We woke to a fairly cool morning but reasonably clear skies. We decided to do the Kings Canyon Rim Walk which is a 3.5 to 4 hr walk with part of it at the beginning stated to be ‘steep’ but the rest of the walk was supposed to be ‘moderate’. It is approximately 6km.
Royce and I headed into the Resort so I could get on the internet to check what was happening with an eBay transaction and to give Rory a call. We then met up with Raymond and Hazel at Kings Canyon and the 4 of us headed off.
The first part of the walk is certainly STEEP! It is almost a vertical climb for 500 metres. It felt a lot more than 500m but a ranger had advised Royce (when he was getting fuel in the Resort this morning) to ensure we took it slowly and plenty of rests on the way, which is what we did.
Once that first climb is out of the way the rest is over very rocky terrain and you have to watch where you put your feet all the time. We continued to climb for quite a long time but the climb was more gradual and relatively easy (particularly in comparison with the first 500m).
The scenery was spectacular and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world – even though I did get very close to a panic attack on the first part of the climb (because of the steepness and the narrow track right on the edge of the cliff face).
We did the walk in about 4.45 hrs but that included a detour to the Garden of Eden so all up our time was pretty good. We didn’t see too many other ‘oldies’ doing the walk. Most of the people doing this walk were at least half our age. We all felt very tired at the end and my legs were getting a bit wobbly near the end, but we did it!
The Ranger Royce spoke to while getting fuel this morning told him there was a waterfall at the Garden of Eden (which is part of Kings Canyon) and we would be very fortunate to see it – apparently only about 500 people have ever seen the waterfall in Kings Canyon. Unfortunately it appears to have dried up by the time we got there so we missed out on that, but that is only a very small disappointment in that the whole Kings Canyon is magnificent – even without a waterfall.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
3/9/10 KINGS CANYON
We woke pretty early this morning to the sound of a few drops of water hitting the caravan. Last night was quite warm but that soon changed this morning. From about 6am we had
THUNDER
LIGHTNING
RAIN, RAIN, MORE RAIN
Trying to pack up everything in the rain was a bit of a challenge and it seemed to be getting colder as the morning wore on. We finally got it all sorted and headed off on the road again – this time to Kings Canyon.
We have booked into the Kings Creek Station for 3 nights and once set up went for a drive to Kings Canyon Resort which is about 38km from here. We had expected something like the Ayers Rock Resort but there was no comparison. We couldn’t find anywhere to buy a battery charger so I will have to keep using the iPhone until we might be able to buy a charger in Alice Springs.
We had a bit of a look around the entrance to the Kings Canyon Walk and we are psyching ourselves to do the Rim Walk tomorrow – 3.5 to 4 hours! The information states that the first part is pretty steep and our friendly backpackers from yesterday told us that as well. There is a much shorter, gentler walk but we have been told the Rim Walk is absolutely worth the effort.
What a spectacular looking place it is – and that is just at the entrance.
We went to a show put on by the Kings Creek Station tonight. The owner of the station addressed the audience (about 35 people) and told us about the history of Kings Creek Station, the plight of the Aborigine, the Conway Kids program (where the Conways – the owners of the Station – raise money and invest a lot of their own money in providing bush Aborigine children with the opportunity to be educated in Adelaide), camels, bush brumbies and cattle mustering. It was all really interesting but the bench seats were pretty uncomfortable and it was getting very cold. The show finished with freshly made damper, syrup and real honest-to-goodness homemade cream washed down with billy tea. All good stuff. Apparently this is the best rain this area has had in 150 years and this is also the reason why we haven’t seen much by way of wildlife. Because of the really good rainfall there is ample feed across the country and the wildlife doesn’t need to come near ‘civilisation’ (including the roads).
Kings Creek Station has a contract to catch and supply 12,000 camels and so far they have only caught 70 so they are still a long way behind. The good rains means the camels are more scattered across the country and this makes it much harder to find them and muster them. The contract is worth $200 per camel so they are desperate to fulfil it!
The rain appears to have eased and the sky is clear (probably why it is now so cold and we have had to turn the heater on for a while).
THUNDER
LIGHTNING
RAIN, RAIN, MORE RAIN
Trying to pack up everything in the rain was a bit of a challenge and it seemed to be getting colder as the morning wore on. We finally got it all sorted and headed off on the road again – this time to Kings Canyon.
