Way Out West 2011

Save up your dollars if you are going to be driving around Australia – the fuel prices in the more remote areas are astronomical! (I won’t even go into the price of basic food items, which Emma has mentioned previously)

Surprisingly though, the prices in country Victoria and up through Adelaide were on a par, or more often LOWER than prices in Melbourne (at the time we left on 7-August, I paid 141.9 cents per litre).

Here’s what we’ve seen so far:

The places with asterisks (*) next to them are where one or both cars have refuelled. The other places are simply for interest’s sake. I’ll post further prices as we continue our travels.

HA ha the mistake was only one zero.

Total driving time to The Rock was 34.5 hrs at an average speed 78km per hour and the fuel consumption is now down to 13.4L per 100Km. If it keeps on going down at this steady rate we will be using no fuel by the time we get home.

BIG Walk!! I mean BIG.  Today we walked Kings Canyon, 5.5 km.  First we walked up the very steep rock stairs. Then you supposedly walked the middle of two canyons only really seeing the one to the left.  We diverted off to the right and walked into Cotterill’s Lookout, climbing up the lookout and looking down the canyon.   It was a little steep to come down and just at the base we met a lovely French girl, who was out in Australia for 6 weeks.  She had already covered Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and after Kings Canyon she was heading to Darwin.  We sat in the shade of the left side of the canyon and ate some lunch.  Travelling along and crossing the bridge, we meandered down to Eden’s garden, finishing the rim walk and heading down a well maintained path back to the car park, taking 3.7 hours.  Getting back to our camp, we all went swimming.

This was our first challenge on the Kings Canyon walk... the stairs to the top of the canyon!

The steps are hard work, but the view from the top is amazing.
The little white things near my left arm are the buses in the car park!

Some of the rocks look like they might fall at any moment, so Matilda and I thought we'd give them some help to stay where they are.

Taking a rest after some hard climbing and walking

Yes, the edge of the cliff is very close!

We set out early and commenced the Rim Walk at 8.35 am after the best sleep I have had on the trip yet.

The first stage was virtually vertical up stone steps, Jodie whose husband does the “Thousand Steps” in Ferntree Gully Victoria four times a week (each time twice) paused for a rest and described herself as sounding like a steam train, I said she was just one engine in the train as I was puffing away too.  We reached the “top” in about 25 minutes including breaks, a short drink and rest in the shade before we set out around the rim.  We maintained a good pace, checking out the view from Cotterill’s look out, the photos will do nothing to show the enormous scale of this landform.  The first spectacular vista was over to the south face,quite rough in most parts but for one large flat face.  Back to the main path and more mountain goating – not vertical but certainly rough walking.  On to the Garden of Eden where you come to a waterhole up in the top layers of the rocks, the valley was full of ghost gums and cycads and a real oasis in the seemingly inhospitable rocks. Trekked back from the Garden of Eden (that was tough going, very steep stairs), then up again to the rim of the south side of the canyon and very soon looking back across at the North Face where the rocks are quite flat in the face you see.  By this stage you are approximately 2.5km through a 5.5km walk PLUS the two 600m side trips – look out and Garden.  We stopped between the 3 and 4 km marks for “First Lunch”, with a sambo and drink.  We continued on, taking in the amazing views until the 4.5km mark where the sign advised “1km to Car Park”, that was one hard kilometre, the knee and hip were quivering all big steps down were taken one left leg down first each step.  At the end my legs felt like jelly but I didn’t feel dead.

We returned to camp and ALL went for a swim!  The water was VERY refreshing, bordering on feeling cold, but that was just because of the ambient temperature.  We cooked on the campsite BBQs and set the table at the adjoining park bench – calling the girls from a game of ball with other camp kids.  Dining in the whisper of twilight that exists here, we saw a number of dingoes.  Rohan had an alfresco haircut by torch light.

