Two paragraphs from the last blog of our 2019 trip come under the heading of “famous last words”
We’re home for the Summer now – the car and caravan are snuggled into their storage warehouse in Adelaide. It’s lovely to be back where your friends and family live, where you don’t deal daily with worries of fires sweeping the land, or seven year droughts and dying cattle and dust storms, or a climate change denying Government.
But like the man said “We’ll be back”. In April next year [2020], we will reunite with the car and caravan and go west, assuming Australia hasn’t incinerated entirely.
If the world situation were not so tragic you would laugh at our optimism – it turns out there was far worse to come; it is now April 2021 and we’re a year behind in our plans. First world problems.
This is where we have been on the caravanning adventure so far.
We will leave New Zealand in five days time (God willing).
Anticipating a bureaucratic nightmare on arrival as the car rego has expired; it is registered in NSW but in storage in South Australia. Each state has its own vehicle registration system and for some reason we suspect re-registering will not be straightforward. We live in hope.
The plan is to spend a bit more time in South Australia while the weather is still warm, then head west across the Nullarbour, and north to the Coral Coast.
We’ve taken the long way round from the Gold Coast, which we left early in July, to Adelaide. Somehow the trip meter was reset part way through so we don’t know our exact distance, but the caravan has travelled 15,000 kilometres and the car quite a bit further: it’s taken 22 weeks. We’ve driven roads that haven’t had a corner for 60 or more kilometres, and at least one road that had 612 bends over 22kms.
We’ve free camped and stayed in many caravan parks and campgrounds and it’s all a learning experience. Caravan parks, for example, have a peculiar etiquette; privacy takes on new meaning. People wander off to the amenities in their dressing gowns or pyjamas and you pretend not to notice. I’m surprised to find some women still put their hair in curlers. Your metal or canvas walls provide only an illusion of privacy: it’s polite to ignore the argument a few meters away, however I do know more about some strangers private lives than I do about some of my own family.
Be careful when, and with whom, you strike up a conversation as it can be hard to escape. You either get their life story, or they want yours. While conversations about great campsites, beautiful views and interesting byways are welcome, long winded conversations on the finer points of tyre pressures can stretch patience.
We can now identify at least five different types of eucalyptus with confidence – there are more than 700, so we have some way to go. While koalas are happy chomping away on leaves, we discover every pub, club, cafe and roadhouse in Australia features Chicken Schnitzel, aka Schnitty on the menu: this is chicken breast run over by a road train, dipped in breadcrumbs seemingly made from the toenail clippings of a koala, and deep fried. And it’s so versatile you can slap on tomato sauce of dubious provenance, top with cheese, incinerate under the griller and you’ve got Chicken Parmigiana, or Parmi. Just add fries, preferably with chicken salt. It’s a unique food group.
Our last couple of weeks have been spent wending our way along the coast of South Australia. We spend a few days at Robe, a charming but unremarkable town that, in the 1850s, was the second busiest port in South Australia. It’s a great town for walking and cycling, but seems best known for weekenders from Adelaide coming to spend money on things with no perceptible value, such as jars full of stones, artisan bowls, shells, signs declaring Home, or beach furniture for city living.
At Meningie on Lake Albert we spend contemplative time watching pelicans with the least aerodynamic fuselages ever, take off and land, and swim around in a majestic flotilla. It’s the biggest breeding colony in Australia and they are mesmerising.
Less mesmerising but many times more frightening is the day we spend hoping fire won’t break out: we’re at Murray Bridge, home of the first bridge over said river, and it reaches 46 degrees C. The wind is very brisk and fans the heat. The Fire Service issues a Catastrophic fire danger warning: if a fire starts they probably can’t control it. There is no escaping the heat. As strange as this country is, the next day the temperature is 18.
Over the five months it barely rained, and then only sparse showers. Some days we lay on the bed with the aircon blasting full tilt but were still too hot. Then there were nights and mornings when the heater was our friend. Russia may be a riddle wrapped in a puzzle inside an enigma, but Australia is a hot coal, wrapped in an iceberg inside a pizza oven.
We’re home for the Summer now – the car and caravan are snuggled into their storage warehouse in Adelaide. It’s lovely to be back where your friends and family live, where you don’t deal daily with worries of fires sweeping the land, or seven year droughts and dying cattle and dust storms, or a climate change denying Government.
But like the man said “We’ll be back”. In April next year, we will reunite with the car and caravan and go west, assuming Australia hasn’t incinerated entirely.
PS – in the meantime, I will get the photo thing sorted and post another story or two on the last couple of weeks in South Australia to keep you going til we hit the road again. And I’ll put up a map of our journey. Stay tuned.
I shouldn’t really be telling you this as it is a well kept secret. Don’t let word get out, but the New South Wales southern coast is stunning. You can keep your Gold Coast with its tacky theme parks and Versace hotels, though I admit the climate and beaches are rather perfect. However the rocky bays, heads, and inlets interspersed with long sandy beaches are so much prettier and more interesting, so for a couple of weeks we meander down the lesser feted NSW south coast beaches and into Victoria.
