Up late as we slept in with the cool morning but soon enough we were off down the road to the moonscape that is Coober Pedy, ready to book our flights over Lake Eyre.

We booked into the van park in CP as (just like Alice) the security needs to be up there and we found that they had a happy hour in the pizzeria/bar that night. N more needs to be said - we still have cold pizza to eat!

The next day we drove off down the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek and boarded our tiny light aircraft for a fantastic flight over Lake Eyre.

We left soon after dawn and found ourselves driving into the rising sun, but sunrise and sunset are always so beautiful you don't mind too much.

Not too many trees to block the view here is there? 

The obligatory photos of us with the plane we were setting off in.

It is an old Cessna 172 and the oldest and slowest plane in the fleet, but when you just want to sightsee a slow plane is the best.

Flying out early in the morning also meant that we'd avoid the majority of the thermals that get generated, and certainly the very worst of them.

For some reason they always put me in the front seat - something to do with experience and an unflappable nature? No? What do you mean it is because I am the heaviest! 

Anyway, Karen seemed happy in the back seat.

What a beautiful sight - the lake is only 25% full   but that means that we got to see the salt flats plus the water (at least in the deeper parts) turning pink and the birdlife up at the northern end of the lake. Simply magic stuff.

The following are a very few of the photos taken as we cruised out and over the lake.

The south is the place where the water lies, and this turns pink once the algae get a grip.

Further north is where the feeder creeks are and you see the channels of water feeding into the lake.

On the way back we came across a sad sight. A wild camel seems to have become lost on the salt flats and was wandering around. It's tracks were looping around as it searched for a way out and when we flew over it was just standing still. 

It probably died soon afterwards. 

See if you can spot the camel in the pic below.

Our landing was delayed by a minute or so to allow this beauty from the RFDS to get in ahead of us.

Nobody hurt - they were just flying in to conduct some surgeries.

And proof that we got to the William Creek Hotel.

Hint from the pic below - don't leave your camera in the car in 43 degree heat - it starts to lose some of the picture!

As we drove out there we came across a dingo pup sitting in the road, but it scooted off as soon as we got close to it. We spotted this skinny dingo running parallel to the road on the way back.

The drive back however ended up with me changing another damned tyre as a rock ripped a hole in the sidewall of one.

Not happy Jan! 

So, when we got back I went down to the local tyre guy and got a replacement tyre. We are booked in for the next day to get a replacement for the van too. I think I may be putting his kids through school.

Friday 20th Feb.

Yep, I am definitely putting this tyre guy's kids through school. When he pulled one of the van tyres off (to check the offset on the wheel so he could sell us the correct replacement for the knackered tyre and wheel from our trip back from Curtin Springs) he discovered that this tyre was stuffed too. It had a big chunk ripped off the tread and the steel belt wires were exposed.

Yep - that is now four tyres in a week.

On top of that, we walked up the road to a cafe (that sold didgeridoos) and they charged us $`15 for two coffees! Robbing bastards! 

On the other hand, the tyre guy was a diamond and his services are HIGHLY recommended.

He is probably the only good thing we have to say about Coober Pedy.

The Desert

Just starting the story of our trip into the desert (Pictures to follow)

Thursday saw us meandering off into the desert from Alice Springs. 

Well, that may be a bit melodramatic as we simply drove down the road to end up at Curtin Springs, some 100 odd klms east of Ayers Rock.

Why stay there? Well, they have powered sites for caravans and that meant we could use the air conditioning. In the over 40 degree heat this is an essential for Karen and damned nice to have for anyone anyway!  They will also let us leave the van there (free of charge) while we are off seeing our daughter in Warburton.

We spent a happy couple of hours in the bar there (yeah, typical) chatting to the 87 year old original owner of the place (his son runs it now) about his life and very interesting it was too. He arrived there 57 years ago with a few cattle and his wife and they lived under a bough shelter for 3 years while he built up the herd and a house. It is now a big concern with cattle and tourism being the biggest parts of the business. 

Friday 13th - We left Curtin Springs as soon after dawn as we could manage and headed west. Laura had organised a permit for us and we were happily contemplating a look at Ayers Rock and the Olgas as we drove through, but bureaucracy struck at the park entrance. 