Saw this sign at the local IGA store at Coober Pedy and I said to Emma that seeing there had been quite a bit of road kill of cattle, sheep and some quite fresh ‘Roo’ we wouldn’t need to buy any.  We had been instructed how to cook Kangaroo at the Wadlata Outback Centre back at Port Augusta.  Emma wasn’t too keen on the stick that was used to keep the juices in where the poor Roo had been speared and we weren’t quite sure which side of the animal we had to place the tail to cook.  I told Emma we didn’t have to use a stick she had plenty of thread but she wasn’t at all taken with that idea. xxx

Kangaroo tails...?!?

Day 6, so far we have covered 2130 km taking just under 28 hrs actual driving time.

Average speed 79km per hour, 13.6litre per 100km.

Able to relax now after driving those “hills” into the city of churches. I do have a cure for those hills but it would take someone like Jeff Kennet to do the job. Just bulldoze the hills over the city burying a few crows but improving the road from Melbourne to the centre greatly. It was one experience I could have done without but thought me how to use the gearbox manually.

Spend an interesting day on the road yesterday with the “mail man” Coober Pedy to Oodnadatta to William Creek to Coober Pedy 600km of which 200km were on the Oodnadatta track. Anna Creek station [ world largest ] 28000 square km in size, the size of Belgium. Sign on entering the station said watch out for aircraft, they have their own runway that you drive past. The station is run by 10 people, looking after about 18500 head of cattle one head per one and a half square kilometre. Not a bad little farm.

Our transport for the mail run along the Oodnadatta Track (only worth about a quarter of a million brand new!!!)

We're heading for William Creek - 200km along the Oodnadatta Track

Along the Oodnadatta Track - miles and miles of open land
(actually all of the land you can see in this image is part of Anna Creek Station)

Anna Creek Station - nothing grandiose about this homestead, despite being the largest cattle station in the world

I’ll answer a few questions then I’ll fill you in on today’s news.

Here is a photo of the opal still in the rock in the mine we went into.

This is what opal looks like in the rock

Most of the underground buildings are dug into the side of hills so there aren’t many steps.  Happy birthday to James S & Jeremy.  As for mini beasts, I saw big ants (bigger than the normal ones), flies (but not too many yet), a flying grasshopper the colour of beach sand, a mosquito or two and some moths, so that’s five altogether.  I haven’t been fishing yet but I hope to go soon.  We plan to start reading Red Dog tonight, everyone is going to read a page each out loud every night.  Lily shares her birthday with my uncle Paul, I hope she grows up happy and healthy.

I didn’t want to leave Coober Pedy because I met some good friends.  We left and headed for Erldunda, luckily I will see my new friends again soon because they are heading the same way we are.  This afternoon we crossed the border into the Northern Territory, we set up camp and Sarah and I went to the swimming pool, unfortunately it was freezing so I jumped into the shower to get warm.  Now we’re sitting around the camp outside in the sunshine writing our blogs.

Matilda celebrates reaching the Northern Territory

I hope you have a good weekend and that you enjoy the Bugs Alive exhibition at the Melbourne Museum excursion in a couple of weeks (please take some photos for me Mrs Muir, I’ll try and find my own insects to photograph and write about).

Love Matilda ooooxxxx

Into Adelaide

A wet start to the day quickly cleared to a partly sunny day by the time we got through the outskirts of Adelaide and heading north towards Port Augusta, via Port Wakefield and Port Pirie.

Port Wakefield to Port Pirie

The stretch of road between Port Wakefield and Port Pirie was amazing – along a valley between low, gentle, rolling green hills, lined on the left for kilometre upon kilometre by towering wind turbines. On our right, the floor of the valley was dotted with small salt pans, their waters turned pink due to the salinity in the water. And the road was top notch too – all in all one of the most relaxing and enjoyable drives I have ever done.

Wind turbines dotted the side of the valley for kilometres on the road between Port Wakefield and Port Pirie

Salt lakes dotted the floor of the valley.