We have booked into the Kings Creek Station for 3 nights and once set up went for a drive to Kings Canyon Resort which is about 38km from here. We had expected something like the Ayers Rock Resort but there was no comparison. We couldn’t find anywhere to buy a battery charger so I will have to keep using the iPhone until we might be able to buy a charger in Alice Springs.
We had a bit of a look around the entrance to the Kings Canyon Walk and we are psyching ourselves to do the Rim Walk tomorrow – 3.5 to 4 hours! The information states that the first part is pretty steep and our friendly backpackers from yesterday told us that as well. There is a much shorter, gentler walk but we have been told the Rim Walk is absolutely worth the effort.
What a spectacular looking place it is – and that is just at the entrance.
We went to a show put on by the Kings Creek Station tonight. The owner of the station addressed the audience (about 35 people) and told us about the history of Kings Creek Station, the plight of the Aborigine, the Conway Kids program (where the Conways – the owners of the Station – raise money and invest a lot of their own money in providing bush Aborigine children with the opportunity to be educated in Adelaide), camels, bush brumbies and cattle mustering. It was all really interesting but the bench seats were pretty uncomfortable and it was getting very cold. The show finished with freshly made damper, syrup and real honest-to-goodness homemade cream washed down with billy tea. All good stuff. Apparently this is the best rain this area has had in 150 years and this is also the reason why we haven’t seen much by way of wildlife. Because of the really good rainfall there is ample feed across the country and the wildlife doesn’t need to come near ‘civilisation’ (including the roads).
Kings Creek Station has a contract to catch and supply 12,000 camels and so far they have only caught 70 so they are still a long way behind. The good rains means the camels are more scattered across the country and this makes it much harder to find them and muster them. The contract is worth $200 per camel so they are desperate to fulfil it!
The rain appears to have eased and the sky is clear (probably why it is now so cold and we have had to turn the heater on for a while).
2/9/10 THE OLGAS (KATA TJUTA) AND AYERS ROCK (ULURU)
We decided to leave the caravans and drive to Kata Tjuta and Uluru for the day. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and a great day for travelling. Uluru is approximately 100km from Curtin Springs with Kata Tjuta about another 50km on (although only 32km west of Uluru).
On the way we spotted two camels on the side of the road but didn’t get an opportunity to take any photographs.
Kata Tjuta is absolutely spectacular! We took a large number of photos and the battery in my camera died. I wasn’t too concerned because I had a spare battery with me but I then discovered it was dead as well! I then remembered I hadn’t brought the battery charger with me (as in – I had left it home at Salisbury North). Needless to say I was pretty devastated and very annoyed with myself. Luckily my iPhone takes a reasonable photo (although nothing like the quality of the camera) so I was still able to take some half decent photos.
We did the Kata Tjuta Dune Viewing Walk and then the Walpa Gorge Walk. It was pretty hot in the sun but once inside the Walpa Gorge it was quite pleasant. Kata Tjuta consists of 36 steep-sided domes and they are awe inspiring. We were lucky enough to spot a kangaroo in the gorge, but wildlife so far this trip has been few and far between. At the far end of the Gorge we were having a drink and some nibbles when we spotted two birds appearing to swoop the wall of the Gorge. On looking more closely they were apparently trying to chase off a lizard. We watched this extremely agile lizard climbing the wall (which was almost vertical) until it disappeared into a crack in the wall.
After the walk we drove to Uluru and had lunch at the Cultural Centre which is nestled at the foot of Uluru. We explored the cultural centre and the gift/souvenir shop (spending some money as we went) and debated whether we wanted to climb Uluru or not. The latter won and instead of climbing Uluru we bought a sticker for the caravan which says “I did not climb Uluru”.
We then went to the Sunset Viewing area and got ourselves set up, taking several photos over the approximate 1.5 to 2 hours we had to wait for sunset. Unfortunately about 10 minutes before the sun was due to set a bank of clouds moved in and obscured the sun and we didn’t get the full effect of the sunset at Uluru. Nonetheless Uluru itself is pretty amazing. It is one very large rock!
We met two girls who are backpacking – one from Australia and one from Germany and we chatted with them for quite some time. They were lovely girls having an absolute ball travelling around the northern parts of Australia. They had climbed Ayers Rock and were showing us photographs. I am very glad I decided not to climb the Rock – it looked very very steep in several places and I doubt very much I would have had the courage to get up there!
