Big Trip – August 2022, Rob's Cave, The Grand Tour

Clancy Backs Her In

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Happy hour was buzzing
as he drove her through the gate.
The ‘van park pool was five rows deep
and Clancy was running late.

The ‘cruiser was a heaving
from the arid outback tow.
The air-conditioner struggling
from the lack of any flow.

Now, Clancy wasn’t new to this.
He’d done his share of tows.
But something in the air this day
foretold a tale of woe.

The corellas all were screeching
as his wife got in the car.
“Reception wasn’t happy”,
she said to his alarm.

“There’s no more bloody drive-throughs”,
as they fought to keep their calm.
“They’ve put us down on fifty-three”,
She muttered in alarm.

The pool folk’s eyes were opened wide
as Clancy eased her in.
The boom gate code was fumbled
as he cleared and tried again.

The pool folk turned to watch them,
as he drove the ‘van park track.
Fifty-three was waiting,
for their imminent attack.

His wife turned on her handset,
As he swung the van around.
“You’re on the wrong bloody channel!”,
He shouted at the ground.

The big van’s springs were creaking,
As he threw her in reverse.
“Your stupid bloody hand-brakes on!”,
She threw him like a curse.

With hand-brake off he began to move,
The pool folk held their breath.
“Left hand down, LEFT HAND DOWN!”,
Her voice was cold as death.

Now fifty-three was a little tight,
and wasn’t all that flat.
It had a mighty drop-off,
and trees both sides at that.

Clancy wasn’t overwhelmed,
he’d done this all before.
His wife was all a tremble,
as her fear came to the fore.

“I’m on full lock you silly moo!”
“I can’t turn anymore.”
She held her tongue and held her breath,
He hadn’t closed the door.

“You need to stop! You’ll break the door!”
She screamed into the mike.
“Will you shut up! I’m on the edge!”
He threw back at his wife.

The van went left, the van went right.
The pool folk all inhaled.
The car began to shudder.
The pool folk sipped their ales.

The mighty van was scraping
on the left and on the right.
The trees were scratched and bleeding
as the drop-off came in sight.

“You need to stop! YOU NEED TO STOP!”,
She waved her hands around.
The ‘cruiser’s brakes were straining
on the rough, uneven ground.

By now the pool was filling up,
and bets were being laid.
As Clancy swung the van around
and backed into the shade.

The drop-off reared up thick and fast.
The wheels were getting closer.
As fifty-three began to show
it’s nasty side below her.

“STOP… STOP… STOP!!!”, she yelled again
as Clancy stayed his course.
The big van lurched and began to buck
like an angry rodeo horse.

“I’m tryin’ to stop!”, he shouted back.
“The brakes are barely holding!”
“Chock it quick!”, he yelled some more.
By now she wasn’t listening.

“Get ‘em in!”, he yelled and screamed.
The van’s suspension groaning.
“I can’t!”, she said “It’s too far gone!”
The cruiser’s brakes were moaning.

More bets were laid, the pool folk cheered.
Advice was in the offering.
Clancy pulled with all his might…
The van was teeter-totting.

Fifty-three would have it’s way.
The van was going over.
With one last gasp his wife screamed out,
“Get out and hit the clover!”

Clancy knew he wasn’t beat...
Through gritted teeth he set his jaw and threw it into low..
He planted his foot and gripped the wheel
and revved as high as she’d go.

The van went south, the cruiser north
and there ensued the struggle.
The pool folk sank another beer
and the caretakers joined the huddle.

The brake-safe snapped, the chains still held,
the cables all a tangle.
His wife peered out and had a look,
“You’re still on a bloody angle!”

Clancy couldn’t admit defeat
and threw a sideways sneer.
The pool folk gasped and looked away
from Clancy’s poisonous stare.

“I’ll get you straight and line you up!”
“You mother effing prick!”
As Clancy slowly centred himself
and lightly grabbed the stick.

The wheel was damp, the seat was wet,
The engine running hot.
The chains were all but holding
As he gave it one last shot.

Fifty-three was holding on,
the van was barely hitched.
As Clancy gunned her one last time
to avoid the dreaded ditch.

Now somewhere in this sunburnt land
the campers all have fun.
The kiddies play, the kooka’s laugh
and there’s peace beneath the sun.

But not on van site fifty-three.
The pool folk are not cheering.
For Clancy, mighty Clancy,
Had finally lost his steering.

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Mataranka

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Larrimah Hotel/Museum

Mataranka

Bitter Springs

Mataranka Springs

So… after a pleasant and interesting night at the Daly Waters Hi-Way Inn we saddled up the next morning and headed north to Mataranka. A little bit over half-way you come across the Larrimah Hotel. It is one of those very quirky outback hotels that is impossible to miss as it’s bright pink and adorned with a number of pink panther stuffed toys and a whole heap of weird and wonderful things including a ‘rotor-less’ gyrocopter mounted on a pole.

To be honest… it’s looking a little bit run down but that’s probably to be expected after two years of COVID and the difficulties of attracting workers experienced all the way up and down the Northern Territory. That said… it’s still open and operating so we stopped in for a coffee and a look around.

The first thing we noticed, apart from the pink panthers, was a seat with spring-style animal trap on it called the ‘Nutcracker Seat’… The verandah and outdoor area is covered with all sorts of amusements and whimsical artefacts…

Most notable of course are the various pink panthers inculding a trio riding a bike made for three… The hotel is just so out of place and time but seemingly perfectly located in the middle of nowhere in the Northern Territory…

But having said that… right beside the Larrimah Hotel is the Larrimah Museum. Larrimah has a strong WW2 history, having been established as a military staging place and rail terminus. The museum is located in what was the Larrimah Telephone Repeater Station and Powerhuose.

Entry was free and gave a glimpse of the WW2 communications technology of the time as well as beginning the the education process, for those travelling north, of the Japanese bombing raids on Darwin during WW2. The invasion came as far south as Katherine just a couple of hundred kilometres north of Larrimah.

The museum has a number of rusty relics outside the Repeater Station that are interesting in their own right but the real story is in the indigenous peoples of the Northern Territory who served in the military and as coast watchers, labourers and nurses… More untold Australian history of the debt of gratitude that we owe to indigenous Australians who, once the war ended, were returned immediately to a position of having no rights and little recognition in their own country. Thankfully that story is starting to be re-told and the past injustices acknowledged and there contributions being honoured.

Although a bit tired, there is a need for places like Larrimah that remind us of the Australian sense of humour, the immensity of our country and how close we came to being invaded during WW2. On top of that it reminds us poorly we have treated our indigenous peoples and how much they have given to us when it was needed…

Beer Garden – Territory Manor Caravan Park

Guinea Fowl – Territory Manor Caravan Park

And so… To Mataranka. A town of around 350 with a 30% indigenous population. The town itself is only a small strip town with a large park on one side, and IGA, pub and service stations on the other side…

We pulled in at the Territory Manor and Caravan Park, which proved to be a very sizable caravan park but not terribly busy while we were there. A bit surprising because it was a very good van park with large, spacious van sites, a great bar and cafe with live music some nights, and good facilities.

We were greeted by ‘Des’ who was good for a chat and finally asked us, “I suppose you’d like a nice drive-thru site?” To which Rob replied, “That’d be great!” To which Des responded, “Yeah… but we don’t have any…” He then proceeded to guide us down to a very large end-to-end double site that was drive-thru anyway because neither was occupied until we arrived. Bit of larrikan was Des…

The grounds of Territory Manor and Caravan Park are also home to a flock of peacocks, peahens and the odd guinea fowl. They roam around everywhere at their leisure and are quite tame, feeling free to walk through your campsite and peck at the crumbs.

