Yulara to Mt Augustus

Yulara to Mt Augustus 14th - 21st April

Well we've arrived aon the West Coast at Canarvon, tired, hot & dusty but somewhat proud of ourselves. We've traversed a country the size of North America, driven approximatley 5000 km of which 90% have been dirt roads and desert tracks. These have varied from wide, well maintained gravel roads to two tyre tracks in the sand heading out into the desert with waist high spinifex grass growing in between them.

To give you an idea of how remote we've been crossing the west, we went for over two days without seeing any other people – and that was when we called into the Carnegie Farmstead. We went for three days without seeing another vehicle on the road or picking up any sort of radio traffic!

We've seen some amazing remote country but there's also been times when I've been covered in sweat, dust and grease, lying on my back under the car with flies swarming round me, trying to clear the underside of spinifex grass before we got a nasty underside fire, that Manly Beach has seemed like an an attractive option!

Sitting on the roofrack, having a beer, watching the rock change colour. Happy Days

Stop 19 Warbuton Roadhouse, WA

Sandy Sandy on the way west

The time had finally come to leave the comfort of Yulara. We'd had a good break, done some good walks and had experienced the famed Ayres Rock Sunset. We were also now well stocked and prepped for what will potentially be the toughest and most remote leg to our whole trip.
In all honesty there's not a lot to say about this first day – we put in a good 5ook+ to take us to the roadhouse of Warbuton on the Great Central Highway, a major unsealed road between Perth and the Red Centre. Once past the sandrifts and deep corrugations of the Northern Territory section it was plain sailing down to Roadhouse through unchanging scrubland.
A long day but we gained some time with the 1 ½ h time difference between states. Interestingly we found a scouser and a south african backpacker working in this middle of nowhere place – being on Aboriginal land you couldn't even buy or consume alcohol so I guess it was a good money saver for the them

A Thorny Devil - we managed not to run this one over

Stop 20 Camp Beadell, The Gunbarrel Highway

We woke the next morning to organised chaos as the local aboriginal population were getting fuelled up to go about their daily tasks. Dusty cars rammed with aboriginal folks were everywhere and our start time was delayed as I had to wait out the worlds slowest ATM queue behind about ten aboriginal ladies who seemed to be all a little confused by the machine.
About 30k down the highway we turned onto the Heather highway, a bit narrower but in still in good nick. Another 40k and we came to a t-junction, of sorts. On the right a set of corrugated tyre tracks led off through waist high spinifex fields, on the left the option was similar, the fun had begun.

Sun set at "Camp Beadell"

(Outback Traffic)

The next stretch saw us taking on heavy, heavy corrugations, numerous rocky washouts and dry creek bed crossings. Our average speed dropped to about 20/30kmh and it took us the best part of a couple of hours to do this 40 k stretch.

The "Highway"

We were somewhat relieved (prematurely so) to reach the junction of the Gunbarrel Highway where we would turn to head west. Some godfather of outback road construction – Len Beadall – blazed this trail some 40 years ago whilst looking for sights for military weapon testing. There hasn't been much road maintenance since and “highway” is definitely meant in an ironic sense – the scratches down the side of our car from close encounters with gum trees show. Whilst we had some relief from the corrugations the washouts took a turn for the worse requiring some serious attention on wheel placement and then the corrugations returned, worse than ever requiring us to drop to 10 k t avoid both the truck and ourselves being shaken apart. Somewhat frustrating and although we came out for these roads the corrugations just aren't fun. There was a distinct lack of any life on route although the vegetations remained green for much of the track. We happened upon a couple travelling the other way. With his and her trucks – supposedly so they could take on harder tracks and have means to recover each other. We think they'd probably just had enough of sitting in one truck together. They were the only people we saw for the next 48 hours and the only vehicles for the next 3 days.

Outback Pedestrian

The Gunbarrell wasn't in great condition in parts!

Camp Beadall was essentially just a bit of desert where people had camped before and previously had a working water bore pump, but apart from ourselves and the flys there wasn't another living thing in sight. So we settled down for a peaceful nights sleep – that is until the Dingos started howling.

Pumping up water from 16m down and getting some good exercise with it !

It's not called the "gunbarrel" for nothing

Stop 21 Mt Lambert, The Gunbarrel Highway
Despite the worry of marauding Dingo's a reasonable nights sleep was had and we were up early to carry on the battle along the gunbarrel. First stop was Mt Beadell where a short climb gave us incredible views over the savannah like landscape we had been travelling through. Simply breathtaking and it was suddenly all worth wile.