Dalmeny beach, too cold to swim today, but fantastic for a long walk
Sadly the weather isn’t as nice as we’d hoped, but for the locals any rain is more than welcome – aside from one shower weeks ago back in Barcaldine, this is the first wet weather we’ve had in four months. It would be churlish to complain. And it doesn’t rain much but is overcast most days and temperatures hover around 18℃ instead of the 38℃ we’ve almost become accustomed to.
There are lovely camping spots all down the coast,many in State or National parks. On the caravan grapevine we hear about Mystery Bay in the Eurobodalla National Park – bush camping by the beach – perfect. We find a place among the towering gum trees and we’re amazed fires are permitted, albeit in fireboxes. This is another of those times when you meet really interesting people. Tina had worked as a nurse in remote outback locations so had wonderful stories to tell abut her experiences. Pete had spent years in Africa and then in Israel where he learned about rose cultivation and growing. I ask how he ended up in Israel growing roses and two hours later I know.
It’s the end of the season for whale migration south, and every day there are a few humpbacks or southern rights passing by. Some come into the bays and rest up for a while, especially if they have babies. We arrive at Eden on the weekend of the Whale Festival, which has very little to do with whales; there’s a hot rod rally, a kite flying display and a quilt exhibition, not to mention a chainsaw sculptor and an historic and modern heavy machinery demo. So much action, one hardly knows where to look.
The Killer Whale Museum, though, really does get into the nitty gritty of whales, whalers, and whaling history. In the 1840s there were reportedly around 50 killer whales in the area. They are bastards, killer whales – they’d help the whalers hunt the baleen whales by herding them into the Bay. When the whaler had hit the target with their harpoon the killer would even hold the harpoon rope in their teeth and drag the whale to the boat. The whalers would then buoy the line and leave the harpooned whale for 24 hours till it floated, and the killer whales would enjoy a gourmet snack of whale lips and tongues as their reward.
While parts of the whale were used for all the usual products like candle making, oil production and so on, there was also a use for the fresh, hot whale carcass as a whole. Climbing inside the carcass was once thought to bring relief to rheumatism sufferers. Staying inside the whale for about 30 hours was believed to bring relief from aches and pains for up to 12 months, BUT….. you wouldn’t want to go out in polite company for a few weeks.
We travel through what seems to be back to back national parks before we cross into Victoria and rock up at Lakes Entrance, a beautiful coastal settlement. The harbour entrance, dug out in the 1800s, links the ocean, in particular Bass Strait, to the four large inland Lakes (Victoria, King, Coleman and Wellington) that extend over 500,000 square kilometres. Even though the weather isn’t that pleasant we take a boat trip up through the lakes and around some of the up stream towns. We find there’s an island, Raymond Island, which is home to not only people, but over 300 koalas. Guess what our next stop is.
The next day we take our bikes over on the cable ferry and go koala hunting – we don’t have to go far and over the course of the next hour or so we see about 30, including three sets of mums and babies, sitting up in eucalyptus trees doing what they do best – or actually doing the only things they ever do: eat and sleep.
After deviations to the big city, Melbourne, and wine country, Coonawarra, we are back on the coast and, at time of writing, heading into the last 10 days of this trip.
I suddenly have a problem uploading photos so apologise for the lack herein – in case you’re wondering what they would’ve been; our campsite at Mystery Bay; a panorama of Lakes Entrance; a cute koala up a tree; a would be National Geographic photographer climbing a tree to get a shot of a cute koala.
The past few days have been a wake up call – the weather’s changed dramatically from the sweltering temperatures we’ve become used to, and we have experienced a remarkable thing called rain.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Following the alternate reality of Coober Pedy we head south towards Port Augusta, but not before a visit to another unusual bit of Australian history – Woomera. The drive here brings a realisation of how much the world has changed. Or not. Woomera became a rocket testing site shortly after the Second World War. It was one of the Allies most secret sites during the Cold War, and is still an operational RAAF base. We spend a bit of time in the Rocket Museum, where there is no sign of either Elton John or Kim Jong-un. During the 1950s and 1960s Woomera was second only to Cape Canaveral as the busiest rocket range in the world. In subsequent years it has been involved in space missions, and other testing is still carried out – the relationships across Defence, mining interests, indigenous land owners and Government are complex and it’s mostly a prohibited area and airspace, so what they don’t want you to know you won’t find out.
map showing the missile direction and range during testing – shame about the indigenous people living in the way
Heading east from Port Augusta we stop in Peterborough, population 1,400. In the late 1800s it was a thriving town with three rail lines converging and 100 trains a day passing through, taking wool and produce to market; the advent of diesel meant fewer trains taking longer and heavier loads and the slow death of the town. Only the Indian Pacific passes through now, twice a week. Initially the landscape is redolent of the early pastoralist days. The land was allocated in one square mile blocks, so there’s a house for every square mile, but now it’s sad to see the old stone cottages are crumbling away. Even so, we love seeing trees, paddocks with grass, fences, windmills and other evidence of life after so many hundreds of kilometres of wide open desert.