We left Uluru once it got fully dark (you have to be out of the National Park within 40 minutes of sunset) and we went to the Ayers Rock Resort, mainly to check fuel prices. We didn’t find a service station (and by now it was about 7.30pm and quite dark so finding your way around was difficult). We did find a supermarket and a newsagents that were both open. Luckily we also found some public toilets! We did some shopping in the supermarket and newsagents and then headed back to Curtin Springs. We arrived back here about 9pm, unloaded the car, had a bite to eat and a cup of tea and tried all sorts of things to see if we could charge up the camera batteries – all to no avail!
The photos taken on the iPhone are reasonable and at least I will be able to take photos until we can buy either another camera battery or – better still – another battery charger!
On the way we spotted two camels on the side of the road but didn’t get an opportunity to take any photographs.
Kata Tjuta is absolutely spectacular! We took a large number of photos and the battery in my camera died. I wasn’t too concerned because I had a spare battery with me but I then discovered it was dead as well! I then remembered I hadn’t brought the battery charger with me (as in – I had left it home at Salisbury North). Needless to say I was pretty devastated and very annoyed with myself. Luckily my iPhone takes a reasonable photo (although nothing like the quality of the camera) so I was still able to take some half decent photos.
We did the Kata Tjuta Dune Viewing Walk and then the Walpa Gorge Walk. It was pretty hot in the sun but once inside the Walpa Gorge it was quite pleasant. Kata Tjuta consists of 36 steep-sided domes and they are awe inspiring. We were lucky enough to spot a kangaroo in the gorge, but wildlife so far this trip has been few and far between. At the far end of the Gorge we were having a drink and some nibbles when we spotted two birds appearing to swoop the wall of the Gorge. On looking more closely they were apparently trying to chase off a lizard. We watched this extremely agile lizard climbing the wall (which was almost vertical) until it disappeared into a crack in the wall.
After the walk we drove to Uluru and had lunch at the Cultural Centre which is nestled at the foot of Uluru. We explored the cultural centre and the gift/souvenir shop (spending some money as we went) and debated whether we wanted to climb Uluru or not. The latter won and instead of climbing Uluru we bought a sticker for the caravan which says “I did not climb Uluru”.
We then went to the Sunset Viewing area and got ourselves set up, taking several photos over the approximate 1.5 to 2 hours we had to wait for sunset. Unfortunately about 10 minutes before the sun was due to set a bank of clouds moved in and obscured the sun and we didn’t get the full effect of the sunset at Uluru. Nonetheless Uluru itself is pretty amazing. It is one very large rock!
We met two girls who are backpacking – one from Australia and one from Germany and we chatted with them for quite some time. They were lovely girls having an absolute ball travelling around the northern parts of Australia. They had climbed Ayers Rock and were showing us photographs. I am very glad I decided not to climb the Rock – it looked very very steep in several places and I doubt very much I would have had the courage to get up there!
We left Uluru once it got fully dark (you have to be out of the National Park within 40 minutes of sunset) and we went to the Ayers Rock Resort, mainly to check fuel prices. We didn’t find a service station (and by now it was about 7.30pm and quite dark so finding your way around was difficult). We did find a supermarket and a newsagents that were both open. Luckily we also found some public toilets! We did some shopping in the supermarket and newsagents and then headed back to Curtin Springs. We arrived back here about 9pm, unloaded the car, had a bite to eat and a cup of tea and tried all sorts of things to see if we could charge up the camera batteries – all to no avail!
The photos taken on the iPhone are reasonable and at least I will be able to take photos until we can buy either another camera battery or – better still – another battery charger!
CURTIN SPRINGS (1/9/10)
I keep forgetting little bits and pieces when doing my blog and only remember them later. When we arrived at Curtin Springs we were greeted by a wandering, curious emu! This emu was making it very clear to us that it wanted some food so Raymond & Hazel got out some bread and became its friend for life! It followed Raymond around for quite a while after the bread was gone. I also forgot to mention that while driving to Curtin Springs Royce and I saw a wedge-tail eagle on the side of the road. It was just sitting there looking around but unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to take a picture.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
CURTIN SPRINGS / MARLA SOUTH / BREAKAWAYS
We all slept reasonably well at the South Marla camp site. A little bit of traffic noise from the highway but overall not too bad.