Some officious jobs worth told us that our permit was from the NT/WA border and through to Warburton but didn't cover the part from Yulara through to the border. Go to the Information Bureau and get the correct permit she said, so we turned around and drove back to town to get it.

The information bureau was closed but a passing ranger told us to see the police.

The police looked puzzled and said "You don't need a permit".

So we drove back to the park entrance to meet the khaki clad defender of the faith back at the park entrance who told us that the police were wrong and if the info bureau was closed we'd have to organise it through the Central Land Council in Alice. Some 500 klms away. Apparently we could do it on-line (sounds like a good idea) and then print it out for her. Hmmm. We are a little short of printers in the Pajero, so after a few increasingly heated words she opened the barrier so we could drive round and return to Yulara (or Alice) but somehow I managed to mistake the road for the border for the one to Yulara and we ignored the permit nonsense and headed for the border.

Why we need permits to travel on a government funded public road is something that gives me the major irrits. I could get annoyed with the idea of needing a permit to enter a town as well - hell's bells, you don't need a permit to enter any "normal" town so why do these communities need protection? Then again, they do need some careful handling, but if we allow them to self exclude from Australian society then they will NEVER be part of our society and they will just be a drain on our economy instead of contributing to it. The best that could be hoped for (as far as the rest of us benefiting from this section) is that it will provide a training ground and an area of study for anthropologists.

Anyway, rant over.

We suffered the couple of hundred klms of pretty awful road to get to the border with the Pajero handling the crippling corrugations and soft sandy sections really well. The dash looked as if it might fly off at any time though! 

Then we hit the border and the road instantly changed to a smooth dirt highway capable of handling 100+kph speeds safely.  I love WA!

Corrugations as we leave the Olgas (in the background) but it was to get much worse.

Pretty country for the most part.

The border at last! The road improves hugely after this point.

We stopped at the Warakurna Roadhouse for an excellent coffee and a chat. We also headed down the track to Lasseter's Cave, but Karen groaned at the interruption to the journey so we stopped for lunch and then turned round and headed off to Warburton again.

On the way there we came across a Commodore full of locals with two flat tyres and while I was happy to take a message to Warburton to get them some help, Karen insisted we repack the Pajero to take one of them with us. I have to say that my nostrils objected strongly to this and I am not sure we will get the smell out of the seat. Still, we did the good deed and upon arriving at Warburton we found that we also had a puncture in a rear tyre.

Stupid 18 inch wheels! 

The local roadhouse fixed it for us for $40 so all is good again.

It is worth noting that most of this trip was done in temperatures of 45 degrees. Damned hot in fact!

Still, when we got there we were able to catch up with our daughter Laura and her dog Bruce.

She showed us around the place and while there isn't that much to see there were a few things noteworthy including just how popular the pool is with the local kids (40 odd degrees? Who can blame them?) and some of the artwork.

This mural based upon the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima shows a group of men raising the aboriginal flag. Good to see that some pride exists in the community.

We took Laura's dog for a walk to a pond formed by a break in the water supply line. The locals keep it like that to water the brumbies and the camels as well as a lot of other wild life.

These were a couple of the brumbies.

Bruce likes a jump in the water as well :) 

The camels were more wary than the brumbies, but they were still there.

As you can see, the area has a bit of a fly problem!

As we drove back on the Monday to collect ur van at Curtin Springs we came across a whole mob of camels on the road - check out the pictures. There were over 50 of them visible in the scrub next to the road.

On our way back we called into the Giles weather station and saw the grader used by Len Beadell's Gunbarrel Construction Company.

After a fuel refill at Warakurna we decided to stop at Lasseter's Cave for a sandwich and coffee and marvelled at the man who ended up camping out there for 20 days after his camels bolted, and doing it in January 1930. It must have been so hot and uncomfortable.   

The story is written in the signs below.

And this is the actual cave. As I approached it, two owls flew out of it just whistling past my ears!

Once we hit the bitumen (oh glorious smooth bitumen) we decided to go to a hotel at Yulara and grab a cold beer. Majorly pissed off when they refused to serve us as we weren't guests, ah well, there was a beer waiting in the fridge for us when we got home to the van.

Or so we thought. It turns out that the fridge failed and all our food and drinks were warm. We chucked out almost everything and ended up having beans on toast for dinner with a couple of beers in the Curtin Springs bar.