Unfortunately it doesn’t last all that long and we find ourselves back in the dry. In the immortal words of Dame Edna, it’s as dry as a dead dingo’s donger. Dust clouds blow across the road and the barren fields. There are so many dust devils we stop remarking on them. It’s heartbreaking to think people are trying to eke out a living here. The just announced relief package is widely deemed too late to help many farms after years of drought. There are towns in New south Wales and Queensland that have run out of water. The bureau of Meteorology says this is the worst drought in a century and as I write this about 120 bush fires are burning through the same areas. This is a hard country.
wind blown dust and dirt – try farming here
Its a relief when we arrive in Mildura, a prosperous horticultural centre famous for its orange and grape growing industries – it produces 80% of Victoria’s grapes – and no, we don’t miss growing grapes. The Murray river forms the border between Victoria and New South Wales, though by law the river belongs to NSW. Half an hour from Mildura is Wentworth and the confluence of the Darling and Murray rivers. The Darling flows 2,740 kms down from, quite literally, the back of Bourke, and the Murray has its start in the Snowy Mountains and runs 2,520 to pick up the Darling and flow to the coast south-east of Adelaide. We climb a viewing tower for a better look, but there’s not much to see other than two muddy rivers joining.
this is what a political wrangle looks like – Darling to the left, Murray to the right
It’s hard to grasp the complexities of water politics in this country; peace in the Middle East is more likely than agreement on water allocations in Australia. All the argument doesn’t seem to impact the commercial riverboats. Day trips on paddle steamers, long term hire boats, and week long trips up and down the river are a major draw. We settle for a short trip on the PS Melbourne, a paddle steamer which has plied its various trades on the river since 1912, originally hauling trees rather than tourists. It is still a hungry steam powered beast and I’m glad I don’t have to chop the wood.
the engineer feeds the beast on the PS Melbourne
Scott has never been to Canberra, and why would he? Canberra is possibly one of the prettiest but least interesting cities in the world. Leaving aside indigenous and early European settlement, Canberra came into being in the early 1900s when Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t settle their playground squabble on which should be the nation’s capital. “I’m older” cried Sydney. “But I’m bigger” shouted Melbourne. And much like all kids’ fights, no-one gets their way and a compromise was reached with “somewhere in between”. Hence Canberra.
It always reminds me of Washington, DC, I think because they both have those long vistas towards their respective key Government buildings. In 1960 the population was 50,000. Now it’s about 430,000, which tells you all you need to know about bureaucracy.
From the National War Memorial down ANZAC Avenue towards ScoMo’s place.
If there are reasons to linger we don’t find them and head for the coast and what we hope is more fun in the sun. We take the road directly out to the New South Wales coast to Bateman’s Bay. To Scott’s consternation it’s his turn to drive again and the road we take is a first cousin of the winding downhill goat track we took to Cairns. Cue much use of brakes and colourful language.
Weird doesn’t begin to describe the Opal Capital of Australia – Coober Pedy. This is quite likely the least picturesque place we’ll ever see – and we’ve been to LA.
a metropolis, it is not
To get there from Uluru we backtrack along the Lasseter Highway to the Erdlunda roadhouse, and turn south on the Stuart Highway to Coober Pedy. There’s a very real sense of complete and utter isolation, as the bleakness of the highway and landscape is only interrupted by the corpses of kangaroos and a roadhouse every 100-200kms. We identify roadhouses by three means: it is the only sign of habitation for tens, if not hundreds, of kilometres; fuel bowsers line up outside; and when you walk in the door the smell of the deep fryer knocks you flat.
typical roadhouse on the Stuart Highway
Vast tracks of inhospitable plains, devoid of vegetation, dominate the view and you can’t help but wonder how Stuart and other explorers felt as they battled across the scrubby desert looking at what must’ve seemed to be an unreachable horizon. Unrelenting heat, flies, prickly spinifex, which gets under the skin and sets up infection, and all manner of other bite-y things ready and willing to have a go at them, yet they doggedly ploughed on with their horses and camels.
Coming into Coober Pedy itself I think we’ve taken a wrong turn and arrived in Fallujah. Sandy mounds which appear to be the result of cluster bombs (we discover they’re mine tailings known as mullock heaps) and broken down machinery are all we see.
Welcome to Coober Pedy: mullock heaps and machinery
In Summer temperatures regularly reach 47 degrees and above. How the hell do you live in this environment? Well, 1,700 people do, and most of them were just passing through and got bitten by the desert bug. Either that or they were running from the law. For relief from the heat you go underground: homes (dugouts), motels, bars, hotels, cafes, even churches, and there are half a dozen of those, are built into the sides of sandstone mounds. This is relatively easy as it is a soft stone but also incredibly stable – there’s never been anything close to a collapse, either in a mine or a house. There is at least a 2 metre thick “ceiling”. Inside, the houses are like any, but with very little light other than what comes through the entrance and any windows on the front face. The temperature remains at a comfortable 24 C all year round. Walking into one on a 38 degree day felt deliciously cool.