Got organised, had breakfast, packed up camp and off we went again. We stopped at Marla where Raymond got fuel and we got coffee. Marginal improvement over Cadney Park but not a lot in it.
The weather today is pretty good.
Next stop was Agnes Creek where we stretched our legs and explored the area for a while. Agnes Creek is a very large creek but also a very dry creek, notwithstanding the reports of pretty significant rain over the previous week in that area.
From Agnes Creek we went on to cross the SA/NT border and on to Kulgera where we stopped for lunch. A very busy little place. We thought about getting fuel but the diesel was $1.75 / litre so we thought we would take a chance and see what the prices were like further on. We made sandwiches and had a cool drink, checked the maps and on the road again.
Next stop was Erldunda (which is the turn off to Uluru). We decided to get fuel at Erldunda and paid $1.75/litre anyway. I was going to buy a “Wot Camels?” cap but they wanted $21.90 for it and I figured that was pretty expensive, so Royce and I had an ice cream instead. (query – ‘wot diet?’).
We stopped a couple of times over the next leg of the journey and eventually reached Curtin Springs about 5.45pm. This was quite a long day’s travelling – all up approx 450km. The sun was shining and it was quite hot even with the air conditioner on, because we were travelling towards the sun and the heat coming through the front windscreen was a problem.
On the way to Curtin Springs we caught a glimpse of what we thought may have been Uluru but it turned out to be Mount Connor. We have no idea why Uluru is so well known and Mt Connor is almost unheard of but until we get to Uluru we cannot make any comparisons.
We set up in the free camp area in Curtin Springs last night and then moved to a powered site for today and tomorrow. Powered sites are $25 but at least you get power and water – unlike Coober Pedy where water had to be paid for separately! The diesel prices in Coober Pedy were a lot better ($1.37/litre) whereas at Curtin Springs the price is $1.97/litre.
Woke this morning to another beautiful, but quite hot day. By 11am the temperature was 30 degrees and it was continuing to warm up. We are now running our air conditioner because we were getting very hot and sweaty and we weren’t even doing anything to cause it!!!!
I discovered that I only have 1 t-shirt that fits comfortably but I am doing better than Royce who didn’t remember to pack any shorts so is having to continue wearing jeans.
We have no mobile phone service here at all and the only internet service costs $1 per 6 minutes. Needless to say we will use that very sparingly!
We are having a chill-out / do nothing day today and planning to go to the Olgas and Uluru tomorrow.
SOUTH OF MARLA
Beautiful blue sky at Coober Pedy this morning. We packed up to leave the caravan park by 10am but couldn’t leave CP straight away as Raymond needed to get his car tyres aligned better. He took his car to the workshop where the chap said he would try to get it done by 1pm.
We filled up the water tanks and emptied the toilet then parked the caravan and the 4 of us went for another walk around CP. We had a coffee in a small restaurant (very nice cappuccino) then browsed some of the opal shops. We found one called John & Yokas which was really good and bought a few bits and pieces (but not opal). One of the things we bought was two lumps of zebra stone. They had a number of pieces which had been sanded back to a beautifully smooth finish but we bought the unfinished pieces of stone and Royce will try his hand to sand them. They look fabulous when finished. We also bought a couple of small board mounted prints signed by the artist.
Once the car was ready we headed to the supermarket to get some shopping done, made some lunch then departed CP.
First stop was at a rest site about 1 hr from CP. We just stretched our legs, got a bit of fresh air then continued on. We stopped at Cadney Park Roadhouse because they advertised coffee and cake for $4 and we thought that was a pretty good bargain! Not often we are right but we were wrong again. No cappuccino. No filtered coffee or anything except some very very cheap coffee in a jar, a hot water urn, milk in the fridge and for the sum of $3 you had the privilege of making your own! We thought the coffee smelt pretty ordinary so made a cup of tea – which was so-so. Raymond and Hazel decided to have a hot chocolate instead and didn’t end up drinking much of that. The piece of cake was reasonably fresh but that was about the only positive thing I can think of!
We drove about another 45km up the road and pulled into the South Marla Rest Area for the night. This is quite a large free camp site but it was already pretty crowded when we arrived and more came afterwards. We managed to find a reasonable spot a bit away from the rest and set up a small camp fire.
The night sky tonight is just spectacular! I tried to take some photos of it using the ‘starry sky’ setting on my camera but I think I must be doing something wrong. I need to read the instructions for that but I didn’t bring them with me.