We’ve seen quite a few peacocks on our trip so far in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. But not until now have we seen a peacock put on a show and lift his tail feathers in the glorious display that only peacocks can do when they’re courting a mate. Jo was very excited about this after having coaxed and cajoled just about every other peacock we’d seen to do this… unsuccessfully.

The major attraction of Mataranka is, of course, the hot springs, which we’ll cover in separate tabs. Jo had been on a mission to buy some pool noodles since Victoria. Every major town required a visit to KMart, BigW, Discount Shops and even Bunnings to try and acquire pool noodles for floating in the springs at Mataranka.

Nowhere in Victoria, South Australia or the Northern Territory thus far had had pool noodles available. We had heard that there was a major recall of all pool noodles due to an incorrect warning being printed on them. We had also heard of them being sold for $15 or more since they were so scarce.

It ended up being a little ironic that after scouring a third of the country in search of pool noodles that the Service Station in Mataranka had boxes of them for sale at $6 each… With that little problem out of the road we were then fully set for a few days of relaxing in the hot springs of Mataranka as well as all the other waterholes and springs of the Northern Territory yet to come…

The primary reason for every person visiting Mataranka is to swim in the crystal clear springs. Bitter Springs was only a couple of kilometres down the road from our van site and can only be described as stunningly beautiful with the clearest of spring fed water.

The springs are inappropriately referred to as hot springs and thermal springs, where in fact they are not heated in any way at all. They are simply ground water springs that bubble up from the ground under natural pressure. That said… the water in Bitter Springs is the same temperature of a tepid bath, around 32-33^oC.

The water flows in a lazy but distinct current from the top of the springs to the bottom with entry/exit ladders at both ends and in the middle. A pool noodle is an absolute must so that you can slip into the water and slowly ride your noodle from one end to the other…

Bitter Springs are a natural water course, excepting the paths and ladders, with the banks lined by native plants , palms and trees. The waters edge is adorned with water lilies and a some areas of floating green (not blue) algae from the decaying vegetation that collects in the water and ultimately floats back to the top.

Despite this, the water itself is as clear as crystal and, combined with the temperature, gives the illusion of floating in glass as you slowly wind your way down the few hundred metres of pristine waters. The reflected water colour ranges from clear to green, blue and purple… sometimes shimmering in a mixture of all colours reminiscent of a Monet painting.

We decided that we would spend one day at Bitter Springs, one day at Mataranka Thermal Pools. Although both were beautiful, Bitter Springs was the clear winner and this is where we returned to for the second time. In either case, the springs at Mataranka are a unimaginably beautiful wonder on the outback…

Mataranka Thermal Pools are another set of spring fed pools a bit further away than Bitter Springs. They are located at the Mataranka Homestead, a historic homestead (Elsey Station) that has evolved resort and caravan park.

Jeannie Gunn, whose husband was an early owner of the station, returned to Melbourne after her husband died and wrote the classic Australian story “We Of The Never Never” based on her time there. The book was also made into a classic Australian movie.

Mataranka Thermal Pools, like Bitter Springs, are a naturally fed spring, however they differ in that they have been artificially shaped to be more pool like with formed walls with easier entry and exit points. And although the water flows from the spring there is no discernible current so it is more like being in a natural pool than a flowing stream.

The water just as crystal clear though and tepid in temperature at around 32^o-33^oC. It is perfect for just floating on a pool noodle, relaxing and letting your mind relax and de-stress. Not quite as pleasant though as floating with the current at Bitter Springs…

Unlike Bitter Springs, the actual spring at Mataranka Thermal Pools, which is a little way away from the swimming area, is much more visible and bubbles away looking just like a genuine thermal hot spring like you see in Rotorua. The only difference is that the Mataranka Thermal Pools spring is not heated and bubbles up from pressure rather the heat.

It is an absolutely beautiful spot that we thoroughly enjoyed although we both agreed that we preferred the more natural beauty of Bitter Springs.

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Birdum (Daly Waters)

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Chicken Scnitty with Creamy Garlic Prawns

So… After Banka Bank Station you feel as though you are starting to leave the arid centre of the N.T. and begin the transition into sub-tropical N.T. At this point most people head towards the legendary Daly Waters Pub to stay there and experience the outback pub culture and their ‘beef & barra’… After reading reviews, listening to others heading south and hearing of a massive pub brawl a few nights earlier we decided to forego this experience. It seems that current opinion of the Daly Waters Pub is very polarised and a lot of travellers are choosing to bypass it as we did. Perhaps it is becoming a victim of its own popularity and failing to live up to expectations… Some really enjoy it, some were hugely disappointed by it. No regrets from us for avoiding it.

It was a decent 300km to from Banka Banka to the Daly Waters Hi-way Inn, which we broke up with a lunch stop at Dunmarra Roadhouse. It too is a camping option but not far enough up the highway to warrant the extra night. It is, however, famous for its pies and vanilla slices. We can confirm that the pies are superb with soft, flaky pastry and rich chunky filling. The vanilla slice was huge, high and beautifully messy to eat requiring a trip to the bathroom to wash hands and face afterwards. Apparently the roadhouse owner is/was a baker so it comes as no surprise…

Arriving at Day Waters we chose to stay at the Daly Waters Hi-way Inn, a roadhouse with a much more relaxed and calmer atmosphere than the pub and yet another excellent example of roadhouse stopovers and outback cuisine. It was first in first served for to choose your own van site and we snagged a nice big site with power and water that we could stayed hitched for a quick exit the next day.

Two vans pulled in behind us belonging to Julie and Ian, and Thresa and Greg. Two couples who had met on the road at a previous southern stop and decided to continue travelling together. At first we thought that Greg and Ian were having a blue over their van locations but quickly discovered that they were in a bromance with their long-suffering spouses forced to go along with them… They were genuine Aussie characters that were always up for us laugh but, like us, not overly interested in the Daly Waters Pub kind of experience. Back to them shortly…

We had a few intermittent electrical outages after we set up, which were unrelated to the two sparkies that were there re-wiring a whole bunch of ‘stuff’… Seemed everytime a new van came in and powered up the circuit breaker would trip and the caretaker would go and reset it. To be expected in outback roadhouses so no point complaining. It’s good to have power and water at all…

We noticed a roadtrain pull in out front that was hauling huge cotton bales south processing. It’s an impressive site but still can’t understand why we grow water-thirsty cotton in Australia instead of hemp which produces a higher yield for much less water consumption… There’s obviously politically vested interests around this industry.

After a quiet afternoon we wandered over to the roadhouse beer garden for happy hour where we got to talking with Julie and Greg, and Ian and Theresa. Jo was in her element sharing travel gossip and Rob joined in with the blokey banter for some social intercourse. They invited us to join them for dinner and continue the moment, which we readily agreed to.

Rob and Ian decided to brave the ‘Truckies Mixed Grill’… A magnificent over-abundance of carbohydrates and protein consisting of:

Two fried eggs
Full steak
Sausage
Crumbed lamb cutlet
Bacon
Grilled tomatoe
Grilled onion
Chips

Thankfully Rob hadn’t eaten too much that day and managed to demolish it as did Ian. IT was highly reminiscent of the mixed grill at Queanbeyan’s Central Cafe of years gone by. With a couple of glasses of Shiraz it had all the food groups…

After dinner we kept on chatting until last drinks were called at 10:30 due to a scheduled power outage… As last drinks were called an indigenous chap, James, asked if he could buy Greg a beer in exchange for sitting with us for a bit of a yarn. Greg accepted the offer and James joined us.

