More Good Times

We have spent the last few days travelling around the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It's a very picturesque part of the world and I take back everything I said about SA being incredibly dry. Yes, bits of it are, but this bit isn't one of those. Rolling green hills all the way to the sand dunes and coast, dotted with sheep. We spent a night in Whyalla with friends and had an adventuresome morning with Tamara and the girls. Coffin Bay National Park was a wildlife wonderland....100 emus, dolphins, a show-off sea lion and kangaroos. Some beach driving added to the fun. We've since seen more sea lions - in fact visited Australia's only mainland permanent SL colony. There were about 60 SLs lounging, swimming, wrestling. So lots of great photo ops and fun things to try to remember.

Sceale Bay....near Streaky Bay...where we are staying now.

Beach driving in Coffin Bay NP.

Emus everywhere in CBNP.

Spotting sea lions.

Our Whyalla friends. The littlest one locked us all out on the balcony you can see in the background. Super Jon shed his socks and did an amazing rescue which involved climbing over the balcony and round the roof. Our hero!

Do you see what we see?

What do you see in each of the pictures below? 

Have a guess and then scroll down and we'll tell you what we see:)

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

A. Opal mining operations north of Coober Pedy, SA. Each one looks just like this.....piles of mullock and a truck with a drum in the air. It's their extraction unit. In the mullock, you can 'noodle'......look for off-cast or missed opal.

B. The Beautiful Beast. We just clocked over 60 000ks on the Nissan, so that means we've done over 13 000 in 11.5 weeks....on dirt, gibber, rock, black top and through gorges, rivers and deserts.

C. Jon standing on Lambert's Centre....the geographical centre of Australia near Finke, NT. You might recognise the flagpole as a replica of a more often visited one.

D. A minor hiccup but one that caused us to change our whole itinerary. 

E. The landscape traversed by early explorer Scottish James McDouall Stuart as he tried (5 times) to find a way from Adelaide through to Darwin. Eventually...SUCCESS! And then the  Telegraph Line was put through and then a railway and then a road, opening up the way for miners, pastoralists, tourists and the rest of us. Brave man!

An Update...

We are now back in South Australia having had to ditch doing the Simpson Desert. A couple of car problems…so the sensible thing to do was NOT try and tackle a desert but head back to civilisation for repairs to be done. We got to take in the Geographical Centre of Australia, chaotic Coober Pedy, clean and sterile Woomera and miles and miles of the Stuart Highway before arriving in Port Augusta (the 'Crossroads of Australia') where we booked the Nissan in. Amazing to see the ocean again and green grass, even if we still had to camp in the dirt at the caravan park here. The work’s done so now we push on down the Eyre Peninsula into Coffin Bay and all the other little picturesque coastal spots around to the WA border. We stayed the night at old Gladstone friend's - Matt and Tamara - place at Whyalla (the 'Cuttlefish Capital of the World'!) The weather’s meant to be a cool 8-21 over the next few days so we’ll see how quickly that makes us take the trip into Western Australia. 

The Finke

We had a memorable run through NT’s Finke Desert…lots of red sand, great fun and a cold, cold night. Our departure from Alice led us onto the road to Finke – an Aboriginal community 250km south of the Springs. We ended up doing the trip over 3 days….3 days full of:

Historical sites - Chamber’s Pillar was a marker for avid explorer Stuart on his way through to the north. Many explorers and travellers since then have carved their initials on the pillar. The Old Ghan Railway can be followed much of the way to Finke. In fact, the track is on top of the old railway line some of the way. Watch out for dog spikes!

Drooling – The Finke Desert race is held every year on the Queen’s Birthday weekend. A timed race by buggies, modified utes and trail bikes this is a ‘must do’ for pros and hacks alike. Jon was soooo excited to be driving beside and at times, on the FDR track. We even saw bike riders out practising and met Ben Grabham, the winner of the last 2 FD races in the bike section. Very cool! I have a feeling J will be back sometime to take on the ‘whoops’ himself.

Perfect Camping Spots – The friendliness of the Chamber’s Pillar campers was a huge contrast to the total isolation of a night camping in the Finke Desert by the race track. Red dirt under our feet, a dark sky laden with stars, cold, crisp night air, a fire blazing for warmth and delicious damper lathered with honey. Hmmmmmm…the way life was meant to be:)

Bye Bye Alice

Who let this one thru??? Maybe all those flies have finally made us CRAZY!

Ormiston Pound (west of Alice) is HUGE! We did the 3 hour pound and gorge hike.

The Thorny Devil is a little CUTEY! And so well adapted to life in the harsh Red Centre.

Nights spent out bush are SPECTACULAR! Beautiful sunsets.....good-bye flies....hello brilliant stars.

Arltunga Historic Reserve is home to the ruins and mines that hundreds of gold miners lived and worked in in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Absolutely INSANE!  Pushed wheelbarrows of all their stuff more than 600kms from the end of the rail line to what??? Little water, 120kms+ from civilisation, harsh winters and summers and very little gold. This is the restored ruin of the gaol. The guy in front....WANTED! On suspicion of goat rustling. Oh yeah, goats were another obstacle the miners faced. Good for meat but ate every bit of vegetation in sight.

Today we are 'on the road again' after 8 days in and around Alice Springs. Of course, that was not our original intention, but a service of the Nissan revealed the bushes on the struts were very worn. Not good when you want to cross a desert or climb a sand dune or tackle a rocky road. So we've had a week of chasing new ones which had to be flown in from Adelaide and were fitted by the local ARB guys yesterday. Not that we have been bored at all while we have been here in town. Alice has a lot to offer the tourist and we have enjoyed doing some of the in-town stuff as well as getting out and about in the MacDonnell Ranges which run either side of Alice. We have visited gorges and chasms, ochre pits and pounds, holes and rocks and more gaps than you could poke a stick at. Not much water around in any of them, but there's a little bit there so you can imagine how pretty it all must be when there is water around. In town we have had a shopping fix as well as visiting some of the local icons...the RFDS station, School of the Air, Old Telegraph Station and Desert Park....where the birds of prey show is a must! The weather has been exceedingly good....days of 23 and nights of 8. And we found a cozy, clean little caravan park with friendly owners and fellow tourists. All in all another great week in the Van Itallie's trip.