Wichetty Grubs Anyone

Our last night in Yulara was rudely interrupted at 2:30am by our neighbours loudly talking on the phone – speaker phone to boot so we were privileged to hear both sides of the conversation!! It was one of those situations where you’re lying in bed thinking “Surely they realise the time and they’ll stop soon so I won’t need to get up and say anything.” This thought went through our minds for a good 20 minutes!! It wasn’t as if they had anything important to talk about either!! It also started to rain during the night – of course, we are packing up in the morning, why not rain??

Kings Canyon Resort (posh name for another campground) greeted us with the sun shining and the temperature a very pleasant 27 degrees. It was the first time since we’ve been on the road that we could say we were actually hot. On our way there, we had an interesting little interlude. About 50km out from the “Resort”, we were flagged down by two Aboriginal men standing by their old Toyota 4WD with the bonnet up. They had run out of petrol and asked if we had any fuel. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know I do. Lucky the car wasn’t a diesel because it wouldn’t have been easy to give one of them a lift to the nearest petrol station. As I was unlocking one of my jerry cans, I saw two Aboriginal women sitting on the other side of the road under the shade of some trees. When Ash and the boys got out to stretch their legs, there was some excited chatter from the women after which, the younger of the two men come over to the boys and showed them a big fat Witchetty Grub. He explained that they had been stuck there for quite a while so the women had collected some bush tucker. The man offered the grub to the boys, which for some reason they turned their noses up at, although Sean did hold it. Not being able to convince them that it was good tucker, he proceeded to demonstrate the art of eating a raw Witchetty Grub. Afterwards he said he preferred them cooked but he never ate the heads – talk about fussy!!

We got talking as I was filling their tank and the older of the two men, whose name was Rowley, told me they were travelling from their home at Ayres Rock (they didn’t call it Uluru – go figure) to another Aboriginal township near Kings Canyon and had hoped they would make it without running out, which they didn’t! Once the car was running again, Rowley thanked me and wished us all Palya, an Aboriginal term we’d learnt at Uluru meaning something along the lines of all good between us and we are done for now.

We waited at the campsite until the late afternoon before embarking on the shorter of the two walks we were planning on doing during our stay. It was a very pleasant stroll into the Canyon following Kings Creek and we couldn’t wait until the next day to do the 6km rim walk which takes you up to the top of the Canyon and follows its edge right around. When I say we, what I really meant was Leanne & I as the kids didn’t seem to be too enthusiastic! With Dingos walking freely around the campsite, we made sure we packed all our shoes (and babies) away for the night.

The rain that we left behind in Yulara caught up with us again overnight and the next morning we awoke with the Canyon shrouded in mist!! Walking the Canyon is pretty much all one does in this place so we decided we might as well pack our rain coats and if we got wet, we got wet (the campsite had working dryers!!)!. The walk started with a steep climb up the side of the Canyon to the plateaux above. With the promise of a lolly every 10 minutes again (a la the Kata Tjuta walk), Sean set a cracking pace, so much so that we often had to call him back or tell him to wait up whist us older folk (I am 40 now!!) caught up. The views from the Canyon rim were as stunning as we were hoping for and to top it all off, the cloud that was threatening rain earlier in the morning was starting to clear. We finished the walk in blazing sunshine (although it was still quite cool from the wind) and we went back to camp for a relaxing afternoon of free time, satisfied that we had ticked off another “must do” from our list.
Postscript
Last night was cold, I mean real cold!! The drive from Kings Canyon to Alice Springs was to be our longest one day drive of the trip so far (470km) so I was keen to get moving early. Of all the nights for it to drop below freezing, minus 2 to be exact, last night had to be it. We were on an unpowered site so we had no heater and to top it off, there was a thick frost over everything which made it extremely unpleasant on the hands when it came to rolling the awnings up!! I think I preferred the rain!!

Uluru

Our next destination, Uluru (Ayres Rock in white man’s talk), was one we were all really excited about getting to. We broke our trip with an overnight stay at a road side rest stop on the SA-NT border (a welcome free night’s accommodation!!). Seeing Uluru for the first time is one of those genuine “wow” moments. Driving along the Lasseter Highway, it appeared before us as we rounded some sand dunes and although it was still quite some distance away, you could tell it was big.

After setting up camp at the Yulara Resort Campgrounds (the only place to stay within 100km of the National Park), we set off to watch the famous spectacle that is sunset over Uluru. It was truly magical to see the colours change and the Rock glow with a shimmering luminescence as the sun went down.

The next day (Thursday 9th), we joined a guided walk lead by one of the Park Rangers. The Mala Walk took us a short way around the base of Uluru and we were given a very brief insight into the aboriginal history of Uluru’s creation and aboriginal life as it was and how it is today – both the good and the not so good. In respect of the Anangu’s (traditional owner’s) wishes, we did not climb Uluru. We have heard that a new management plan for the National Park has been released for public comment and the big news is that it is proposing to close the climb – good on ‘em I reckon!!