He explained that he was a machinery operator heading back Katherine after working in northern Qld. He was an interesting chap and we learnt about the difficulties of outback road work, that emu (cooked in the ground) is delicious whereas wallaby… not so much. The thing you take out of an impromptu discussion like this is how completely different our lives are to that of an indigenous worker in the outback who is prepared to travel thousands of kilometres for work and be away from family for long periods of time.

The night came to an end and we farewelled our dinner companions with the knowledge that we would most likely catch up with them again at Mataranka…

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Banka Banka West

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Banka Banka Station, also referred to as Banka Banka West Station as the caravan park/campground, is a working cattle station owned and operated by indigenous people. It also operates a caravan park and campground that is a welcome stop between the Devils Marbles and Daly Waters…

The station homestead is right on the Stuart Highway and and easy 217km tow from the Devils Marbles. The bloke that manages the camprground were very friendly and hospitable. Typical Aussie outback character…

We were given a prime van site close to the mudbrick bar… but still a fair walk from the loos! The site was quite large and right next to a boab tree. We later learnt that the two boabs were brought in an planted. They only occur naturally in the Kimberly region of W.A. and the north western side of the N.T. Beautiful trees none the less.

Banka Banka Station differentiates itself from roadhouse campgrounds by offering campers the chance to view the station buildings and some historic equipment in the sheds. The happy hour operates out of the historic mudbrick homestead building and often has live music around the massive fire-pit area. A number of campers used the fire-pit (more like a fire trough) to cook on the coals.

There are a couple of fairly docile bulls and donkey in the yard by the campground. The donkeys occasionally let off a series of incredibly loud ‘hee-hawing’ that takes you by surprise with its volume as it rolls across the campground.

We stayed two nights so that we could break up the drive and also talk a walk to the nearby waterhole and take in the view from the lookout. The waterhole was about 2km from the campground and a fairly flat walk through the scrub. We passed a number of old car wrecks on the track but didn’t really see anything in the form of wildlife.

Arriving at the waterhole we discovered that it was pretty low and not suitable for swimming. Still id a number of small fish living in it despite it slowly shrinkng. It’s amazing that these permanent and semi-permanent water holes can exist in such a hot dry environment. That fish live there is even more amazing.

After returning from the waterhole we trapsed up the hill behind the station to the lookout to see Banka Banka Station from above. We discovered that the lookout was a bit of a deception… Upon reaching the top you quickly realise that the lookout is actually a plateau that extends off onto the far distance behind the station, which is really more like a wide valley along the highway. We took the drone up to get a birdseye view of the station and the plateau behind.

We were told by the caretaker that there was a camel in the stock pen near the campground but having not seen one we suspect that this is a bit tourist leg-pulling to see if they fall for it by thinking that the brown Brahman bull is a camel because of the breeds hump…

All in all… Banka Banka Station was a really pleasant stopover and we imagine that you could easily stay three or four days earlier in the season with the nightly happy hour, fire pit and live music. As it was we were arriving towards the end of the season and things were beginning to slowly wind down as campers either header north or south for the coming wet season.

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Devils Marbles

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Devils Marbles Trip

Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles)

Biker Encounter

So… a long 391km tow up the Stuart Highway from Alice Springs to Wauchope where the Devils Marbles are located. The township (roadhouse) of Wauchope seemed a little weird since Rob grew up in Kempsey, where the somewhat more sizable town of Wauchope was one of the nearby places. The Stuart Highway really is an amazing piece of tarmac… In such good condition considering that the bulk of the traffic is caravans and road-trains. Driving 100km on the Pacific Highway is more tiring than 400km on the Stuart Highway…

Ryan Well

Ryan Well was not too far out of Alice Springs… by outback standards. It is an extremely well preserved well that was dug to support the teams of workers on the Overland Telegraph, the significance of which increases the further you go up the centre.

It’s quite a large well structure, which has undergone some restoration, consisting of a walled well with large bucket, a long livestock trough, the remains of a tank stand and a long cable driven bucket lifter that was powered by camels or horses. The well was hand dug and is one of a number of wells along the Overland Telegraph route.

Barrow Creek

We had a lunch break at Barrow Creek and the Barrow Creek Roadhouse, which was a bit of an outback experience… The roadhouse has seen better days but is still operating. We ‘enjoyed’ a pie from the pie warmer, that needed to be microwaved to make it warm, and cold drink served by a friendly local. It was really just an excuse for a toilet break (50c surcharge for non-customers)…

The walls of the bar were wall-papered with bank notes, mostly $5 notes and mostly Australian, on which visitors have written their names to signify their visit to Barrow Creek. Since cash is rarely used these days we weren’t carrying anything less than a $50 so didn’t join ritual.

Next door to the roadhouse is the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, the first repeater station after Alice Springs. It is also well preserved but we opted not to visit as we were in the heat of the day with a long drive ahead of us.

Devils Marbles Hotel (Wauchope)

We pulled in at the Devils Marbles Hotel, about 10km south of the Devils Marbles themselves and settled in for a lazy afternoon/evening before visiting the Devils Marbles the next day. Jo went in to to book us in as the group of bikers we encountered at Wycliffe Well roared past. You can read about this in the Biker Encounter tab.

From the outside the Devils Marbles Hotel looks a bit barran and quirky but once you pull around the back you encounter a large caravan/camping area that backs onto a really impfessive beer garden, dining area and pool.

There’s not all that much to do at the hotel other than happy hour in the beer garden, which we were more than happy to partake of. The beer garden was really well done with rough slab style benches and tables under shade and pretty good drinks prices with a fair selection.

Dinner was another matter again… Rob enjoyed a plate of braised beef spare ribs and Jo went for that night’s special, proscuitto wrapped stuffed chicken breast. Both absolutely magnificent and as good as you’ll get anywhere else (and pay more for). Nobody starves in an outback roadhouse…

All in all, our stay at the Devils Marbles Hotel was very comfortable and quite memorable after one of our longer tows to get there…

The Devils Marbles are an absolutely remarkable group of weathered rounded granite rocks that just pop up out of nowhere as both a jumbled but orderly piles of earthy red boulders scattered in clumps and groups over a few square kilometres.

As with most of these places they are a significant sacred site to local Alyawarre indigenous people and neighbouring groups. There is a free-camp campground at the site, which is quite close to the main viewing area and is also the start/end point of some walking trail that takes you around the entire site for about 5km or so and crosses the Stuart Highway at two points.

The ‘marbles’ are huge granite boulders that have weathered and eroded over millenia into a series of groups and clumps of rounded balls, some of which are stacked on top of each other like a croquembouche tower.

Other formations create a string of marbles, while others have a single marble perched on top of another as though it is balancing in place. Each formation is completely unique and interesting in its own right.

A few of the boulders have split cleanly down the middle through expansion and contraction in the baking sun and cooler overnight temperatures. The split face of these boulders show a ring known as onion weathering as opposed to the weathering of the outside surface known as exfoliation weathering.