Views from Mt Beadell

Coming down to the motor a cursory inspection led to the discovery that our Injection Pump was leaking diesel, faced with several unattractive options of being broken down in the middle of nowhere and likely 400k or so from the nearest settlement we decided to go with the carry on and hope approach.

Outback Roadsigns

The drive continued to be an exciting, technical affair interspersed with long sections of bone shattering corrugations. At a place called “Everard Junction” we signed what is surely the world's most remote visitor book. Quite bizarre really, you get to this junction in the middle of nowhere and suddenly there's this tin box with about four years worth of visitors book in.
Shortly after we suffered our second setback of the day when we managed to get our first flat, picking up some sort of metal spike that had been lurking under the sand. The flat's not a problem in itself – that's what we carry two spares for – however at this stage we couldn't help thinking “ok, bad luck comes in threes, what's next?”

Demonstrating the correct use of a jacking plate in soft sand

The worlds most random visitors book

As we reached an area know as Mugkilli's Claypan the road finally improved and we were back up to a comfortable 60/70 kmh. We parked up for the night on top of Mt William Lambert, a small rise with panoramic views over the savannah, probably stretching 100k in all directions. With fairly strong winds prevailing we decided to put our car's campervan function to the test and slept on the back shelf, awaking to light of the sun rising over the incredible savannah views, it was one of our top experiences so far.

I didn't envy the guy who had to change these babies

(above - views from Mt William)

The penthouse suite

Stop 22 Imbin Rockhole

We continued on our way with the roads gradually improving as we went. About 3 hours in we reached Carnegie homestead shown on the map as having fuel, camping and supplies. It's easy to forget that these places are still in the middle of nowhere so when we turned up to find a kid on a tractor and everyone else out with the cattle we shouldn't have been surprised. We stayed around for a bit and made a cup of tea whilst being entertained by a swarm of children who appeared out of nowhere. After we watched them fearlessly chase away a bull that had strayed into the homestead we were regaled with their stories about life on the station, dingos, quad biking and going to school if they felt like it. Some of the most articulate and confident children we've met.

Aboriginal Rock Markings around the waterhole (meaning, uh..waterhole I believe)

The track to the waterhole

Bush Camping at Imbin

From Carnegie we had a couple of options – we'd thought we were heading towards Wiluna but decided to take an alternative route in a similar direction described on a painted corrugated sign by the side of the road as the scenic route. Whilst we were a little dubious at that description to start with we came through a lovely rocky valley called Sydney Heads Pass with a steep path up the side. We duly put the truck into low range and took on the vertical path, with the reward of good views and the sight of a large red kangaroo hopping down the road we'd just driven up. Simon swore that he'd seem a place called Imbin Rockhole on a tourist information sheet somewhere. It was marked on our map as being close to Syndey Heads Pass but we struggled to find the turn-off. With a bit of help from the GPS (no not the speaking lady telling us to turn left now but some genuine map reading) and Charlotte's ace navigation skills we followed what vaguely looked like a track off the side of the road for 5km, pressing on with the constant belief that it couldn't be much further and did get to Imbin Rockhole.

We camped up for the night and realised a little late that camping on spiky burrs wasn't such a hot idea but the peace and serenity of the location made up for the prickles in our feet. For a change we were in quite a wide open area and the climb up the rocks once again gave us a great view of the surroundings.

We were getting tired now and were both keen to get back to some civilisation. Apart from the kids on the station we now hadn't seen a vehicle or other people on the road for 3 days, indeed we'd seen nothing but the occasional bird and every now and then an emu or some camels

Stop 23 Meekatharra

The next day we woke up knowing we had at least 300k's to do to get to what we where thinking would be our first “town” for a while Wiluna.

After a long but relatively uninspiring drive down the Granite Peaks road we turned up at Wiluna. The guy at Carnegie had warned us this was what he described as a “blackfella's” town. Pretty typical description by white rural bushfolk out here. We didn't take that much notice even when he told us the last time he'd been there he'd tried to go to the pub and the big aboriginal guy on the doo had told him “not here Whitey, Whitefella's round the back”
However we did get there to find the town deserted other than a group of twenty or so aboriginals sitting on the pavement outside the pub.

Deciding the place was more bronx than welcoming country town we decided to push onto Meekathara, another 180k's or so away. A mixed town of a thousand or so it seemed like the seat of civilisation to us when we got there. We noticed the barbed wire around the caravan park but didn't care as hot showers and a pub meal where top of our priorities and a welcome relief.