Bedding down shortly (not much else to do) and we will head off tomorrow aiming for Curtin Springs (not far from Uluru).
I am having trouble uploading photos while on this WiFi setting so I may have to leave those and upload them at a later time.
Got organised, had breakfast, packed up camp and off we went again. We stopped at Marla where Raymond got fuel and we got coffee. Marginal improvement over Cadney Park but not a lot in it.
The weather today is pretty good.
Next stop was Agnes Creek where we stretched our legs and explored the area for a while. Agnes Creek is a very large creek but also a very dry creek, notwithstanding the reports of pretty significant rain over the previous week in that area.
From Agnes Creek we went on to cross the SA/NT border and on to Kulgera where we stopped for lunch. A very busy little place. We thought about getting fuel but the diesel was $1.75 / litre so we thought we would take a chance and see what the prices were like further on. We made sandwiches and had a cool drink, checked the maps and on the road again.
Next stop was Erldunda (which is the turn off to Uluru). We decided to get fuel at Erldunda and paid $1.75/litre anyway. I was going to buy a “Wot Camels?” cap but they wanted $21.90 for it and I figured that was pretty expensive, so Royce and I had an ice cream instead. (query – ‘wot diet?’).
We stopped a couple of times over the next leg of the journey and eventually reached Curtin Springs about 5.45pm. This was quite a long day’s travelling – all up approx 450km. The sun was shining and it was quite hot even with the air conditioner on, because we were travelling towards the sun and the heat coming through the front windscreen was a problem.
On the way to Curtin Springs we caught a glimpse of what we thought may have been Uluru but it turned out to be Mount Connor. We have no idea why Uluru is so well known and Mt Connor is almost unheard of but until we get to Uluru we cannot make any comparisons.
We set up in the free camp area in Curtin Springs last night and then moved to a powered site for today and tomorrow. Powered sites are $25 but at least you get power and water – unlike Coober Pedy where water had to be paid for separately! The diesel prices in Coober Pedy were a lot better ($1.37/litre) whereas at Curtin Springs the price is $1.97/litre.
Woke this morning to another beautiful, but quite hot day. By 11am the temperature was 30 degrees and it was continuing to warm up. We are now running our air conditioner because we were getting very hot and sweaty and we weren’t even doing anything to cause it!!!!
I discovered that I only have 1 t-shirt that fits comfortably but I am doing better than Royce who didn’t remember to pack any shorts so is having to continue wearing jeans.
We have no mobile phone service here at all and the only internet service costs $1 per 6 minutes. Needless to say we will use that very sparingly!
We are having a chill-out / do nothing day today and planning to go to the Olgas and Uluru tomorrow.
SOUTH OF MARLA
Beautiful blue sky at Coober Pedy this morning. We packed up to leave the caravan park by 10am but couldn’t leave CP straight away as Raymond needed to get his car tyres aligned better. He took his car to the workshop where the chap said he would try to get it done by 1pm.
We filled up the water tanks and emptied the toilet then parked the caravan and the 4 of us went for another walk around CP. We had a coffee in a small restaurant (very nice cappuccino) then browsed some of the opal shops. We found one called John & Yokas which was really good and bought a few bits and pieces (but not opal). One of the things we bought was two lumps of zebra stone. They had a number of pieces which had been sanded back to a beautifully smooth finish but we bought the unfinished pieces of stone and Royce will try his hand to sand them. They look fabulous when finished. We also bought a couple of small board mounted prints signed by the artist.
Once the car was ready we headed to the supermarket to get some shopping done, made some lunch then departed CP.
First stop was at a rest site about 1 hr from CP. We just stretched our legs, got a bit of fresh air then continued on. We stopped at Cadney Park Roadhouse because they advertised coffee and cake for $4 and we thought that was a pretty good bargain! Not often we are right but we were wrong again. No cappuccino. No filtered coffee or anything except some very very cheap coffee in a jar, a hot water urn, milk in the fridge and for the sum of $3 you had the privilege of making your own! We thought the coffee smelt pretty ordinary so made a cup of tea – which was so-so. Raymond and Hazel decided to have a hot chocolate instead and didn’t end up drinking much of that. The piece of cake was reasonably fresh but that was about the only positive thing I can think of!
We drove about another 45km up the road and pulled into the South Marla Rest Area for the night. This is quite a large free camp site but it was already pretty crowded when we arrived and more came afterwards. We managed to find a reasonable spot a bit away from the rest and set up a small camp fire.