It is interesting to note that the original boulder on John Flynn’s grave in Alice Springs was sourced from the Devils Marbles. This did not have the approval of the local indigenous people and was a cause of great hurt to them. A reconciliation took place whereby the boulder was returned and re-placed at the Devils Marbles. The Arrernte people of Alice Springs negotiated this and replaced the boulder with one locally sourced from the Alice Springs region.

So we decided to pull into the roadhouse at Wycliffe Well to fill up with fuel…

But first… Wycliffe Well regards itself as the UFO capital of the outback and styles itself after a kitchy (somewhat lame) mashup of Roswell and Area 51 in the U.S. Their caravan park and campground has a number of alien statues and UFO related sculptures as well as a statue of Elvis Presley just to boost the cringe level…

Anyway… the cruiser fuel cap is on the driver’s side so we pulled into the right hand side of the pumps, which was very squeezy with the van on the back. There were about thirty bikers (as opposed to bikies) parked around the pumps and in front of the exit point from the pumps.

Two young women had their bikes lined up at each of the two pumps and were fiddling around and re-adjusting the loads on their bikes. Meanwhile two more vans pulled in behind us so we were effectively locked in.

The two women could see we were waiting but continued to fiddle around. Then after a couple of minutes decided to go inpay for their fuel, which took more minutes… They returned to their bikes and stood there yapping and then decided to fiddle a bit more with the panniers and load.

After a small eternity they moved their bikes away, which meant that we could move forward and fill our tanks. After filling our tanks and paying, which took considerably less time that the two women we were stuck in place with the vans behind and about a eighteen harleys in front of us blocking our exit. All of the bikers could see that we wanted to exit but nobody moved an inch preferring to stand around a lick their golden gaytimes…

At some point, one of the older bikers called out to the others that they needed to move their bikes so that we could get out. Well you’ve never seen such a set of looks of abject indifference to this request. Grudgingly one or two them shifted their bikes so that they were still just perfectly blocking us. Then another four or five moved theirs to a position that gave us about one inch of manoeuvering space. Rob kept inching forward and the bikers, one by one, kept shuffling their harleys forward so that they were still blocking us from exiting without ploughing over the tops of their bikes.

Now at some point, anyone with a brain would have moved their bike over to the two acres of empty space across from the pumps but not these intellectual giants who continued to play shuffle and leap-frog with their bikes, grumbling all the way…

So finally, after four or five micro shuffles, these biker Einsteins had cleared enough of an exit that we could get out with about 2 inches either side… Our van has a long turning point and it started to scrape a bollard as we inched through the gap.

So then a couple of their geniuses decided to help me with some (genuinely well meaning) help to reverse a bit so that I could get past the bollard without scraping and miss their bikes by half an inch… At this point Rob wanted to just plough into the bikes to start a domino chain effect but resisted the temptation on the grounds that he probably couldn’t defend himself against a mob of that size.

In all honesty, we both think that a bag of hair has more intelligence than this group of thirty dimwits… On a good day!

So… as mentioned in a previous tab, when Jo was booking us in later at the Devils Marbles Hotel, this merry band of Jobbernowls rode past. The receptionist ran out and asked Jo whether they were heading north or south, after which Jo explained that they were heading north and that we had had a minor but harmless interaction with them. She then proceeed to advise the manager who was on the phone to the Tennant Creek police to advise them of a group of bikers headed north. It seems that they operate as an early warning system for the Ketherine police of any potential nuisance or threat headed their way.

Nothing was to come of this particular event though… mainly because this group were bikers not bikies. They also didn’t have half-a-dozen brain cells between them…

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Alice Springs

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Alice Springs

East MacDonnell Ranges

West MacDonnell Ranges

The Ochre Pits

Telegraph Station & ANZAC Hill

So… We continued our long trek up the middle from Erldunda to Alice Springs, which is pretty much the half-way point between Adelaide and Darwin. It’s at this point that you really begin to grasp the enormity of the distances and the vastness of Australia. We suspect that had we crossed the Nullarbor instead that we would probably be learning the same lesson. And that’s a lesson that we’re yet to learn… as well as when we tackle the West Australian coast from Darwin to Margaret River.

It was a decent tow of 275km but the daytime temperature was still relatively cool in the mid-twenties. Not a huge amount of traffic but it was beginning to become noticable that more caravans were beginning to head south with the approaching wet season in the top end.

At last we approached the ‘Gap‘, which signalled that we had arrived at Alice Springs. It’s quite an impressive way to enter the town and splits the MacDonnell Ranges into East and West. Our destination was the Wintersun Cabin & Caravan Park on the northern side of town. This meant we go to see the town itself as we drove through.

As you travel up the centre you hear all sorts of warnings about Alice Springs (and other places). That you need to be very careful, where to park or not park, to lock your things up, to not be in town after 3:30pm, etc. Despite it’s reputation, it’s still a pretty tidy and well kept town with good facilities and services. Plenty of green grassy areas that are well irrigated.

The Wintersun had good reviews and Jo was told that there had only been one break-in in the last year. Some idiot had left his van unlocked with cah on the table… so what would you expect! Still the whole park was fenced with overlapping circles of razor wire sitting atop. It was a nice clean park with decent sized sites and easy to manoeuvre into them.

The park boom gate and entry gate were broken for a day or two while we we there but the caretakers warned everybody that the gate would remain open for one night and to just be sensible. That said… a van across from us left their Weber BabyQ out on their table unsecured so I set ours up and chained it to the van as I do anywhere else. We still have it and the other guy still has his…

We did hear on our second day there that the Coles and another store had been broken into overnight and a car stolen, which had also been recovered and the offenders caught. The ABC radio seems to broadcast a daily crime report and you also see ads on tv about making Alice Springs a better community.

The other major indicator was when we visited the BWS to buy some drinks. The entrance was being guarded by three N.T. Police Officers who were screening customers through the door and refusing entry to certain locals. They were quite thorough asking where we were from and ensuring that our intention was to drink the alcohol we bought and not supply it to anyone else. We also had to provide I.D. at the cash register so they’re pretty serious about their alcohol control but were also doing it all discretely and respectfully.

Our friends from earlier places, Barbara and Paul, had arrived in Alice Springs a few days before us and this was the last stop before turning around and heading back home to the Adelaide Hills. So on their last night we met up for the last time at The Gap View Hotel for dinner and to swap stories once again. Having arrived in Alice Springs before us they gave us plenty of welcome advice on the things to see and do. It was sad to finally farewell them as they turned south and we kept our northern bearings a few days later.

All in all Alice Springs seems to be thriving albeit with a set of serious social problems that will probably take a generation or two to solve… if they can be. On the surface there seems to be ‘will’ for it but the ‘way’ appears to be mired in political ineptness with decisions being made too far away by uninformed politicians.

Hopefully the ‘Uluru Statement From the Heart‘ will go some way to addressing it but symbolic politics probably won’t be enough to help the current generation.

Our first day in Alice Springs saw us heading east along the East MacDonnel Ranges. You could be forgiven for thinking that Alice Springs is the land of ‘gaps’, ‘gorges’ and ‘chasms’…

The gaps, gorges and chasms are passages through the ranges that have been created through folding, faulting and erosion over thousands of years. Most of them have water holes of varying size depending on their geology and the amount of rain received throughout the year.

Barbara and Paul had suggested to us that the best way to tackle the MacDonnel Ranges (either side) was to pick the farthest point you want to visit, go there first and then work your way back towards town, Despite this we actually did it the other way around (on the east side) as things were much closer than the west side.

