An abrupt end - Port Augusta 20th - 21st September

It was a long, uneventful drive from Coober Pedy to Port Augusta. After lunch was more interesting with numerous huge salt lakes, and many smaller ones, bordering the road. We arrived in Port Augusta just before 4pm. After checking out possible places to stay we decided to drive the extra 45mins to Mt Remarkable National Park. It would mean we would have to have a quick tent set up before dark.

A devastating phone call from home.

We were less than five minutes out of town when Boyd’s mobile phone rang. It was Lisa’s Mum with some devastating news.

Lisa’s dad had just been in a horrific car accident. He had been airlifted to Westmead Hospital from the accident scene. Granny was in the waiting room making the phone call as the doctor’s worked on Papa.

We turned around and headed back into Port Augusta to find some accommodation to try to digest what was happening.

The quick drive home. 

After the devastating phone call we quickly decided that we were going to drive home without delay. From Port Augusta we knew we could make it home with three days driving. If the kids coped and all was going OK we could even do it in two.

We managed to get to Hay in one day. Lisa’s mobile phone worked overtime whenever we got reception. Friends and family were in regular contact. Voice calls and texts were received in a constant stream.  It was a long day - 830km. We arrived in Hay at dusk and found a motel room for the night. The next day we drove 700km and again the mobile phone was a much needed contact with all the goings on at Westmead Hospital.

Mixed emotions flooded us as we drove towards home. Some reminiscing about the last three months, lots of looking forward to home comforts. All dominated by the desire to be close to Papa and family.

 We reached home at about 4.30pm, 19556km had been driven.

Coober Pedy 19th - 20th September

The drive south was very uneventful. It became very evident that there is nothing of significance on the Stuart Highway south of the centre. We crossed into South Australia and made it to Marla by 1:30pm and decided to keep going all the way to Coober Pedy. It was a long day in the car - over 750km.

We wanted to stay in a motel underground in Coober Pedy. We ended up staying in a motel called Lookout Cave. It is an old opal mine converted into accommodation. It was in a hillside overlooking the town. Our room was a walk down a rock walled corridor that went deep into the hillside. It was well set up with a double bed and three singles. The walls of our room were all rock faces.

We went out that night for pizza at “Johns Pizza Bar”. It was obviously the place to eat, as it was large and every table was filled. They were doing a bumper take away trade as well. It took a long time for our pizza to arrive. We headed back to the Lookout Cave exhausted. We spent a night in our windowless room deep underground.

The next morning we went to an opal mine to do a self-guided tour. The tunnels were rabbit warren like and we soon became disorientated even though we had a map. It was very difficult to translate the directions on paper to the underground tunnels. Archie was unsettled for the entire time we were underground in the mine and we returned to the Tarago to drive to Port Augusta. It was to be another long day in the car.

Archie and Imogen in our motel room

Jasper in our motel room

Entering the opal mine

King's Canyon 16th - 19th September

It was an easy drive of about 300km from Yulara to Kings Creek Station. Kings Creek Station is a working cattle/camel station with facilities for camping. It is the largest exporter of wild camels in Australia. We spent two nights here. We shared stories with a family travelling the opposite direction to us who were heading north in a hurry to avoid the wet season, we toasted marshmallows on a campfire with another family who were travelling with 5 children – 4 boys and one girl of similar ages to ours. The children had fun with a baby camel, a calf and a donkey.

On our second day there Boyd and Imogen left at 6.30am to drive to Kings Canyon (35km away). The walk was too steep and precipitous for the boys so Lisa stayed at the campsite with them. Boyd and Immy completed the “rim walk” from the base of the canyon up to the top, 6km along the top and back down again. It was a very steep ascent and a spectacular walk. They returned to the tent at the Station in the mid-morning, in time for Lisa to drive to the canyon to do the same walk.

We left early in the morning of our third day and headed south. We had the intention of driving to Marla where there was a camping area attached to a roadhouse. This was to be a one night stay to break the trip to Coober Pedy which was over 750km away.

Uluru 12th - 16th September

It was about a four and a half hour drive to Uluru. On the way, about 30 minutes before arrival, Mount Connor appeared. Many travellers mistake this mountain for Uluru. We took it as a sign we were getting close.

Lisa’s parents were due to fly into Uluru at 1:15 and as soon as we got mobile phone reception we got in contact with them. We arranged to drop into their hotel before heading to our campsite. We left all three kids with them and set up our camp only five minutes away. Kids enjoyed a swim and we all enjoyed showers in a tiled, clean bathroom. That night Granny and Papa treated us to a gourmet dinner at a restaurant in their hotel to celebrate Papa’s 70th birthday which passed while we had been away. It was an extremely nice change from pasta and cheese or sausages in bread.