Problems with lousy roads over, we turned back  towards the Stuart Highway, but after about 30 klms I noticed that the van seemed to be at a bit of an angle so I pulled over to find that one of our tyres had totally disintegrated and we were running on the rapidly disappearing rim! Check the picture to see what it was like.

To make matters worse, the van jack could not go down that low so we ended up jury rigging a ramp to give us the clearance to allow me to change the tyre. I will have to get a new rim and tyre now.

I just worked out that visiting Laura has entailed an 1,600 klm round trip, two punctures (one repairable and one a total loss), days on end with temperatures over 40 degrees, some awful roads and some less than wonderful hospitality from the park gate ranger and the hotel in Yulara. It was worth it to see our baby girl though and to meet her cracker of a dog - Bruce.

Travelling south

Sunday 8th Feb

Well, we eventually managed to prise ourselves away from Darwin today.

Karen had an emotional last day at work on Friday and still harbours regrets that she didn't get everything done so her team wouldn't have to do anything (at least in an administrative sense) for the next six months. I am not that kind - the sooner they get to grips with things the better they will appreciate her work in the past!

It was also quite a wrench leaving behind the friends we have made. I will miss seeing Paul and Lorry and Scotty while we will both miss seeing Elaine and Steve (thanks for dinner last night once again!). Karen will, being a woman of course, also miss catching up with half the female population of Darwin and there is no way I am going to list them all. You know who you are!

Anyway, we set off into the cool of a Darwin morning. Not that we thought it was actually cool until we hit the deserts later on, but in hindsight it was a perfect morning.  We breakfasted at Emerald Creek (love that shady deck there as well as the surprisingly good coffee) and then stopped in Katherine to refuel and get a coffee with one of Karen's colleagues in Katherine (Teresa Cummings

 - it was a pleasure to see you again) before wandering down the Stuart Hwy at a leisurely pace to stop at the Daly Waters pub.

38 degrees through the evening does not make for a pleasant time, but the a/c works well and we slept soundly.

Monday 9th Feb

The morning was pleasant until the heat started to bite at about 8am, but we were just about ready to hit the road by then and we headed off into the heat haze of the Stuart Hwy again.

The scenery had already changed from the forest of the Top End to the lancewood stands of the area south of Mataranka, but soon after we left Daly Waters it changed again into the flat plains of this magnificent cattle country. 

All the way down we had been commenting upon just how lushly green the country was after the wet season rains, well on these cracking clay plains the plants change again to be dominated by grasses with Mitchell Grass being a dominant species. It is quite striking at this time of year with its tall, tall green stalks topped by a golden crown of seed head. Magic to see.

However, aside from the occasional lizard basking on the road and the bird life there was just not a lot to comment upon so we just kept trundling along until we reached Tennant Creek where we lunched and then the Wauchope pub where I write this.

It's a nice pub with the staff really wanting to do anything they can to make us feel comfortable, but as we are about the only people staying there I am not too surprised.

It is just 8 or 10 klms south of the Devils Marbles and they are a sight not to be missed.

40 degrees here with the added bonus of flies everywhere. This is of course why my plans to visit the Od Policeman's Waterhole in the Davenport Ranges took a dive - getting out into somewhere remote like that in 40+ degrees is neither safe nor fun so it will have to wait until the next time.

Hmmm

Tuesday 10th Feb

Well we left the Wauchope pub after a pleasantly cool night. It dropped down to 21 degrees overnight and we had to snuggle down under the sheet! Lots of baby grasshoppers hatchings (our morning swim was marred by hundreds of these critters in the pool mean that there will be a plague of them very soon.

No surprise when you think of the amount of rain we have had and just how lushly green the country is here right now. Yep, it is green grass everywhere in what is supposed to be a desert!

We are in Alice right now. Just like everywhere else we are the only people in the van park.

Van park? yes, we want the security as the locals here are prone to nicking anything they can.

Wednesday 11th Feb

Update. Remember I said that the locals were thieving bastards? Well last night we were woken by someone trying to open the door of the van at about 3.30am. They ran off as soon as they heard us but it seems that someone else had their money, phone and other stuff stolen last night . These little thieves can move silently it seems as those people didn't wake up.

The cameras at the van park showed two 16 year old (or thereabouts) lads who presumably came from one of the local town camps sneaking about the place.

Makes you wish you had a gun.