Emily & Jessie Gap

First stop was Emily Gap and the nearby Jessie Gap. The two gaps are thought to be named after the daughters of C h arles Todd who was responsible for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line. A monumental feat of engineering and pererverance from Adelaide to Darwin linking Australia to the world.

The water in the water holes at Emily and Jessie Gap was fairly stagnant and the smaller ones were thick with algae growth which turned the water a light turquoise green in colour. Quite beautiful to look at but certainly not for wading.

Trephina Gorge

Trephina Gorge is located ~55km from Alice Springs. As our first gorge we were immediately blown away by the red rock walls of the gorge with the contrasting biege sand on the floor of the corridor.

There was a nice hike up onto the gorge walls that provided a lookout view into the gorge as well as being able to walk along the sandy bottom.

Nearby to Trephina Gorge is a magnificent 300 year old ghost gum that towers up out of the ground with some younger smaller ghost gums dotting the landscape around it. These wonderful trees survive by sending down deep tap roots to find the ground water below.

Corroboree Rock

Corroboree Rock is an interesting rock crop that appears quite large as you approach with a dome like appearance. As you move towards one side you suddenly discover that it is very thin and even has some holes through in some places. It is very visually deceptive.

Flowering gum blossoms at Corroboree Rock

Corroboree Rock is part of a conservation area and is a very sacred men’s site for Arrernte indigenous people. We were able to walk around it and see it from all angles. The area also put on a small show of wild flowers and flowering gum blossoms, which were really quite surprising as we were expecting the whole area to be very sparse and arid. Definitely not the case.

Ross River Resort

We noticed a sign to Ross River River Resort as we headed east and thought we would drop in and see if we could get some lunch there. It was a complete surprise with a large green grassy lawn area fronting a well maintained homestead,

Upon entering we found a cosy, rustic interior that also had a massive additional bar and cafe area to one side that was built from hardwood sleepers stacked on top of each other and held in place between steel support posts, covered over with galvanised roof sheeting.

The bar area had all sorts of homestead memorabilia on display as well as some local fauna, i.e. snake and lizard skeletons. The beer was cold and the food was excellent. They provided a ‘loaner’ stubby holder for my beer and Jo decided, once again, to have calamari as far away from the coast as possible!

The homestead grounds were home to a flock(?) of peacocks and peahens that wandered around endlessy pecking at the ground for tasty morsels.

Mount Sonder Lookout

Unlike the previous day, we decided to tackle the West MacDonnell Ranges by driving out to our furthest point first and progressively work our way back towards Alice Springs. Our first stop was the Mount Sonder Lookout.

A young woman, and her dog, were at the lookout where she was beginning to paint a water-colour of the view. It seemed like an artists paradise looking out over the Finke River and the plains towards the mountain range.

Ormiston Gorge

Ormiston Gorge gave us a chance to stretch our legs again with a decent hike that took us up above the gorge itself and then down to the water hole and sandy creek bottom.

Not the most spectacular of the gorges, gaps and chasms but still an impressive display that also included wild-flowers and a very approachable little lizard that posed for us whilst sunning itself on a rock.

The water hole at Ormiston Gorge displayed an algae green colour from evaporation and the corresponding concentration of salts and minerals. A few brave souls waded through part of the water-hole to continue further into the gorge but we decided that discretion was the better part of valour on this occasion and stuck with the walking trail and dry creek bed. By all accounts the water was quite cold as well.

Serpentine Gorge

Our next stop was Serpentine Gorge. We both agreed that Serpentine Gorge was the standout of all the gaps, gorges and chasms and this may have been due to the time of day. The sun was in perfect position to create a mirror reflection of the colourful cliff walls behind the gorge in the water-hole that was truly superb.

Serpentine Gorge required a reasonable 1.3km hike to get to and was worth every single step. That combined with the dirt road into it means that some people bypass it so we largely had it to ourselves while we were there.

The indigenous locals do not like to go to Serpentine Gorge as they regard it as being a place where an angry rainbow serpent lives. If they do have to go there then they must approach it slowly and sing specific chants to calm the rainbow serpent so that it won’t attack them.

Ellery Creek Big Hole

Ellery Creek Big Hole is a permanent water-hole with a sandy bank that quickly drops away to fairly deep water. There is a campground there and it’s only a short walk from the campground and carpark to the water-hole.

It is a long and broad expanse of water and there were quite a few visitors there when we arrived. Despite the warm, dry temperatures the water is quite cold and this was proven by one visitor who stripped down and fully submerged. He only lasted a few minutes before getting out to warm up again,

We opted to sit on the bank, take our shoes and socks off and soak our feet, which was both relaxing and soothing after two days of hiking around the gaps, gorges and chasms of the MacDonnell Ranges.

There’s something quite surreal about sitting in 30^oC heat in an arid outback setting with your feet dangling in deep, cold clear water. It’s also a little surreal walking past a rope-and-ring type life preserver, of the type you see on ocean liners, hanging on a post beside the water-hole in the middle of the outback.

Simpson Gap

Simpson Gap was yet another magnificent passage way through the range with yet another permanent water-hole sitting in the gap between the layered rock walls. This gap opened out onto a wide, dry sandy expanse that had some large ghost gums growing in the middle where they could easily send tap roots down to the water.

It is home to the black-footed rock wallaby, which is rare and endangered. We we privileged to spot on and get up quite close and personal with one. It perched itself on a rock above us and happily posed for us. When we got to about 15m away it showed us its incredible agility as is bounded up a series of fallen boulders until it judged that it was back at a safe distance from us.

Standley Chasm

Strangely scarred tree at Standley Chasm

Standley Chasm is without a doubt the most ‘touristy’ of the gaps, gorges and chasms with a huge carpark and plenty of tourist coaches. It also has a cafe/kiosk and shop as well as an entry fee to hike up to Standley Chasm itself.

Having said that… it is a very pleasant hike on a well made trail that ascends along the way to the actual chasm. Unlike the other gaps, gorges and chasms that we visited, Standley Chasm is very green and lined with trees, palms, ferns and wild-flowers.

It is not an especially difficult hike although we met an 80+ year elderly lady with a walking frame on our way back, who was almost there asked asked us how much further to go and if it was worth it. We actually saw her again at the cafe and discovered that she had persevered and was very proud of herself and thoroughly enjoyed viewing the chasm. Good for her!!!

Standley Chasm is somewhat unique compared to the other gaps and gorges due to it’s sheer, smooth vertical walls. We arrived at the perfect time in the middle of the day as the sun crossed from one side to the other, changing colours of the rock walls as it passed.

The colours of the outback are what make it such a spectacular and beautiful place and to think that this show has been played out every single day for hundreds of thousands of years is something quite special.

We visited the Ochre Pits on the day that we went sight-seeing along the Western MacDonnell Ranges. They are a very sacred site to the Arrernte people of Alice Springs and played a vital part in indigenous trade prior to colonisation.

The ochre is dug out of the uplifted layers of coloured rock ranging in colour from grey/white through gold, brown/red to crimson.

Ochre from this particular pit has been traced as far as coastal Queensland showing the extent to which it was valued for ceremonies and rock art.

The MacDonnell Range ochre is particularly fine and when mixed with goanna or emu fat has a slight sheen to it. Only men were allowed to dig the ochre from the Ochre Pits. Women were permitted to use it after the appropriate rituals and ceremonies performed.