Another of the small salt lakes along the road to Port Pirie

Port Augusta – It’s A Small World

Our stay at Port Augusta was highlighted by a few hours at Wadlata Outback Centre, learning about the aboriginal dreamtime stories and also the history of the explorers who discovered and opened up the interior of our great country – made all the more interesting by the fact that we were about to travel through the very countryside they discovered.

However, the most bizarre part of this leg of our journey is that we ran into a lady staying in the caravan park that works at our local Coles store in Endeavour Hills – talk about a small world!! She too is on holiday and it looks like we will be travelling as far as Alice Springs with them (we both have the same itinerary for the next 10 days or so).

Who didn’t feel safe in Coober Pedy?!  Not us.  After organising a load of washing, Colleen, Sarah, Matilda and I set out for a walk into town, we very quickly warmed up in what was a lovely mild day, shedding jackets and enjoying the glorious weather.

We visited the Umoona Opal Museum and enquired about a tour (the next one was scheduled for 2pm and we were there shortly before midday, so we decided to return at 2), before heading off to restock on a few supplies (including more clothes pegs) we took in the free exhibit areas of the museum, very interesting and Colleen is now considering that dinosaurs just may have been real after having seen the fossilised amo’s, pleysy’s and iccy’s (sorry, my Latin for the full names of the prehistoric sea life just doesn’t stretch that far).  Having decided on our girls only dinner and restocked (IGA much cheaper than yesterday’s shopping but tomatoes at $17.90/k OR $10.90/k are temporarily off the menu) we walked back to the caravan park.

We returned to Umoona for the 2pm tour which was very informative, Coober Pedy’s opals were first discovered by a 14 yo delinquent son who had been left to mind the camp while his father went to find water.  Dad returned without water to find camp deserted, son returned with half a sugar bag of opals AND water!  During the first world war mining in the area was almost non existent but after the war there was a boom.  Diggers who had been used to digging and living in trenches and dugouts found their niche in Coober Pedy.  To be an opal miner seems to be somewhat like gambling, the outlay is great and there are no guarantees of a return; the 50m square lease only costs $25.10 for 3 months and must be mined at least 20 hours a week or the lease is invalid, that’s the cheap end, the equipment and “sausages” (explosives) are exorbitantly priced.  It is said that there is a lot of money to be made from opals, yet, particularly because the more fortunate live underground in dugouts, Coober Pedy does not show any signs of affluence.

We await the return of our menfolk from their tour with the Australia Post Mail Run (12 hour tour); in their absence we have planned ahead, booking accom at Erldunda and Alice Springs and listed the attractions we wish to see in Alice (we anticipate departing Alice on the day of Henley on Todd Regatta and heading to Mataranka thermal springs).

Here they are! Better log off!

Guess what I saw on the side of the road?  I saw lots of mobs of emus, a hawk, some sheep and some cows (some dead and some alive).

These emus started to run away when we tried to take their photo!

Along the road to Coober Pedy we also saw some Sturt Desert Peas, South Australia’s state flower. We stopped to take a close up photo of them.  I screamed because I was wearing thongs and ants started crawling over my feet.

Sturt Desert Pea, South Australia's state flower

We drove into Coober Pedy, the place where all the opal mines are.  It’s amazing that I found a place with a type of gem stone just like we have been talking about at school.

We went to an underground book shop and an underground church.  The walls looked like rocks with cracks and different colours in them.

One of the underground churches in Coober Pedy

In the underground book shop I found a book that I really like called Red Dog, you might have heard of it because there is a new movie of it out at the cinema.

I made some new friends at the caravan park, they are Arianna, Mitchell, Cooper, Jemma and Carly.

I like tonight’s camp site better than last night because we have a toilet where we don’t have to go behind a tree!  But the view was better last night.

We had a small camp fire when we stopped at Lake Hart on the side of the road.

The view from our camp site at Lake Hart rest area

Love Matilda ooooxxxx