Friday we were up before dawn to see the sunrise at the region’s other famous landmark – Kata Tjuta (formally known as the Olgas). It was a very cold morning and although not as spectacular as the sunset on Uluru, it was still a beautiful sight. After that we tackled the 7.4km Valley of the Winds Walk. The walk took us into the interior of Kata Tjuta and provided some stunning views of the steep sided dome formations. We kept the kids moving by agreeing to a lolly stop every 10 minutes. It’s a good thing they can’t judge time very well or else we would have run out of jelly babies!! Taking just over 3 hours to finish the walk, we couldn’t believe we were passing people who were starting it, during the hottest part of the day!! That afternoon we all took nanna naps to recharge our batteries.

After some more washing and van cleaning (we are there still finding dust!!) we spent our last day at Yulara visiting the Cultural Centre, taking a drive right around the Rock and a final short walk to the Mutitjulu Waterhole – the only permanent waterhole at Uluru. Surprisingly there was a small amount of water still trickling off the Rock into the waterhole. We had a Happy Hour dinner at the sunset viewing area watching the free spectacle of nature doing its thing again. Tomorrow we pack up and move on to Kings Canyon.

Dust, Dust Everywhere and Not a Dryer in Sight

The next (brief) stop on our intrepid journey along the Oodnadatta took us to Lake Eyre South, the poor cousin of the more famous (and wetter) Lake Eyre. The salt lake was an experience to behold and the shimmer of the sunlight reflecting off the salt gave the illusion of it being a large stretch of water. With Coober Pedy beckoning we continued on stopping at the William Creek Hotel for lunch.
We bid farewell to the Oodnadatta Track just north of William Creek. If I thought the Track had been rough it was nothing compared to the corrugations of the not so exotically named William Creek Road to Coober Pedy. With 140km to go and the trip computer telling me we had 120km of fuel in the tank, I was finally going to get to use my Jerry cans!! I actually planned to run out just to see how accurate the trip computer was. We kept running for a further 5km after all the warning lights and buzzers started sounding before the car started to finally splutter. After a not so quick splash and dash, it wasn’t much further before we were in Coober Pedy, the opal mining capital of the world.
I would call Coober Pedy and eclectic town. I’d heard that the majority of people lived underground and was surprised to see quite a large number of “normal” houses above ground. I suppose not everyone in town owns an opal mine. We were keen to get our washing done so this was first on the agenda after we arrived. Second was to clean out the dust that had worked its way into every nook and cranny of the van despite my efforts to tape up every external vent!! Unfortunately that night it rained (what is it with us and rain??) and the laundry did not have a dryer (no need normally I guess!). This wasn’t too bad as we were planning to stay for a few days so we figured it would dry eventually (you know the saying about assuming and donkeys?). Things got worse however when the littlest one in our posse had an “accident” in the night which meant the boys bedding, including the doona, needed washing. No problems, there must be a Laundromat in town so we’ll use that. Fortunately there was a Laundromat but unfortunately the dryers were out of order – it never rains in Coober Pedy, who needs dryers they say!!! Well, we needed one and the rain/drizzle was not going to left up for a while. Not letting the weather dampen our spirits (pun intended!!) we spent the next few days of our stay seeing what the town had to offer – taking in a mine and underground house tour and visiting a plethora of Opal shops. We also took a drive to The Breakaways, a small but breathtaking mountain/hill range just out of town.

The washing situation was nearing crisis point as our clothes were still not properly dry, Tim’s doona was still dripping on the clothes horse and we were leaving the next morning. There was only one thing left to do, infiltrate one of the other caravan parks in town and use their dryers!! It was the oddest thing but every time I drove into the park (I had to do it three times to change loads) I felt like I was doing something illegal or something!!

The highlight for the kids was going noodling. Noodling is poor man’s opal fossicking – sifting through the discarded diggings from the mines in the hope of finding something of value. The foraging in the piles of dusty rubble soon deteriorated into a competition amongst the kids to see who could get the dirtiest as the high slopes of the rubble piles made for great slippery dips!! Seeing as they had been wearing pretty much the same clothes for the last three days (due to the aforementioned laundry saga), we let them go for it. Tim won incidentally – surprise, surprise!! We didn’t find our fortune, although I did manage to uncover a rock with a small seam of real opal in it and Ash found a few pieces of potch – opal with no colour or translucency.