The night sky tonight is just spectacular! I tried to take some photos of it using the ‘starry sky’ setting on my camera but I think I must be doing something wrong. I need to read the instructions for that but I didn’t bring them with me.
Bedding down shortly (not much else to do) and we will head off tomorrow aiming for Curtin Springs (not far from Uluru).
I am having trouble uploading photos while on this WiFi setting so I may have to leave those and upload them at a later time.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
THE BREAKAWAYS
We all had a pretty good sleep last night and got up this morning feeling quite refreshed. I think the couple of days rest has done us all good. Showered, breakfasted and then got stuck into sorting out the caravan cupboards. Up to now things have just been put in wherever. By spending a bit of time we have made more room in the cupboards (so now we can fit more things in!) and we also repacked the back of the car so everything fits much better and there is room for more stuff if we want.
We went to the Breakaways this afternoon and stayed there to watch the sunset. We drove to an area past the Breakaways called the Moon Plain (because it looks almost like the moon's surface - flat and dead) and the dog fence.
The Breakaways are fascinating and the sunset was spectacular. I have put a few photos on for interest - some taken during the day and some taken right on sunset when the colours are quite different. I actually took over 160 photos today and I am not posting all of them otherwise I will be up all night! Have just put a few on for interest.
What is of interest is that we have seen almost no wildlife in or around Coober Pedy at all. We thought that coming back into CP after sunset we might have seen kangaroos or similar but they are very absent! We saw a small hawk or falcon, a couple of crows, one butterfly and one cocky but that is all.
Nonetheless it was a lovely afternoon / evening.
We are leaving CP tomorrow morning and continuing on our northward journey. We will probably stop somewhere between Marla and Kulgera tomorrow night and I have no idea whether internet access will exist so there may not be a blog until we get to Uluru.
The weather today has been glorious. Blue sky and about 25 degrees. Just lovely.
PS: Will upload photos tomorrow or next day. At the moment it is taking too long and we will be up until midnight at this rate.
We went to the Breakaways this afternoon and stayed there to watch the sunset. We drove to an area past the Breakaways called the Moon Plain (because it looks almost like the moon's surface - flat and dead) and the dog fence.
The Breakaways are fascinating and the sunset was spectacular. I have put a few photos on for interest - some taken during the day and some taken right on sunset when the colours are quite different. I actually took over 160 photos today and I am not posting all of them otherwise I will be up all night! Have just put a few on for interest.
What is of interest is that we have seen almost no wildlife in or around Coober Pedy at all. We thought that coming back into CP after sunset we might have seen kangaroos or similar but they are very absent! We saw a small hawk or falcon, a couple of crows, one butterfly and one cocky but that is all.
Nonetheless it was a lovely afternoon / evening.
We are leaving CP tomorrow morning and continuing on our northward journey. We will probably stop somewhere between Marla and Kulgera tomorrow night and I have no idea whether internet access will exist so there may not be a blog until we get to Uluru.
The weather today has been glorious. Blue sky and about 25 degrees. Just lovely.
PS: Will upload photos tomorrow or next day. At the moment it is taking too long and we will be up until midnight at this rate.
Friday, August 27, 2010
COOBER PEDY
Left Lake Hart this morning (see photo of last night's sunset at Lake Hart) and travelled through to Coober Pedy with a couple of stops on the way. One stop was at Glendambo to use the toilets and I am so pleased we did. Surrounding the area was masses of the Sturt Desert Pea in full bloom. They were absolutely beautiful! We filled up with fuel and then headed off, stopping at a rest area about 200km short of Coober Pedy where we made lunch and had a cuppa. We had decided to use the portable gas cooker to boil the kettle and we put it on the ground to try to block the wind. Almost as soon as Royce put it down a gecko ran under it. When packing it up Royce found the gecko had gone into the cooker, not just under it. He was looking for the gecko and it fell out of the gas cooker. Poor thing looked a bit the worse for wear but Raymond picked it up and put in the grass and it ran off. Behind the rest area is a fabulous looking camping spot where we will probably spend a night or two on our return leg. We walked around exploring that area for a while (see photo) then continued on. While driving to CP we picked up some chatter on the UHF radio which went a bit like this:
PERSON 1: Must be old
PERSON 2: Or Mum is driving
ME: Nope - Mum's not driving
Note - both person 1 and person 2 must have thought the other had said this
PERSON 1 or 2: Then they must be old
These people were travelling behind us and were commenting on the fact that we were toodling along at about 80-85kph.
