We set off on Monday down a dirt track looking for gold! Arltunga, close to our camp at Trephina Gorge in the East MacDonnell Ranges, was one of the early gold mining settlements in the Northern Territory, and we were out to find the left over nuggets! There are some old ruins of the original town left here which we quickly scooted around – more pressing things to come. We headed off-road in search of Paddy's waterhole – only about 5kms from the old town. We eventually found the creek-line and walked up to Paddy's waterhole. There was water in the hole, but it wasn't flowing so my idea of panning for gold was a little bit scuppered! We spent an hour or so digging in the creek bed, but both Claire and I were unsuccessful! Not surprising hey! Ah well – more chances to find gold later on.
We stayed another night at Trephina Gorge as it was a lovely little campground. The only disturbing thing was the number of grasshoppers, 10 or more of which would take off and sometimes land (normally on Claire) whenever we moved. Claire not happy. I must admit I didn't like it when they did this at night as I thought they might be moths! (Those who know me know how much I love moths!).
We drove back into Alice on the Tuesday morning as our plan was then to head out into the West MacDonell ranges. We stopped in Alice to stock up on food and also had a nosey around the camping store. We gave in and bought a new item that we shall call the Super Dome! It's a large dome tent with fly netting on all sides! We got to Ormiston Gorge (after stopping to have a look at Simpsons Gap and Ellery Creek Big Hole) and set up camp, including Super Dome! Claire went for a swim in the gorge which she assures me was beautiful. We had a lovely pest free evening and I cooked Chicken Fajitas again – yum!
In the morning we had a surprise visitor of a young dingo – very cute. Not so cute was the fact that he was eating the grasshoppers and we were close enough to hear the crunch!
We packed up and headed back towards Alice stopping at the Ochre Pits. These pits are of aboriginal significance - the cliffs are an amazing array of yellow through to deep orange ochre and the ochre is still used to paint their skins for ceremonies.
Back into Alice for the night, staying at the same (quite expensive) campground. We caught up on emails and other tinterwebby stuff and had an early night ready for our big drive south in the morning.
We were up and off early on Thursday morning aiming to be in Coober Pedy that night.
The drive is approx 700km. It was a good drive to be honest, I think we only saw about 10 other cars on the road. We amused ourselves with our usual comic genius (singing "Coober Pedy" to the tune of "My Sharona", as featured in earlier blogs)!
Before we got to Coober Pedy we took a small detour to the Breakaways. This was of great significance to us as this is where parts of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert were filmed (the bit where they break down in the dessert).... We could feel Priscilla trembling!
It was getting kind of late and the sun was setting so we took our pics and headed in towards Coober Pedy town. As we got to the main road the heavens opened and in true style gave our Priscilla the setting she deserves...
What a beautiful girl she is!
Having listened to the radio for 7 hours we got more and more nervous about the pending thunderstorms that were due in and around Coober Pedy (we must have heard the weather report at least 7 times!) We planned in any event to do what the locals do and go underground! We booked into the backpackers and got ourselves a room, then headed out for a pizza dinner and watched the sky light up with lightening in the distance.
Our room was 6 metres underground – it gets so hot in this area in the summer, that the locals live underground! We thought it would be an experience, but it turned out to be a bad one - unfortunately we had the worlds worst snorer next door, and no sound proofing to protect us! I swear if the German boy had been in the same room I would have stuck a pillow over his head!!!
Anyway, next day we had the morning in Coober Pedy, known for it's Opals! We went to the Old Timers Mine, a mine that was lost until someone found it while excavating their own home and decided to open it as a mining museum. We enjoyed the tour and were allowed to “noodle” for cast off Opals in the noodle-pit outside. We found about 6, and took them for my mum!
We even found a new boyfriend for Sheila on the mining tour...:-)
Coober Pedy is a very strange town, definitely a place that we'll remember well. There are apparently a million slag heaps of sandstone in and around Coober Pedy from the blurb we read. When you are driving in and out of the town, all you can see are pyramids of dirt that have been exhausted from the ground in the quest for opals!
We set off South at about lunch time hoping to get to Port Augusta again, but knew this might be a stretch too far. We managed 370km to Pimba and spent the night in a car park next to the roadhouse. Free camp with Telstra signal and we managed a skype chat with mum to wish her happy birthday so all was good (and Claire only heard one murderer coming and going in the night).
On the road early again on Saturday for yet another huge drive. This time we managed 500km's all the way down to Port Lincoln, only stopping in at Port Augusta again for food and much needed beer supplies!!! Port Lincoln was unfortunately due some rain overnight so we decided to try to get a motel for the evening. We went to the tourist info only to find out it was the busiest weekend of the year there, with national hockey championships, sailing competitions AND the navy in town (not as exciting for us as it might be for other girls)... With the help of the lovely lady at the info we managed to find a room for the night above a pub! We enjoyed a meal out at the local Chinese restaurant and I even managed to watch some of the AFL game that was on the t.v. (Claire loves that this is my new obsession as I am playing Fantasy AFL now, not easy when you don't even know the rules!)
Sunday we set up camp quite early in the Coffin Bay National Park, a FREE CAMP (Alex!) that was sheltered and quite lovely too. We were visited by the incredibly cute Blue Wrens again. I think they could see their reflections in the windscreen and side window, amusing! (cleaning their little presents away wasn't so cute, that's another one of my jobs!)
Claire spent a good half an hour talking to a Dutch couple who camped opposite us (they had an Ultimate Camper, which we were extremely jealous of!) The couple manage to spend 3 months at home in the Netherlands and 3 months touring in Australia, leaving their car and trailer with friends in Melbourne in between! What a life!!! They gave us lots of good advice on where to go and where to camp, more of which in the next exciting instalment!
Sending love hugs and kisses from WA,
Jen, of Jen and Claire Fame
Priscilla Queen of the Dessert?
ReplyDeleteJam roly-poly and custard maybe?