Over the next few days with Granny and Papa we: -

                Visited Walpa Gorge in Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). Here we walked 45 minutes into the gorge.

Went to the cultural centre and listened to an Aboriginal elder talk about the significance of Uluru. We learnt about the importance of respecting this as a sacred place of spiritual importance.

                All seven of us completed the base walk of Uluru, walking around the rock. Jasper and Archie walked some of it, alternating between rides in the pram, rides on Papa’s shoulders and rides on Boyd’s shoulders. The rest of us completed the 11 kms on our own two feet.

                We hosted Granny and Papa to a camp style dinner of chicken on the BBQ in wraps with hommous, cucumber and capsicum.

                We were treated to a second dinner out. This time it was in a “café” in the Yulara town square.

                We enjoyed three consecutive days of showers.

Early on our third morning Lisa drove back out to Kata Tjuta to embark upon a second walk. She left at 6am and returned about 10am after getting a new perspective on these rocks. She managed to do a more difficult walk that the boys would have found too difficult so we didn’t tackle it on our previous visit.

Granny and Papa left us later that morning. We were considerably cleaner, well fed and ready to tackle the last few weeks of our adventure.

That afternoon was extremely windy. Red dusty sand became airborne in gusty squalls. It got everywhere and although we battened down the hatches, everything in our tent got covered in a film of red.

Our next stop is King’s Canyon.

Alice Springs 8th - 12th September

Drove into Alice Springs mid-afternoon with no solid plans about where to stay. We made a quick visit to the information centre and decided to set up camp at the Big 4. All children quickly made friends around the swimming pool and the jumping pillow.

On our first morning we went to Desert Park. It’s a large flora and fauna park set up in the desert. There was a great talk given by a local Aboriginal about survival in the desert. We went to a talk and display  of local birdlife. We sat in aviaries, walked amongst kangaroos and viewed night wildlife in a large nocturnal exhibit. By late morning it was getting hot so we headed into town for a quick shop, some lunch, bought new shoes for the boys and walked through some indigenous art galleries.

The next day we drove to the West Macdonell  Ranges. It was about an hour drive to Ormiston Gorge. The scenery on the drive was magnificent. Red, black and orange dotted with ghost gums. At Ormiston Gorge we swam in a large waterhole and played on the rocks and sand.  On the drive back to Alice Springs we stopped at Ellery Big Hole Creek. Here there was another great waterhole to swim in. This was a bit bigger than the one at Ormiston Gorge. Boyd and Imogen swam across the waterhole to a narrow section with towering rock walls on either side.  The water was cold and the flies, in their thousands, were close to unbearable.

On day four we visited some more art galleries and Lisa found a painting she particularly liked. It is now rolled and packaged in the back seat of the tarago. We sat in a hands on didgeridoo workshop. Imogen is a natural, Boyd’s attempts are very airy, and the boys tried their best.

After three days of cleaning up in Alice Springs we headed for Uluru.

 

Devil's Marbles 7th - 8th September

As we drove south the landscape got drier and drier and drier, and the trees were replaced by low lying scrub and tussocks of grass. It was quite a long drive to the Devil’s Marbles, just over 500km. We stayed in a camping area amongst the marble mounds. We walked around and over some of the rocks before dinner. The marbles are a significant place to the local Aboriginals. It is a very sacred place and a dreaming site. They provided a very beautiful and peaceful setting in which to camp. The howling of the dingoes at night was a reminder of how remote we were. The next morning it was back in the car to travel the 400km to Alice Springs.

   

Daly Waters 6th - 7th September

We decided to stay at Daly Waters to experience the iconic pub. It didn't disappoint and it is truly unique. We arrived for a late lunch, which we had in the pub. They were trying to rejuvenate the “grass” on the campsites at the back of the pub so they put us and other campers across the road in a dusty spare block that they call the “overflow”. After set up we had a swim in the pub pool to cool off. Then we headed back into the pub for dinner of “beef and barra” and the nights entertainment. After dinner and a few beers it was time to head back to our tent for a late night for the kids. Out of the corner of our eyes we spotted Pip and Archie walking into the beer garden. This couldn’t be true as they were supposed to be in Kakadu. It turns out that they had overstayed in Darwin, skipped Kakadu and were heading south, eager to turn east to hit the Queensland coast. A few more beers and an extremely late night (Jasper, Archie and Imogen played with Sam and Archie until all hours).

The next morning we packed up to head to the Devil’s Marbles. The pack up took longer than expected as the zip on our camper trailer cover decided to disintegrate. So we travelled to the Devil’s Marbles with ropes and ocky straps holding our trailer cover down.

Before we left we said another FINAL farewell to Pip, Dean, Archie and Sam. This was our third farewell. We all knew this was definitely the last time as they were turning east on the Barkly Highway and we were going south on the Stuart Highway.