The Ochre Pits are reminiscent of the ‘Coloured Sands’ at Teewah Beach near Noosa in Queensland with their striped layers rising the earth along the cliff face. They’re a must to visit in this area and give a real sense of why culture is so important to indigenous peoples of central Australia and why it must be preserved for their future.

Alice Springs Telegraph Station Trig Point

Alice Springs Telegraph Station

Alice Springs began as a settlement to the west of it’s current location called Stuart, named after the explorer John MacDouall Stuart. A telegraph repeater station was built at the location a permanent water hole that was thought to be a spring that could supply valuable water to the settlement.

The Australian Overland Telegraph, a mighty feat of engineering in it’s own right, was built by Charles Todd and Alice Springs is named after Charles Todd‘s wife, Alice, and the fresh water spring found in the normally dry Todd River.

So… as we were to learn on our vist to the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, Alice Todd was very flattered to learn that the town had been named after her but declined the offer to visit the place. Also the ‘spring’ is not actually a spring, just a water-hole that generally has water in it.

As such, the ‘spring’ is not a spring and Alice never went there…

In any case, the Alice Springs Telegraph Station is a fascinating place to visit and you quickly learn how amazing this place was in the history of Australia. The Australian Overland Telegraph was the internet of it’s day. Sending a letter via ship to the U.K. could take anywhere from four to eight months one-way. The new-fangled overland telegraph cut this time down to a matter of hours via the series of repeater stations from Adelaide to Darwin of which the Alice Springs Telegraph station was one.

Life was tough though, with supplies only coming in once a year via camel train so order had to be meticulously planned months in advance and the one-hundred and eighty chemical glass jar batteries that powered the lines requiring constant maintence every few months.

The station these days has been carefully restored and kept as a museum to celebrate this historic piece of outback ingenuity and perserverence. It’s also used a function venue with a crew of people setting up an outdoor function, in the dry dusty wind, whist we were there.

There was also a mountain bike race going on there whilst we visited that looked like sheer torture in the harsh dry heat. We watched a few riders struggle past along the track and also looking down upon the from the trig station on the hill adjacent to the station.

We enjoyed our visit there very much and it was well worth waiting for the guide talk that explaned the history and operation of the station and its huge impact on Australian communications back in the day. Every bit as amazing and disrupting as the internet is today…

ANZAC Hill

There is a tall hill in the centre of Alice Springs that has been turned into an ANZAC memorial covering all of the warsthat Australian service men and women have been involved in, including some of the lesser known minor conflicts. ANZAC Hill is manages to be a solemn and respectful memorial to those service men and women as well as being an excellent viewing lookout providing sweeping 360 degree views of Alice Springs and surrounds.

The drive up is one way and quite steep although tourist coaches can still manage it. The road is lined with placards that denotes each of the conflicts and the services. It’s quite a special place and would no doubt have greater significance for those men and women who were involved or had loved ones involved in the conflicts. Alice Springs should be congratulated for devoting such a beautiful and prominent part of the town to this memorial.

The views truly are magnificent from ANZAC Hill taking in both sides of the MacDonnell Ranges, straight down the main street to The Gap and north along the highway.

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Erldunda Roadhouse

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

After the grandeur, magnificence and glory of Uluru, Kata-Tjuta and Kings Canyon we needed to head east to resume our norther slog up the Stuart Highway towards Alice Springs. We chose to overnight at Erldunda Roadhouse, which is at the intersection of the Stuart and Lasseter Highways.

We didn’t stop there on the way previously due to bad reviews regarding the mouse plague and that the place was smelly and somewhat unclean. However, our Coober Pedy friends Barbara and Paul did stay there and said it was fine so we took their word for it and found it to be perfectly fine as well.

It was a bit of an oasis with cactus and palm trees surrounding the pool. The van sites are nice big drive-throughs where you can stay hitched. The only draw-back is that the water is bore water… No problem as we were carrying more than enough drinking water aboard the van.

Erldunda Roadhouse has a large emu farm and enclosure where you can get up close and personal to them. They’re really quite inquisitive although their red eyes have an evil glint in them that gives you the impression that they’re secretly planning to drag you into the pen and kick the living daylights out of you.

We had another rib-sticking roadhouse meal there. Rob went for the Banger’n’Mash (that came with Onion Rings) whereas Jo went for the… you guessed it… desert fish’n’chips. Roadhouse meals aren’t fancy but they fill you up and they’re good honest cooking and good quality.

We were treated to another of those beautiful outback sunsets where the trees are silhouetted against a band of pink that transitions to purple and black as you look higher from the horizon. The Northern Territory has a certain, simple way of wrapping itself around your heart…

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Kings Canyon

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

To be added later… Still sorting through the photos…

Big Trip – August 2022, The Grand Tour

Marla / Kulgera Roadhouses

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Marla Roadhouse

Moving north from Coober Pedy We began the long haul up the centre to the top of South Australia and ultimately on to the Northern Territory. Marla was our first roadhouse overnighter at the Marla Travellers Rest roadhouse and the last stop in South Australia.

The drive from Coober Pedy to Marla was a 236km slog into the wind that made it feel a whole lot longer than it really was. You could feel the cruiser sucking the diesel down like a cold beer in the desert and it showed at the bowser when we finally got to Marla and filled up. We were expecting to see jacked up fuel prices this far north but tour our surprise it was only $2.30/L which wasn’t much above what we paying back down in Adelaide.

Barbara and Paul, from Tomcat Hill in Coober Pedy, also pulled in at Marla so we had dinner with them in the roadhouse bar & grill and reminisced on our time in Coober Pedy. This was our first taste of roadhouse cuisine. Jo and I both had the Braised Beef Spare Ribs, which were next level tender, succulent, juicy and beefy. After slogging up the Stuart Highway it was just the sort rib-sticking, hunger-busting comfort meal you need to wind-down and relax into the night. Barbara opted for their Chicken Schnitty and took half back to her van and had two other meals from it the next day. No half servings in the outback roadhouses…

While we were in Marla a couple of wide load prime movers pulled up, each one transporting an enormous Army Tank north. They were quite interesting and we were somewhat amazed at their size. It’s hard to imagine how tracked vehicles of that size can actually move let alone manoeuvre. The thought of the fuel bill for them made the cruiser’s fuel costs seem a little more palatable given the fuel-sucking drive to Marla.

Marla was also our first stop with no phone reception. It is a little jarring when you’re used to doing some instant research on your phone about the place you’re in and where you’re going next. Thankfully Google Maps still works, to some extent, offline. That said… having no phone or television reception gives you some perspective and you finally realise that you’re deep in the outback and things are a little bit quieter. Things that used to seem important receive a dose of perspective as you open your eyes and ears a bit more and re-engage with the real world.

Kulgera

The next day we farewelled Barbara and Paul as we headed to Kulgera Roadhouse. They were continuing a bit further to Erldudnda Roadhouse before we would all meet up again in Yulara. Jo took the wheel for the second time and thankfully the wind had blown itself out the previous day so it was a much more relaxed drive north.

We took a rest stop at Marryat Creek Rest Area, just south of the Northern Territory border, and had the first use of our portable gas stove, which was shiny new until this point. We made a couple of cups of Rooibos tea (South African Red Bush). Rooibos makes a red coloured tea that does not contain caffeine and has a slightly sweet flavour such that sugar or sweetner is not required for those of us who don’t like overly sweet beverages. It makes a pleasant change from normal tea.