The Serbian church – the ceiling shows the machine tunnelling
As with all mining towns, the fortunes of Coober Pedy have waxed and waned. The first opals were discovered in 1915, and by 1999 about a quarter of a million mine shaft entrances had been sunk – that means 250,000 mullock heaps, giving the impression giant moles have been at work. Opal mining is very democratic. No corporates or industrial production: you turn up, get a permit, stake a claim and commence digging. Mines are generally owned and run by two or three people and by law you can only own one claim for one year and it is only 100 metres square. Over the years the particular type of sandstone and mining has led to invention – a Coober Pedy designed piece of kit hoovers up the waste stone created by boring machines and when the bin is full, deposits it alongside the mine entry – the mullock heap.
hoover on the right and tip bucket at the top.
For a bit of light relief we check out the golf course. This is a game to play at night in Coober Pedy to escape the heat, and that means using florescent golf balls. To make the greens smooth, apply sump oil. I know you think I’m making this up, but I’m not.
The first “green”
The real beauty comes when we take a trip out to the Breakaways. We head north east towards Oodnadatta, also known as the middle of the middle of nowhere. On the way there’s the longest fence in the world, the Dingo Fence, 5,531 km enclosing large swathes of South Australia, all of Victoria and NSW and some of Southern Queensland, to protect cattle and sheep country in the south.
We cross what is, for all money, where they could have filmed the moon landing 50 years ago – and I’m no conspiracy theorist. This landscape is lunar and set against photos of the surface of the moon it is difficult to tell the difference. There are shells littering the sand again evidence of what was once the inland sea.
just like the moon, except for the road of course
But the real gem is yet to come. There are not enough adjectives to describe the beauty of the Breakaways, a series of rocky mesas interrupting the flat desert. If you are a Mad Max fan, or have seen the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert you have probably already seen the Breakaways. At first, heavy dark clouds the like of which are rarely seen in these parts crowd the horizon making a dramatic backdrop, then within the hour it all clears.
no-one expects clouds, let alone a rainbow in this part of the world
We go to watch the sunset and are not disappointed as the light brings out the colours in the sandstone.
As the light changes, so do the colours – it is mesmerising
On our way to Alice Springs, a little south of Tennant Creek, we find a wonderful side excursion just off the highway. Karlu Karlu, or if you like a more descriptive name, the Devil’s Marbles, are a series of huge granite boulders. Some are bigger than a good size caravan, and which, depending on your mythology, the Rainbow Serpent has laid as eggs, or the Devil has strewn across the valley; rather dull in the daylight, at sunset they glow like red hot coals.
We figure we must be becoming a little bit Australian when we think nothing of driving from Alice Springs late one afternoon to see the beautiful Rainbow Valley at sunset – it’s a 200km round trip, 45km on red dirt road. It is totally worth it for another coloured sandstone rock formation weathered by wind and water, rising out of the desert and glowing in the late sun. There’s almost no-one here, just us and the flies.
Rainbow Valley at sunset, 90 kms south of Alice Springs
We definitely should have been in the Red Centre of Australia a month ago, when temperatures were only in the early 30s. As it is, we strike the start of the hotter season and every day is 38 or 39C, which means – you guessed – early starts.
From Alice we head to Kings Canyon, which rises 270 metres above sea level. Aside from sitting out at the campsite with a drink in your hand at sunset, the only way to appreciate the Canyon is to do the 6.5km rim walk, and of course that means starting before the heat.
the only way is up, to the King’s Canyon Rim Walk
our welcome to the walk is a steep 500 odd step haul to the top, and fortunately there’s an AED at the top – equally as fortunately I don’t need it. Once the potential need for CPR passes, we continue. The walk is not steep after the start, but you still need to watch where you put your feet. The Canyon Rim Walk is just that, tracing the rim of the canyon on a well signed path. It follows the natural contour of the land, and where they’ve had to put steps, it still looks like natural rock. There are a couple of bridges and at one point a wide crevice demands a wooden staircase descent into the Garden of Eden. No snakes please. It is a surprisingly lush – for the desert – area with cycad like palms and greenery around a waterhole at the bottom.
descent to the Garden of Eden
It’s stunning. I feel like I’m saying that a lot lately, but once you get into the Red Centre, the landscape is just awesome – in the sense it actually does inspire awe, not in the sense you’ve just ordered a cup of coffee.