ME: Not old but getting there
At this point the penny dropped for person 1 & person 2 and they sounded a bit embarassed to be caught out! We laughed about it and chatted with them for a while after they had overtaken us. It was quite hilarious!
We got into CP about 4pm and went to find Royce's cousin Katrina. Katrina and her husband Trevor live in CP. We discovered they are both overseas on holiday so our timing wasn't that good. We went to the Information Centre to suss out a caravan park, dump site (wastewater) and to fill up our water tanks (as we had been told by other campers getting water at CP is hard). It turns out you have to buy your water so after a bit of driving back and forth we positioned the caravans so we could empty the toilets (only to find that you have to pay to get some water to rinse out the cartridges as well!) then to fill up our water tanks. The type of hose fitting to the water supply didn't fit in our caravan inlet very well and we were spilling more water than we were getting into the tanks. Royce jiggled and jossled and finally got the tanks filled up. We found out later that we were using the wrong hose and there was another one that we should have been using.
We booked into the Big 4 caravan park and got the caravan into position, set it up and put up the awning. We have booked for 2 nights at this stage but we may well stay 3 nights.
By the time Raymond and Hazel booked in and set up their caravan it was almost 7pm and too late for cooking (and we were all pretty stuffed) so we went in and ordered pizza for tea. While we were waiting for that we went for a walk and found an opal shop that was still open so we went in and had a look. The people in the shop were lovely. Mum cuts and polishes the opal and the adult son works in the shop. The opal is mined by dad who has worked the opal mine since the early 1970s. Royce bought me a lovely bracelet for my birthday and we will probably go back and have a better look around in that shop (and the others in CP) tomorrow.
The weather has been a bit kinder to us today. Not very windy and whilst we have had a bit of rain through the day it has been pretty light and fairly intermittent.
Sunset at Lake Hart
Some of the masses of Sturt Desert Pea at Glendambo
Sturt Desert Pea
Raymond (left) and Royce at our potential future campsite
Does anyone know what sort of plant this is? Lots of it around between Glendambo and Coober Pedy. Looks a bit like lavender.
PERSON 1: Must be old
PERSON 2: Or Mum is driving
ME: Nope - Mum's not driving
Note - both person 1 and person 2 must have thought the other had said this
PERSON 1 or 2: Then they must be old
These people were travelling behind us and were commenting on the fact that we were toodling along at about 80-85kph.
ME: Not old but getting there
At this point the penny dropped for person 1 & person 2 and they sounded a bit embarassed to be caught out! We laughed about it and chatted with them for a while after they had overtaken us. It was quite hilarious!
We got into CP about 4pm and went to find Royce's cousin Katrina. Katrina and her husband Trevor live in CP. We discovered they are both overseas on holiday so our timing wasn't that good. We went to the Information Centre to suss out a caravan park, dump site (wastewater) and to fill up our water tanks (as we had been told by other campers getting water at CP is hard). It turns out you have to buy your water so after a bit of driving back and forth we positioned the caravans so we could empty the toilets (only to find that you have to pay to get some water to rinse out the cartridges as well!) then to fill up our water tanks. The type of hose fitting to the water supply didn't fit in our caravan inlet very well and we were spilling more water than we were getting into the tanks. Royce jiggled and jossled and finally got the tanks filled up. We found out later that we were using the wrong hose and there was another one that we should have been using.
We booked into the Big 4 caravan park and got the caravan into position, set it up and put up the awning. We have booked for 2 nights at this stage but we may well stay 3 nights.
By the time Raymond and Hazel booked in and set up their caravan it was almost 7pm and too late for cooking (and we were all pretty stuffed) so we went in and ordered pizza for tea. While we were waiting for that we went for a walk and found an opal shop that was still open so we went in and had a look. The people in the shop were lovely. Mum cuts and polishes the opal and the adult son works in the shop. The opal is mined by dad who has worked the opal mine since the early 1970s. Royce bought me a lovely bracelet for my birthday and we will probably go back and have a better look around in that shop (and the others in CP) tomorrow.
The weather has been a bit kinder to us today. Not very windy and whilst we have had a bit of rain through the day it has been pretty light and fairly intermittent.
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