After our break Rob was back in the saddle as we crossed the border into the Northern Territory. It was the first time in the N.T for both of us. The border has an impressive rest area monument area and a notice that unless otherwise sign-posted the maximum speed limit in the N.T. is 130km/h. 100km/h is plenty and much safer when you’re towing a van even though the Stuart Highway is hard, flat, fairly straight and easy to drive.

Interestingly, to this point, we had been rarely overtaken nor had we overtaken anything more than a few times. We also had not been overtaken by any road trains and had not passed many coming the other way. The few that had passed by us caused little to no turbulence but there still remains a slight anxiety when you see one coming towards you in the distance.

The push through to Kulgera Roadhouse was dry and desolate with strong winds but not as consistent and in our face as the drive to Marla. We pulled into Kulgera Roadhouse and thankfully it began to cool down and actually ended up raining that night. Not a lot but enough to settle the dust and produce that beautiful, fresh, clean-air smell that comes the rain.

Kulgera Roadhouse bar has a Happy Hour from 5:00 til 7:00 so we wandered into the bar for that and dinner. The ceiling of the bar is festooned with bra’s, hundreds of them, from liberated passers-by over the years. There was even a prosthetic leg dangling from one spot. We settled in for a few drinks before dinner and got to talking with Linda and her partner Marty, whose Winnebago camper van had broken down on the Northern Territory border.

They got out at the border for a break and then discovered when they started up again that they had lost 10 litres of diesel and figured that they should probably call for help. The mechanic from Kulgera towed them to the Kulgera Roadhouse but was unable to fix it there and arranged for his heavy truck to come from Qld to transport their camper to Alice Springs for repairs. This meant that they were stuck at Kulgera for four nights while they waited for the heavy truck. They were making the most of it and enjoying their forced stay. We had a great time chatting with them and learning about their trip and their current woes, all being handled in good spirits.

For dinner Rob had a camel burger that was every bit as good as a beef burger and seemed quite fitting out here. Jo had, of all things, a seafood basket. When in the middle of the outback and as far away from the coast as you can get, have a seafood basket! Actually… it was pretty good. Distance doesn’t seem to have as much meaning these days with refrigerated transport…

The other amazing thing about Kulgera was our phone and internet reception. From no reception in Marla to 30Mbps in Kulgera. 30Mbps is what we get back home and we were not expecting that sort of speed out here. However, despite the strong internet speeds, we got our first taste of central Australian fuel prices. Diesel at Kulgera jumped to $2.75/L, which is a bit of a shock after $2.30 at Marla. We were expecting it at some point and this was the point. You just have to accept it though because there are no choices. Interestingly… nobody seems to grumble about it and just accepts it as being how it is and fair enough really. It can’t be easy for these places who live and die on the supply trucks that ply the route.

After dinner Linda and Marty gave us a quick tour of their stricken Winnebago. It was about the size of the six berth campervan we had in New Zealand many years ago and was surprisingly spacious. They used the double bed area above the cabin as storage space. They had a double bed at the back which could be raised to the roof, and lowered, electriconically, which basically gave them a small living room underneath. They even had a (compact) two-seater lounge and two separate single-seater armchairs. Plenty of room to stretch out and relax, which given their current situation would have been quite comforting.

Kulgera proved to be a really good overnighter before our 321km push through to Yulara the next day and the magnificaent monoliths of Uluru and Kata-Tjuta…

Big Trip – July 2022, The Grand Tour

Coober Pedy

December 2, 2022 Rob Maguire Leave a comment

Coober Pedy

Tomcat Hill

The Breakaways

Opal Cave,
Big Winch,
Desert Cave Hotel

Faye’s Underground Home

The longest tow of our trip so far today, being 378km from Woomera to Coober Pedy… Rob drove the first leg to Glendambo, where we topped up with diesel, Jo drove a couple of hours to a rest stop and then Rob for the last stint into Coober Pedy.

A long but fairly easy drive given the excellent condition of the Stuart Highway, which is better than a lot of major regional roads back in NSW. There was a bit of headwind coming at us, which makes it a bit of slog when you’re towing but could have been worse. Quite a few road trains coming south past us but surprisingly none heading past overtaking us.

We did get stuck behind a camper van, dawdling along between 70 and 80kph while Jo was driving, which forced her to pluck up the courage to overtake after a number of hesitant false starts… After a stretch and a swap over at the rest stop, with Rob back at the wheel, we were about 5km from Coober Pedy when… yep… we came up behind the same dawdling campervan again who had obviously gone past us at the rest stop… Slow and steady – blah blah blah… Needless to say it wasn’t worth overtaking him again.

As you come into Coober Pedy you start driving past the mounds of mullock that have been hoovered up from the opal mine shafts by the vacuum trucks and dumped out on the ground. So you have a contrasting landscape of red dirt and dirty green scrub dotted with off-white, conical mullock mounds like a gigantic version of anthills. In between the mullock heaps you’ll spot the odd excavator and the ubiquitous vacuum trucks with their overhead collection bins. You turn off the highway into Coober Pedy and it turns into a maze of bitumen streets and dirt roads lined with blocks of above ground homes, personal junk yards, opal shops and the like.

For all it’s hidden riches Coober Pedy also has it’s less attractive side and on our first trip to the IGA we were greeted, harmlessly, by a couple of indigenous locals who tried to entice us to buy some grog for them… They didn’t pester when told no but it was that first rude shock and sadness at seeing the emptiness and shallowness of their lives that makes you feel very uneasy about how they have been, and are being treated, since colonisation. Nothing felt unsafe in Coober Pedy just the air of awkwardness and sorrow for what we have and they don’t.

That aside… Coober Pedy appears to be thriving and as long as they keep finding opal then it will always continue to thrive…

After arriving at Coober Pedy we drove around the outside of town to find our way to Tomcat Hill Caravan Park, which is carved into the north facing side of… Tomcat Hill, about thirty metres above the plain below.

On the other side of the hill is what looks like a private residence and a B&B of some sort that is partly dug into the hill. The road in is a slightly confusing jumble of graded paths with a variety of markings painted on old tires. It’s steep and snakes around the hill and is only just wide enough for the car and van. Thankfully it’s one way in and one way out (not that people don’t get them mixed up).

There’s one short steep section where you’re looking at blue sky over the dashboard and then a final shallow drop that has an outward slope on it that also makes you wonder if you’ve taken the wrong road and you’re going to then have to take five hoursreversing the van back down. Thankfully you drop onto a magnificent, wide, flat ledge area that is the van park with an absolute world-beating panoramic 210^o view out over plain towards The Breakaways. Just simply spectacular and you know in that instant that you have chosen the absolute best place to stay in Coober Pedy and possibly in outback South Australia.

We were greeted by Des, the owner/host who guided us into our site back against the cut rock wall. Des is one of the nicest blokes you’d ever want to meet. He was a cop in Coober Pedy many years ago, who left and five years ago returned to do some opal mining. His Tomcat Hill Caravan Park is a bit of a labour of love and, to our surprise, has only been operating for the last three months. The mains water is as good as Canberra water and the three ensuite style shower/toilets are very probably the best amenities we’ve seen since we started the trip. All built into the side of a hill in the white clay dirt that is Coober Pedy.