After the canyon you start thinking, well Uluru can’t top this. But whether it’s because the Rock is so huge, or because it rears out of the flat desert, or just because it’s so iconic, it floors you when you first see it. But then, as you get closer it gets even more interesting. The rock is stunning in its complexity. Although it looks like a loaf of bread from a distance, it is an irregular triangle and the surface is a marvel of nature’s design. The north side is notable for the considerable number of pockmarks, some large, some small, pitting the surface skin: at times it’s like honeycomb; in other places Swiss cheese. All around, though more evident on the east and south, are great crevices down which water thunders in the wet season. This must be a marvellous sight.
changing texture on the northern face of Uluru
We go first to the Cultural Centre and learn the history of the Anangu people and the dreamtime stories about the rock. The next day we get up early, of course, to do the 10.6km base walk around the perimeter of Uluru. At 7.00am people had been lining up for over an hour to climb Uluru. The climb entry gate closes about 11.00am to protect people from themselves, as by then it’s 36 degrees. As I’ve said before, people die of stupidity.
the climbing line in profile – looks pretty steep
In any event the angle of the climb appears to be about 40 degrees incline for most of it, and increases towards the top. No wonder people have heart attacks. By the time we complete our circumnavigation we see people descending; this requires an undignified sliding on their asses, as it is too difficult to descend normally. Last week someone fell 20 metres on the way down, and the Flying Doctor Service airlifts three injured people a week, on average, to hospital. Uluru closes to climbers permanently on 26th October this year, in accordance with the wishes of the local Anangu – they’ve only been asking for 34 years since the land was returned to them.
so steep you come down on your ass
I’m saving you further descriptions of fiery sunsets as for the three evenings we were there the cloud covered the sinking sun and the postcard like colours didn’t eventuate. That includes the late afternoon flight over Uluru and Kata Tjuta (aka the Olgas, and equally stunning formation nearby). And our 5.30am start one day to catch sunrise. At least we were up early to walk Kata Tjuta.
Kata Tjuta at (not) sunset
This is all so remote, but Is there anywhere more remote than King’s Canyon? The answer is no, not when you have put half a tank of petrol in your diesel Landcruiser.
With half a tank of gas we decide to fill up at the caravan park before we head to Uluru, 300 kms away. I go in to get coffee. Scott comes in a few minutes later and says “I’ve stuffed up”. Understatement. Alice Springs, the only town around, is 457kms away. Everyone is very nice about it, even though we’re blocking the bowsers so no one can fuel up. I guess for the maintenance staff who come to the rescue, tow the car and van away, then spend the next six and a half hours draining the tanks, it’s another dumb tourist story to be told over drinks. The upside is we now know there are two fuel tanks, the exact capacity, and how much it costs to fill them with the most expensive diesel in Australia.
Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges, with the Gap in the middle
Indeed, Alice never lived here. The wife of the Postmaster General of South Australia never set foot in the town named after her. Which is somewhat insulting to the man for whom the town was originally named, John McDouall Stuart. For several years in the late 1850s – early 1860s, poor old Stuart shlepped through this harsh, inhospitable, baking oven of a country looking for a way to connect south to north. It took half a dozen attempts, he developed scurvy and went blind in one eye. At one point he was so ill he was carried on a stretcher rigged up between two horses, but he succeeded in his mission to map the route for the telegraph line. A heroic feat, and it would seem reasonable to name the town in his honour. Which they did. At first. Alice Springs was the name of the telegraph station a few miles out of town, and Stuart the name of the town. But it proved confusing. So rather than honour a tenacious explorer, they went with the Postmaster’s wife. And there’s not even a spring.
the Stuart Highway runs from Darwin to Adelaide and passes through Alice Springs
What there is, however, is a highway named the Stuart Highway. After reading about Stuart is seems churlish to describe the route as extremely long stretches of straight road punctuated by marginal changes of landscape. For a while there’s termite mounds, then there’s none. For a while there’s wide open plains, then there’s a few undulations and some trees. Sometimes there’s roadkill to look at – kangaroos mostly, and then there’ll be a stretch of dead cows – often followed by, or preceded by swerve marks on the road. The advice we receive is don’t swerve, brake as best you can, and come what may.
wandering stock are as much of a hazard as kangaroos
After what seems like an interminable time we finally arrive in Alice Springs. As expected, it’s hot and dry and, unfortunately, school holidays; the swimming pool is human soup. Thank God for the aircon in the caravan. To do anything we get up early. Yes, before 7.00am. The Desert Park is touted as a major tourist attraction. A desert in a desert you think, how unusual. Yes indeed. Established about 22 years ago, the park represents the three key Australian desert environments: sand, dry desert river beds, and dense woodland. You think desert is desert, but the differences in landscape are remarkable when you really look, and go some way to explain the changes we see along the road. The park has aviaries and enclosures dotted about and we see animals we’ve never heard of before, such as the brush tailed bettong, and in the nocturnal enclosure bilbies, along with ones we never want to see again, like snakes.
brush tailed bettong
The MacDonnell Ranges sweeping out from Alice are stunning – they stretch 644 kms with parallel ridges running east and west of the town, mainly red quartz but also limestone, granite and sandstone. The southern entry to town is through The Gap, a narrow space between the east and west ranges through which the Todd river bed runs. I say river bed, as the last time the Todd river had water in it was about seven years ago.
the Todd river bed through the Gap – the road through is to the right
We follow the West MacDonnells out to the series of gorges on the way west – on our left the ranges run like castle ramparts and on our right it’s flat as an ironing board. The gorge pools are all swimmable, if you don’t mind weed and algae; the levels are low due to lack of rain. We carry on out to Glen Helen, which is a beautiful gorge with a nice swimming pool and glorious red rock walls. We leave the caravan in Alice so we stay in the motel, which is reminiscent of Cell Block B from the outside, and with interior by an Amish decorator. The door had been carefully designed to leave a gap for flying insects to find their way in. The $215 we pay has to be for the view through the extra small windows. Scott expresses some concern that the water in the swimming pool may dissolve his chest hair.