Stop 24 Mt Augustus
So that was the desert crossing out the way. We still however had the large expanse of WA's Mid West to get through to get to the coast, a 2/3 day drive at least and still remote, outback territory.

This remote land didn't change dramatically but slowly but surely signs of water started appearing, the occasional grassy patch was seen and at one point we even had to ford a river with water in ! (the first we'd seen for a couple of thousand K's)
We decided to stop for a couple of days at the Mt Augustus National Park and climb the worlds largest rock. Standing 1105m above sea level the Mt is a rock similar to Ulluru but as it's covered with vegetation so it doesn't have the same visual impact as Uluru and as such isn't such a known destination. (the fact it's 500k's from anywhere significant down dirt roads that shut after rain doesn't help either).

down the gully

At the summit

The climb took us five hours return and it's a toughy. The tougher route isn't so much a path as a scramble down a rocky gorge. Good fun but our legs were jelly after. It's a great climb with stunning views. I'd recommend it to anyone but it's quite an isolated spot and a 4x4 is pretty helpful for the roads to and from.

The view form the top

The following day (after another evening being entertained by the resident stick eating dog) we set off on our way to the coast and a few dust filled hours and shallow river crossings later we reached Canarvon. Time to hit the west coast.

Adelaide to Uluru

Adelaide to Yulara 2nd April - 12th April


Total km - 6000+ but we keep forgetting to check the exact number
Ipod game - just got to Cafe Del Mar and the C's
Roadkill - one poor lizard (see below)


Adelaide
Adelaide was a great stop, we really wished we'd had more time to stay and enjoy the city. Seemed to have a pleasant vibe and plenty on (including a 38 DJ back to back Drum n Bass Event on the Friday night. Gutted as that would have been pretty sweet. We had some intersting weather as well, miserable, cold and wet, hail storm and also hot and warm when we arrived. The campsite we stayed at on the edge of the BelAir NP was perfect for us and the guy managing it was really helpful. We also encountered a pesky little possum, that thought it was a cat – but proceeded to bite Simon's finger after being fed sweet corn and biting my toe after he snuck up behind me and I accidently stepped on him.




Stop 11 Quorn
From Adelaide we drove north, through pretty wine regions that we didn't have the time to stop in and slowly the scenary became more 'outbackish' and the roads got quieter. We spent our first night in what we perceived to be the outback in a place called Quorn. It's a beautiful and friendly little village, with old pionner-esque buildings and a great pub (the Austral) which served a $7.50 curry (Thursday night only) which was the best we've had in Oz. The campsite had everything we needed including a warm laundry room for charging the laptop and a mug of wine before bed (as it was a bit chilly). We thought that if this is the outback we can handle this.....

sheep following a Ute in pastoral country prior to Quorn

The Austel pub - best curry so far

Stop 12 Bunyeroo Gorge, Flinders Ranges – Wilpena National Park
The following day we started our meander north towards the Flinders National Park. Our route took us away from the main highway on some dirt and gravel roads which took us past some of the interesting historic and natural sights on route. The the mid 1800's a railway was built running from Port Augusta eventually up to Alice Springs, affectinately known as The Ghan railway, much of our route for the last few days has followed the old rail route as many of the settlements were originally established as sidings and stops on the rail route. some of them remain today (despite the rail line being long closed down) whereas other sites are simply ruins. It's a fascinating history of these people without any of the modern conveniences that make our trip bearable if not always pleasant, establishing new towns and trying to make a living through some of the hardest times. In particular a massive drought in the 1860s / 1870s meant the end for some of the pioneers attempts to make a life out here.

We also spotted the rare yellow footed rock wallaby, our first sightings of emus in the wild, the giant wedge tailed eagle, and various kangaroos, wallaroos and wallabies along the way. We also followed an hour long walk in the afternoon to see some Aboriginal rock paintings. The temperature and weather was heating up and without any knowledge of what the art was showing and no descriptive text we were left a bit uninformed and could have been looking at any old thing.

driving into the Flinders

Wilpnea Pound National Park

Sleepy Kangaroo

Later in the afternoon we entered the park and made our way down a 28 km track (4wd really) to Bunyeroo gorge where we camped in a great small NP campsite for the next 2 nights. These places are all self-registration (with an honesty box for fees) and had just four sites. We were pleased to have some neighbours as it can get a bit spooky being by ourselves in the bush.
The scenery in the area was simply stunning, mountain ranges, amazing colours – reds, oranges, purples, rocky and changing landscape all the time and wonderful amount of wildlife. The following day we left the tent and went to Wilpena Pound – a natural basin in the mountains with only one route in and out
It had been 72 days since it last rained in Flinders and it was looking pretty dry, looking at the map we though we'd have a number of creek crossings to navigate but in reality all we saw were dry creek beds.