After we set our van up Des wandered over and explained to us that the snaking mound around the ledge of the caravan park ledge consists of opal mine mullock that he had had dumped there as fill. With a bit of patience and a ‘black light’ that he lent us for the night you could ‘noodle’ through the mullock and possibly find some opal, which others had done previously. If you found an opal you could keep it. We found a few pieces of ‘potch’, which is colourless, worthless opal. Jo insists that she found a bit of ‘colour’ that Des examined and declared to be a tiny piece of ‘beer bottle potch’ due to the almost microscopic flecks of orange. Value… $Less than worthless!

Whilst noodling we were joined by Barabara and Paul, a lovely couple from the Adelaide Hills region who were following roughly the same track and iteinerary as us going north. We got to know them over the fire pit and would ultimately continue meeting up with them and swapping tales over the coming weeks as we headed north from Coober Pedy.

Tomcat Hill Caravan Park provides its campers with glorious sunrises and sunsets, except our first night due to the cloud cover. The second night though, after Des lit the fire pits, treated us to a magnificent horizon light show traversing the spectrum from pale purple all the way through to bright orange and ember red.

The sunrise is a whole different show where the entire side of the hill is bathed in a golden glow and the air itself looks like honey and just makes you feel wealthy basking in it. It is natures treasure and it’s all yours if only for fifteen minutes or so.

Tomcat Hill also gave us our first chance to get the drone up. Up until now the weather had conspired to keep it safely grounded. The ledge of the campsite was the perfect place to launch and our little drone captured a perfect birds eye view of the hill and the surrounding plains out to the Breakaways. Rob was a little rusty at the controls but the video turned out well.

After three months of travelling we both agree that Tomcat Hill Caravan Park is far and away the best van site we’ve had and is going to be incredibly hard to beat as we travel on…

Tomcat Hill faces the magnificent Breakaways a small range of hills, cliffs and gullies about 30km away. You basically follow the bitumen out to the ‘dog fence’, hang a left and follow the corrugated dirt road out to The Breakaways. It requires a permit that can be bought online.

We were a little undecided about going out to them but so glad we decided to. The whole area is magnificent and steeped in indigenous folklore. The range of earthy colours are the first real introduction to the South Australian desert outback, and the spectacular scenery to be found there.

Most unexpected were the cliffs and gorges that were hidden at distance by the sweeping flat plains as viewed from Tomcat Hill. When visiting the Breakaways you drive through a series of mounds and hills and then suddenly find yourself atop a cliff line that looks further out over the dry, arid plains.

The hills and mounds provide the most dramatic colours of the area. One pair of hills are referred to by indigenous owners as the ‘brown and white dogs’, with a conical nearby hill referred to as the dogs’ owner. The Breakaways were our first real introduction to the range of earthy colours that define the Australian outback desert.

The Opal Cave

The Opal Cave is an opal shop and opal cutting/demonstration spot that is cut in underground on the main street near the IGA. We took a tour of an underground mine that is no longer in operation. Mining is no longer permitted within the town itself. Some older areas were hand dug whereas the newer tunnels were mechanically bored. At one point we were shown a small seam of opal still in the tunnel wall and it was interesting to see how it was detected with black light and the difference when under white light. Check the slider below…

The Opal Cave also houses two underground display homes. One is a recreation of a miners dugout in the 1800’s, the other is a representation of a modern underground home. They were interesting to view and showed how much more comfortable it is living in the constant cooler temperature under the ground. At one point the guide turned off the lights and, as expected, it was completely pitch black and a pure absence of light.

The pitch black of the underground home also took on another meaning due to the crashed space ship outside The Opal Cave in the car park. It was actually the crashed space ship from the movie ‘Pitch Black’ that starred Vin Diesel and was shot in Coober Pedy. It’s quite well preserved and looks oddly at home sitting in the middle of Coober Pedy. It’s interesting to note that Pitch Black was set on a fictional desert planet that suffered from extreme heat but was actually shot in the Coober Pedy winter when they days can be quite cool, as we experienced. The sweat on the actors in the movie was sprayed onto them with spray bottles.

The Big Winch

The Big Winch is Coober Pedy‘s ‘big thing’ tourist attraction. It sits atop the highest hill in the centre of Coober Pedy and is a magnified version of a miners windlass style winch. It houses a bar and grill and provides patrons with a 360^o view of Coober Pedy and surrounds. It also houses a unique 360^o cinema show where you are fully surrounded by the screen. For us it was late in the day and we decided not to view the movie preferring instead to see the real thing outside at the lookout.

The Desert Cave Hotel

Next door to The Opal Cave is the ritzy Desert Cave Hotel. An international underground hotel that has an extensive underground tunnel display area with exhibits, stories and historical information. It’s free to enter and explore and takes you from the carpark into an underground area that ends up in the lobby area of the hotel.

The displays explain the geology of the area, opal formation, mining, classification and grading. We spent the better part of an hour in there looking at the exhibits and reading about the opal trade and all things Coober Pedy.
It really is a grandiose setting for a hotel and quite unique for being able to stay in an underground room with all the usual hotel features. We stopped in at the cafe for a coffee on our way out but noted that it felt a bit deserted and lacking in atmosphere. No doubt the tour buses keep it thriving but we much preferred our elevated campsite at Tomcat Hill.

Faye Nayler was a stoic and indefatiguable single women who lobbed into Coober Pedy in 1961 and decided to stay. She built a cafe by herself from scrounged materials and made her living by cooking for the miners and the early tourist buses passing through. She was a pioneer entrepreneur and began the first tours of Coober Pedy that started the tourism trade in the town.

That was…until her cafe burned down in a fire. Instead of giving up she bought a previously worked out opal mine and began opal mining herself and digging out, by hand, her own dugout home. As luck would have it she found a rich vein of opal only 3 metres in from the old mine (worth $1 million plus at the time).

She learned to cut and polish her own opals and started the original Opal Cave business that also contributed to the growing tourist trade. She was a genuine outback character and invited two girlfriends to come to Coober Pedy to live and work with her. When they arrived they had to dig out their own rooms, which expanded Faye’s underground home turning it into a three-bedroom dugout complete with kitchen, living room, pantry and bar.

Faye and her friends were all gay and her parties were legendary events that sometimes went on for days. Our Tomcat Hill host, Des, said that he had been to a few back in the day but that they were a bit to rowdy for him and not to his liking.

Not content with her underground home, Faye actually hand dug a swimming pool at the back entrance of the dugout, which was ultimately enclosed by besser block walls and a roof but still accessible from the inside underground. The pool, as well, was party central and ‘clothing optional’ back in the day.

Faye ultimately left Coober Pedy to buy a pub and retire back in Queensland where she died. She is fondly remembered in Coober Pedy as the pioneer of tourism in the town, an outback character and a woman who could pretty much do anything and take care of herself against blokes bigger than herself.

Rob & Jo Seeing The World

Monthly Archives: August 2022

Clancy Backs Her In

Mataranka

Birdum (Daly Waters)

Banka Banka West

Devils Marbles

Ryan Well

Barrow Creek

Devils Marbles Hotel (Wauchope)

Alice Springs

Emily & Jessie Gap

Trephina Gorge

Corroboree Rock

Ross River Resort

Mount Sonder Lookout

Ormiston Gorge

Serpentine Gorge

Ellery Creek Big Hole

Simpson Gap

Standley Chasm

Alice Springs Telegraph Station

ANZAC Hill

Erldunda Roadhouse

Kings Canyon

Marla / Kulgera Roadhouses

Marla Roadhouse

Kulgera

Coober Pedy

The Opal Cave

The Big Winch

The Desert Cave Hotel

Places we've been and the way we do it…