Glen Helen gorge pool close to sunsetGlen Helen gorge wall from our unit
We complete the loop back to Alice by driving south and then east again through Hermannsburg, which is a revelation. It was established in 1877 by German Lutheran missionaries who spied an opportunity to convert the natives. As we know, missionaries can never resist an opportunity to bring Jesus to people who’ve lived for thousands of years in the absence of western religion. Anyway, the two young men chosen to establish the mission must’ve been remarkable as well as zealous. They drove 2,000 sheep, 25 head of cattle and 40 horses the 2,000 kilometres to the Finke River – it took 20 long, difficult months. Long story short, they were quite successful in building relations with the local people, and not only learned the Aranda language, but also recorded it in written form in a grammar and language dictionary. A subsequent Pastor, Strehlow, translated the New Testament into the Aranda language, and wrote a seven volume work on the customs and culture of the Aranda and Loretta people, and this work has provided anthropologists with a valuable resource. Along with the Church, they built a school, cottages, houses, a forge and a tannery to provide employment. All this in one of the most arid areas of the country. The buildings are all still standing in the historic precinct and provide written histories as well as plenty of artefacts for perusal. The work they did is almost enough to forgive them for bringing religion.
the church at Hermannsburg is one of the many original buildings still standing in the historic precinct
Back at Alice Springs, we take a trip out to the Earth Sanctuary Observatory to check out the night sky. So after dinner under the stars, we look through telescopes at Venus, Saturn and the Moon, along with constellations that I can’t recognise even if I squint. But the sunsets and the night sky in the Outback are special, the lack of ambient light making everything in the sky brighter.
And to end on a fun fact for those of you who’ve read the Neville Shute book A Town Like Alice, the town was based on Normanton (remember the Big Barra? Scott doesn’t)
We begin today at an ungodly hour, 7:30am, because Scott decides it’s a good time to climb on top of the caravan to clean off the bat shit. Yes, you read that right. One of the more significant differences of our second stay at Mt Isa: the caravan park had a lot fewer travellers but a flock? a wing? a blind? whatever the collective noun is, every night teeming hordes came to hang upside down in the trees and shit all over the place. Which explains the origins of the expression batshit crazy, as that’s what they made us.
There’s a news item about the number of bats around this season and several people falling ill from lyssavirus, a bat borne disease. I’m keeping a close eye on Scott to see if he develops any signs of paralysis, delirium, convulsions or death, though he’s more likely to injure himself falling off the top of the caravan. If he starts wearing black tights and a mask and talking about saving Gotham, I’ll let you know.
For us, a day on the road does not usually start this early. Many caravaners are up and packed and on the road before we’ve finished our pre breakfast cup of tea. We are rarely on the road before 10.00am, which is technically the time caravan parks want you gone. By now the packing up is routine: disconnect the services – power, water and waste water; empty the toilet cassette, a boy job; close all windows and hatches, take everything off the bench and stow in cupboards – the washing basket placed in the shower is a handy receptacle; take the TV down – don’t forget to wind down the aerial (ok, ok, it was only once); take down and stow any awnings, outside table and chairs; back up the car and hitch up; take off the jockey wheel and put the stabiliser legs up; connect the cables (don’t remind us); attach the safety chains and the weight distribution bars; and a new one for today, remember to empty and put away that last glass of water that you left on the bench.
lovely Mt Isa
We’ve driven a couple of hundred kms from the dubious charms of Mt Isa to isolated Camooweal – it’s stop here or drive another 260kms to the next stop – and 500kms, while just down the road to an Australian, is a bridge too far for us. Our longest driving day so far has been 440kms, and that was enough. Sometimes it’s the long flat straights that are the most tiring for your concentration. We share the driving and listen to ABC radio and learn amazing things, especially in the Science hour. Go on, ask us how fast you have to go to break out of the Earth’s atmosphere. To their credit, whoever is in charge of road safety does their best to help you maintain your attention.
get the bloody message?
Camooweal, aside from some caves, has little: there’s the obligatory Roadhouse, and it has a caravan park out the back and a swimming pool. It is the electricity and the pool (not together) that clinch it as it is now 35+ degrees every day. Access to a powered caravan site is essential for me as if we don’t run the air con in the caravan I lose my mind. It’s possible we’ve stuffed up in our planning, such as it is. The idea to reach the Centre (Alice Springs and Uluru) in Spring so it wouldn’t be too hot is now laughable.
beautiful colours (and cool temperatures) are the key features of the chamber
We wait til the temperature drops to 34 then drive out to one of the caves. It’s a rough, hot but short clamber down to the wide chamber which was formed by a sinkhole 500 million years ago, give or take. The temperature difference is remarkable – it’s at least 10 degrees cooler down in the chamber – if it wasn’t for the allure of the swimming pool and air con I’d’ve been tempted to sleep there – that and the threat of snakes.