Stop 13 Marree, Outback South Australia
Heading north out of the Flinders we passed through the scenic village of Blinman and had our first experience of the local Quandong Pie from the village roadhouse. Quandong is a type of local peach and the pies were delicious.
Shortly after Blinman we left the ranges and entered “the outback” proper. It shortly became apparent that they weren't joking – these places really were out the back (of beyond).
We stopped at the tiny village of Copley (about six houses long along the highway) for our second portion of quandong pie for the day and then passed though the village/shacks of Lyndhurst (if only the well off folk from the new forest could see this place!) We'd had a good stretch of tarmac from the Flinders to Lyndhurst but we now left the sealed road and wouldn't really see any again for over 600km.

Our stop for the night was the small township of Marree at the base of the Oodnadatta track we were planning on taking. Think Mad Max – broken down rusted old trains, corrugated steel shacks, signs swinging in the wind etc.. The oasis campsite & motel didn't quite fit our expectation of the word but they had a bit of grass for us to pitch on and hot showers so we couldn't complain. We also braved our first outback pub and chatted to the mandatory tattooed, bearded blokes who actually turned out to be Aussies from Adelaide out on a road trip.

Local art displayed in front of houses at Copley

Old train wreck in Marree

Farina Ruins nr Marree

Stop 14 Coward Springs, Oodnadatta track GPS 29 24 09 S , 136 48 40 E
We'll start giving a GPS ref for some of these points because unless you've got a detailed local area Oz map you'll likely never find it!
Heading out onto the Oodnadatta track we started to really see the desert landscape. Each time we've started to feel more remote over the last few days we move on a bit and the goalposts keep on moving with us.

The landscapes we were travelling through were constantly changing – red sand one minute, scubland the next, rocky planes the minute after. At this point we'd stopped seeing so much wildlife other than the occasional bird – we were seeing the odd dust devil, little mini whirlwinds whipping dust up in miniture tornado windspouts. Who could be the first persons to drive through a dust devil became a bit of a game between us. (NB: Have just found out that a dust devil is actually known as a willy-willy. Insert your own joke).

One spectacular stop was at the edge of Lake Eyre. For any geologists it's a pretty incredible basin thing (the biggest in the world) – rain that falls as far away as the great dividing range in Queensland travels through the underground water courses eventually popping back up again (2 million years later) in the lake eyre region – in mound springs which become these little oasises of life. Very occasionally the lake will fill – and it is HUGE – look on a map. While we were there it was just a giant flat salt bed as far as the eye could see (salt because many millions of years ago the seas flooded this area). They set a land speed record here some years back.
After that geological delight we headed for more fun with rocks at Australia's only coal mine. Simon considered trading in Xena for a bigger model but thought better of it.

That night we camped at the delightful Coward Springs – it is the true definition of oasis. Shady pitches under a group of gum tree's that manage to survive thanks to the spring water that bubbles up in the area. It even had a natural spa which we hopped in for a soak. The owners of the land have done a magnificent job restoring the area and old railway related buildings. Using much of the old materials around for building a small toilet block and benches around the site. (And they're the best loos we've experienced in the outback – all of which are pit toilets as there's not much plumbing going on out here).

sign speaks for itself really - start of the Oodnadatta track

The"Blanche Cup spring" just popping up out the desert about 1ook along the track

The old "Ghan railway" stretching off into the distance

Lake Eyre

we thought about trading in the truck for a new set of wheels

Coalmine just past Marree

Camping at Coward Springs

Stop 15 Algebuckina ruins (everything broken!)
A further 300k up the track by a large waterhole and next to the ruins of the algebuckina rail bridge was our stop for the following night. On the way up we took a detour for lunch to the old Peake telegraph station. It was 16k down the roughest 4x4 track we'd been up yet but set in spectacular scenery as the picture shows.

Simon: By this stage it was becoming apparent that a bit of daily maintenance was going to be needed in order to keep the old girl going on the rough stuff. I had taken to walking round the car checking the tightest of all the screws and bolts, we already had one front spotlight strapped on with bungee cords after its nut had shaken loose on the corrugations. To top it all off we managed to slice through our power cord for the fridge, blowing fuses and losing our main source of cold beer!