Rockets, Dingos and Bull Dust

Woomera is a funny town. We saw all we wanted to see – the Missile Park – in about 15minutes!! The Missile Park is a short stroll down the road from the caravan park – which incidentally appears to cater for the fact that you only need 15 minutes to see everything!! I found the park quite interesting with a dozen or so exhibits of planes, missiles, rockets and bombs that were tested so secretly at what was once the largest missile range in the world. These days the town is open to the public but it still looks very much a DoD site with rows of identical houses and barrack blocks. In all fairness Woomera was only an overnight stopover on the way to Coober Pedy. The decision we had to make next was which way to get there.

We originally planned to go straight there via the very sensible and sealed Sturt Highway. Our other option, one I had been toying with for a few days, was to head on to part of the Oodnadatta Track via Roxby Downs and Olympic Dam – the site of one of the largest Uranium deposits in the world. Adventure (or stupidity) got the better of me and the lure of the dirt roads of the outback won the day.

After a final fuel fill in Roxby and a quick photo of the mine head (from a distance so as not to look like I was a terrorist) we hit the dirt. We hit bad corrugations as soon as the road crossed the boundary of the mine lease and after about 10 minutes travelling at around 25km/hr I was getting the feeling that I had made one of those blunders that I knew I shouldn’t have made!! We persevered, after all the lady in the Woomera visitors centre diner said we would be right – and true to her word, the corrugations smoothed out into what was to be a surprisingly good road allowing us to do 80k’s easily. The sense of vastness we experiences on the drive west of Broken Hill was nothing compared to what we were venturing into. The red rocky landscape was like we were driving on Mars. After an hour or so driving along the Borefield Road we finally came to the intersection with the famed Oodnadatta Track. Another hour later along the Track and we were making camp at Coward Springs Camping Grounds – an oasis (literally) in the middle of the dessert, (not that we were actually in a dessert - of which there are 10 in Australia) due to the natural springs that were found in the 1800’s the area.

The water surging up from the depths of the Great Artesian basin was a pleasant 29 degrees and it felt fantastic to wash away the dust of the Oodnadatta Track. The evening was quite mild (as sign that it was getting warmer the further north we went) so we had happy outside and toasting Grandma’s Birthday. It was a beautiful starry night and we even saw the International Space Station track across the sky. That night I could heard Dingo’s howling off in the distance.

Flight of Fancy

Due to being out of mobile internet range (and also being low on data for the month), it’s been a little while since my last entry and we’ve done so much that I’m going to have a break it up into a few separate posts. Last time I posted we were hoping the weather was going to be good enough to take a scenic flight around Wilpena Pound. I’d booked us in for 10:30am and the morning skies were clear and blue so assuming it would be chocks away we had a leisurely morning doing boring things like catching up on washing whilst the kids were off exploring the campsite. It’s funny seeing Ashleigh joining in with the boys playing their imaginary game mixing characters from Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones!! If you asked her a month ago to do the same she would have looked at you as if you had horns coming out of your head – but I digress. It turned out that there was quite a bit of turbulence around so flights were being deferred to the afternoon. This was fine as we swapped our itinerary for the day around and went to visit the Sacred Canyon aboriginal rock carvings. After the day before's walk, (incidentally I found out my purple sky was from a dust storm that caused all sorts of havoc in Adelaide) the kids groaned at the prospect of another one today but after giving them the choice of walk and plane ride or no walk and no plane ride, the matter was resolved pretty quickly (not the cheapest of bribes to offer in hind sight!!).

The carvings were nothing spectacular to look at (only a few simple scratchings on the walls of the canyon but seeing them in context of their surroundings, you could tell that the area was of great significance to the indigenous people of the area.

The flight went ahead in the afternoon and was a truly magnificent experience for all of us. Ash, Sean and Timmy were nearly jumping out of their skins as we approached to board the 6 seat Cessna!! After a short safety talk by the young female pilot we were seated and strapped in. The boys felt like they were going on their own Indiana Jones adventure (I just hoped we would not have to end the flight by jumping out of the airplane using a rubber raft as a parachute!!) It turned out there was still a little turbulence which Timmy absolutely loved. He was laughing so much every time the plane took a bit of a dive that he even got the pilot laughing. Unfortunately not everyone enjoyed the roller coaster ride as much as Timmy. Let’s just say that if I booked us in for the ½ hour flight instead of the 20 minute one we were on, Leanne wouldn’t needed to have bothered having her lunch!! The views of the Pound from the air will be a highlight of the many lasting memories we will have from this trip.

That night we had a campfire thanks to a kindly donation of a bag of firewood from some people who had decided to leave early and could not take it with them. Unfortunately the general store had run out of marshmallows, which was just as well as I needed the sticks the kids had collected to toast them on as kindling to get the fire started!!

We left Wilpena for Woomera the next day (Thursday 2nd) with the Pound shrouded in mist – a stark contrast from the clear blue skies of the day before. Stopping in Port Augusta for lunch and to restock on provisions and fuel, we turned north(ish) towards the Red Centre and the next leg of our journey.