Meanwhile, back at the Roadhouse it’s Saturday night and as lively as a church on Monday. Only two people are interested in the Rugby World Cup pool match featuring Australia against Wales, and those two people are Kiwis and therefore support anyone playing against Australia. We cheer when Wales win – the level of interest from Australians in the bar registers zero on the interestometer.
Just west of Camooweal we cross the border into the Northern Territory and gain half an hour. Here at the Homestead, which is actually a Roadhouse, we’re a long way from anywhere substantial. We’ve still got another 720kms to Alice Springs, and while it looks like it’s nearby, it’s another 470kms to Uluru.
I’m guessing the red means more dust and more heat
Not surprisingly, you pay more for things the further you are from civilisation, or competition. The least we’ve paid for diesel is $1.45 a litre (there’s no road user tax) and at Camooweal we pay the most at $1.82. Here at Barkly it is $2.06.
$6.50 was a lot for a vanilla slice, but it was damn delicious.
It’s so hot now at 2.00pm it’s a toss up whether to fry an egg on the concrete or go for a swim. The air con is working hard but seems to have the cooling capacity of a koala yawning – fortunately it doesn’t smell as bad. Perhaps it’s time for a beer.
I mentioned we feel a little culture shock arriving in Cairns, with its city atmosphere after our weeks in the outback. However it doesn’t take long to get used to the creature comforts of city living: like decent coffee, even if you do have to specify double shots.
We fall in love with the charms of Cairns and later, 350 kms south, Townsville. The cities are similar in some ways, particularly in that they make the absolute most of their stunning coastal locations, both having fabulous long walking/biking paths extending for kilometres, along with free public swimming pools by the sea front. Yet, the cities differ significantly. Cairns is a party dude – it shouts WOOHOO “let’s do stuff! come see my attractions: the Great Barrier Reef! The Daintree Rainforest! Fraser Island! Port Douglas!”.
the north end of Townsville, out to Magnetic Island from the top of Castle Hill
Townsville counts on more prosaic economies than tourism – namely defence, with four major defence establishments and 15,000 defence personnel, and manufacturing. It is the only city globally to refine three different base metals – zinc, copper and nickel, and there are plans for a $2 billion lithium-ion battery production facility. Take that you environmentalists. The city is dominated by Castle Hill, a 286 metre high pink granite monolith plonked in the heart of town. It gives stunning views out to Magnetic Island and over the surrounding area, and is popular as a hill running track for freaks and lunatics. We spot several examples on our drive up the hill.
danger – foot traffic
Townsville also has an eye to tourism but without as much to offer as Cairns. We spend a couple of hours at Reef HQ, the excellent aquarium where you can visit the reef without leaving land. We learn about even more things that can kill you. Who knew there’s a deadly sea snail? Not me. The Cone Snail is harmless looking and lives in a pretty shell. But pretty can be deadly: through a harpoon like tooth the snail shoots venom that paralyses. Yes, people have died. Word on the marine biology street is, if it’s a cone, leave it alone.
Cone shells, so pretty to look at, so deadly to hold
Townsville has an arty alter ego as shown by the Council funded Street Art project. A walking trail takes us around 24 commissioned pieces by a mix of world renowned artists – as none of them were Banksy I’d never heard of any of them – and local talent. It is quite simply fabulous.
a small section of a larger work by international artist ROA, who uses native flora and fauna in his work – the full work is about 20 metres long, too big to get in one shotMother Earth, by LEANS, a vision of the movement felt when exploring the Great Barrier Reef and Townsville ecosystem
In between Cairns and Townsville lies the Cassowary Coast, so called because it is the home of Australia’s weirdest bird – the Cassowary, but more on that later. There are sugarcane and banana plantations as far as the eye can see. The beaches, particularly Mission Beach, are worth writing home about: long, long stretches of white sand and waving palm trees. You may have caught the news last week revealing a developer has spent $200 million buying properties in Mission Beach as well as another $31 million for Dunk Island – destroyed by Cyclone Yasi in 2011. It explains why, when we rang with an idle query about a beach side vacant site, the agent told us it was under offer for $900,000. How we laughed.
late afternoon at South Mission Beach, looking to Dunk Island
Driving the Cassowary Coast, we see more signs announcing the presence of Cassowary than actual Cassowary. It is surely the Scarlet Pimpernel of birds. Even so, it’s wise to be Casso-wary: it is the largest forest bird in the world – it can’t fly, but it can run up to 50kph, jump up to 1.5m, swim and – oh yes – disembowel you with its dagger like claws.