We camped right next to the waterhole at Algebuckina, proper bush camping on cattle station land with not another soul in sight. Si tried his luck throwing a line in but we didn't fancy eating the mouldy stick which was the only thing he could manage to catch.

remnants of an old pioneer car - looked like a motor out of the 1950's or so...made us feel slightly better about our motor

The William Creek Hotel Pub - utter outback class (although incredibly it did have a german backpacker behind the bar, they get everywhere!)

think this was once a kangaroo

The Old Peake station ruins where we stopped for a bit of lunch in the shade (Max the photo and you can see where we where)

Catching Mouldy twigs at the Waterhole

Stop 16 Cadney Park Roadhouse
Travelling on the next day we were being somewhat indecisive about choosing between the three possible routes ahead of us. First port of call however was the famous (in certain circles) pink roadhouse at the Aboriginal settlement of Oodnadatta for some spare parts and a bit of expert advice on the roads ahead.

Thankfully the roadhouse stocked all we needed and more, we reattached our dangling spotlight and rewired the fridge (Simon's doing electrics as well now – and is beginning to complain he didn't come on this trip to be a handyman). We also had this really useful desert driving god chat to us about tyre pressures – it turns out we can run them much lower than we thought without damaging the sidewall which should stop things falling off the car! (Simon wrote that sentence because I don't know what it means).

We decided to take the route out through a patch known as the “painted desert”. One of the best decisions we've made, it's a landscape's that really does look like it's been created by an artist.
By the end of the day we'd reached the tarmac of the Stuart highway and the Cadney Park roadhouse. It's amazing what might seem like a “from Dusk to Dawn” style outfit in one situation seems like Butlins in another – for us the fact we had a pool to have a dip in, some grass to pitch on and half price beers at happy hour was just what we needed.

Buch Mechanic at work

The worlds chospiest (pinkest) roadhouse

driving in the dunes outside Oodnadatta

(Above) The painted Desert

We went down this road we nicknamed the "avenue of funnelweb doom" becasue of all the funnelwebs by the side of it. I did get out to try poking it with a stick to see if I could get it to come out but it wasn't playing ball

Sunrise through the tent window at Cadney Park

Looks like Ulluru but this is Mt Conner about 1ook before

Birds night out

Stop 17 Curtin Springs

The journey north from Cadney Park was dull compared to what we'd seen so far, the flat dry landscape was occasionally broken up by small hills rising up from nowhere before returning to the flat arid landscape. I thought about a pub cricket-esque game with the various roadkill but we didn't play, instead gawping at the huge eagles / vultures that were feasting at the sides of the road. The Stuart Highway is without a doubt the least exciting part of the desert. We did, at the very last moment spot a Thorny Devil lizard – something Si had really wanted to see while we're out here. Unfortunately it was a couple of feet from my front left tyre at the time and so he didn't last much longer.

Nothing else to report on that day. Dull, dull, driving up the bituman, covering too many km and deciding to stop 100km before Uluru at a free camping site at the Curtin Springs roadhouse complete with inquisitive emu that took a fancy to my hairbrush. We didn't want to mess with him.

Stop 18 Uluru Resort (Yulara)
It's been a little bit of paradise for us to be here – aircon, shops, swimming pool, and of course the spectacular sight of Uluru and Kata Tjuta.
Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) is about 40km further along the road from Uluru but also holds special spiritual significance and is just as impressive if not more so than Uluru. We did a walk there early this morning through the 'Valley of the Winds' and reached the most incredible look out. Almost pre-historic looking walled it by sheer red rock but looking down on this lush green valley hidden in the centre of the mounds. This evening we'll go for the sunset viewing of the red rock (along with everyone else at the resort) and thought that tomorrow we'd get up early again to do the base walk around Uluru.

We were going to have a whinge at this point about the flies (drive you insane), the dust, the heat etc but don't think we'd get much sympathy.

Signing out for now. This is probably the most arduous 10 days coming up. We've logged our route with police, family and responsible friends (we do have some) and will be dipping our toes in the ocean off Canarvon in WA in less than a fortnight. Si has just discovered a surf beach nearby and so the sooner I get him there the better, I can't cope with the unused surfboard lying around in the tent much longer. Love to all Charlotte and Simon xx

The Olga's (outside)

the Olga's (from the inside)