Are you speeding? Warning to slow down for the Cassowaries you don’t see
So when I finally do see one, I almost fall off my bike in my efforts to catch up and photograph it. Stealthy David Attenborough I’m not.
the Cassowary – large, ungainly and potentially lethal if provoked
While we are in the heart of sugarcane country we take the opportunity to go to Tully a nearby sugar cane mill which annually produces about 260,000 tonnes of raw sugar for export. You know how you go places and they give you safety gear and you wonder why – this tour is the exception. We are taken through a busy noisy, dirty factory that shows us everything from the cane train arrival to the raw sugar being loaded onto trucks to go to the coast for export. It takes about eight tonnes of cane to produce one tonne of raw sugar. They don’t say how many tonne to give you diabetes.
cane train arriving at the mill
It is amusing to find Tully prides itself on being the wettest town in Australia with an average annual rainfall of 4,000mm. Of course it wouldn’t be a small Australian town if it didn’t have a giant artefact: what would you build to declare your town’s rainy fame? What about a golden gumboot? I would so like to have been at the meeting when that decision was made.
Tully’s tribute to rainfall
It must be apparent by now this blog is not real time. Since Townsville we’ve driven the Flinders Highway through Charters Towers, Hughenden (more dinosaurs) and Julia Creek. Today finds us back at Mt Isa – a different, quieter town from when we were here for the rodeo six weeks ago. We’re at the same Caravan Park, but instead of over 100 sites in occupation, there are a dozen. Instead of a temperature of 25-26 degC it’s now 34-35. We’re hot – damn hot. We were looking forward to heading south to Alice and Uluru for cooler weather but I see it’s heading for the mid 30s there too this week. I’ll be a grease spot on Uluru.
As we are learning, driving the long distances in Australia isn’t always long flat stretches of termite mounds, wandering stock and red dust. Sometimes there are craggy knolls, winding paths over ranges and even hills, but so far no mountains.
thousand of termite mounds speckle the landscape
We leave the barramundi barren rivers of Normanton and head east along the Savannah Way towards Cairns. There isn’t much to capture interest for the first 300kms except for a surprisingly decent cup of coffee in minuscule Croydon (population 258). The guy serving us had worked at Parrot Dog Brewery in Wellington – talking to him is the nearest we’ve come to a decent craft beer since we’ve been here. At Georgetown (population 328) we turn south to an even smaller settlement at Forsayth (population 129) so we can visit to Cobbold Gorge down another 45km of dirt road.
The family that owns the property had lived on the station for years before discovering the gorge, and it’s young geology – only 14,000 years old. They have wasted no time in developing a tourist attraction. The gorge tour start with a 4WD truck ride for 15 minutes across a dry river gulch and lumpy bush tracks; an hour’s walk up on to the limestone escarpment above the gorge follows. The guide treats us to frequent stops to describe the traditional uses of different plants and bush tucker, none of which I would recognise again, except for a small red berry commonly known as the Rosary Pea. It packs a deadly poison called Abrin – identical to Ricin (remember the umbrella tip assassination?) but toxic by two orders of magnitude. And we were worried about snakes.
the narrowest part of the Cobbold gorge
The gorge goes from narrow to very narrow, being only a couple of metres wide at some spots. We see a few fresh water crocodiles sunning themselves on the boulders, but they aren’t bothered by us sliding by in our electric boat. You can only imagine how fast the water powers through such a narrow space in the wet season.
croc on a rock in the Cobbold Gorge
As we continue our trip east towards Cairns we don’t realise we are steadily climbing on the Tablelands until we reach Ravenshoe, where a sign proudly announces it is the highest town in Queensland at 930 metres (3,050 feet). From there the road descends rather more steeply and more windily than the ascent. It was a beautiful, if heart-stopping, drive towing a caravan on one of the windiest roads we’ve ever been on. Anywhere.
it’s a long and winding road
Unfortunately I’d driven the first half of the trip so I had to listen to ongoing refrains of “these turns are tight” and “I wonder if there was another road” and “this’d be great on a motorbike”, while mopping the brow of the driver.
It transpires there is another road further north, the one the sensible people towing caravans take. The one we are on – thanks Nav – the Gillies Highway, we learn is to close over the upcoming weekend for the Targa rally: the 22km section with 612 bends is among “the most exciting roads in the country” for rally racing. We know why. We are now fully prepared to enter a caravan sprint over the Swiss Alps.
this is the car to drive the Gillies Highway – note is isn’t towing a caravan
As we transverse the Atherton Tablelands, we drive through dairying country, and it feels like home seeing Friesian cows grazing in paddocks, instead of Brahmins foraging through scrubland. Then as we hit the flat land it all changes again and we drive through acres of sugarcane farms. Arriving in Cairns is a minor culture shock after the small outback settlements along the Savannah Way. I mean, there are traffic lights and double lane roads. And buildings several stories high.
I hope you can follow the black line – best I can do
Here’s a map of our progress to date. The bottom circle around the New South Wales/Queensland border is our initial trip, and the spot closest to the border is Stanthorpe, where we stayed with friends on their vineyard, and which is now the area ravaged by fires. North of Tweed Heads through to Cairns is the current progress.
We’re now slowly working our way down the beaches from Cairns to Townsville before turning west again towards the Centre. We’ll take the Flinders Highway then turn left when we get to the Stuart Highway which runs from Darwin to Adelaide. This is the sort of country where people disappear, get murdered, and die of stupidness, so stay close to your favourite news station – we may become famous.
