Marble Bar finale

Our stay in marble Bar has been restorative and something of a revelation. This hottest town in the country (in 1927 the temperature remained above 38degC for 167 days), that in our mind's eye would be a barren hell hole, the sort of place Luke Skywalker would feel at homwe in, revealed itself as a true oasis nestled in charming fashion amongst a range of low hills.

White Gums and Wattles and Melaleuca line the nearby creeks and no shortage of water it seems, is available to keep lawns green here and there.

There are several gorges and water holes to find, the bar itself (a band of jasper that resembles marble metamorphosed with dark and light and red banding). It is a place where many of the locals arrived not so long ago and just decided to stay. For two pins I reckon Helen would too - she has talked to many of them and heard some stories and bonded with one of the town's older women who grew up on the station mentioned. It's also a town undergoing change through the pressures of mining - Gina Reinhardt has leased some of the country around, there  is lots of exploratory prospecting, and the town itself is underpinned by the owner of one of the grazing properties nearby, who has bought most of the business opportunities (caravan park, pub, post office etc).

As I write the smart daughter is returning to her property in her red helicopter. She married the pub owner and they have a baby. She runs a successful with beef cattle export business and is rumoured to be buying her father out. There is surely a novel in it.

We keep extending our stay day by day because it is such an interesting place. We visited the old Comet Gold Mine with its 75m stack and

chatted with the Dutch overseer, who came to look after the mine museum (it closed in 1995) for a friend for three weeks. He has been there day and night for three years and the friend never returned.

Carrying on down the road another 15 kms we arrived at Glen Herring, a fine gorge with a series of rock pools. The rock formations are extraordinarily beautiful.

We were on our own and we found a great sense of peace there, with Spinifex pigeons, blue winged kookaburra, painted finches. Helen couldn't resist a swim of course. Only the coating of cow shit which cloaked much of the bed in the upper reaches sounded a negative note. Such a price was paid by the aborigines. It epitomises what we are doing to our environment everywhere.

When at the Comet Mine we met a Perth couple and shared information as you do, and we met up for a couple of reds last evening. By the end of play we had changed our whole return itinerary, reverting to the anti-clockwise journey back through WA and across the Nullabor. This was Plan A before we left home but neither of us could get excited about returning through Queensland. The opportunities to catch up with old and new travel chums trump the over familiar Kidman Highway through NSW. We had thought we would avoid a prolonged cold drive west to east at a high latitude, but it now feels like the best thing to do. It's like playing the joker, that surprises and changes the game in an instant.

Yesterday's treat was a drive out to Coppins Gap. Once again we were the only people there - what do all the other tourists do? Stunningly beautiful again, look at this rock!

We took a different track back, only possible with the GPS as it was unmapped on paper and unsigned. It was lovely, past pinnacles, through dry creeks and riverbeds, one with old stone causeway remains, and deserted mines like Moolyella tin mine with mounds of tailings and ponds. This was apparently once the road to Broome!

Sadly we pack up this morning and head out on the dirt again via a demolished town called Shay Gap to come out on the coast and camp at Cape Keraudren, a state reserve. Hopefully no midges!

PS Do we have any followers (apart from our faithful friend Etch)? We would love some comments to know if this hard work is worth it!

Marble Bar 22-26 June

We had a gentle 150km run southeast to Marble Bar against the first head winds we have had on the trip. WA is famous for them and it really helps if you are going around Australia in the right direction otherwise the diesel bill can be awful. The Bar is like a tiny (120 people, one pub) oasis with the first real lawn in the caravan park and shady trees. We had a message from a Newham friend for the Ironclad pub’s owner, duly delivered over the bar in between locals bellowing at the footy on the TV. The publican married the cattle-exporting daughter of local Yarrie Station owner, who has helped keep the town function by buying the caravan park and other facilities.

As Marble Bar is the official centre of the Pilbara Goldfield, a Wardens court is held regularly; Ian chatted to the officer responsible for all mining lease applications. The 1936 Comet Mine is closed but has a museum. Marble Bar has some lovely stone heritage Government buildings built in 1895 and still used as such.

Helen of course sketched out the range of new challenges starting with a round trip to visit Carrawine Gorge, which we should have arrived at over a week ago! Marble Bar has much to recommend it; there is much to do. The Carrawine Gorge trip had us on the road at 8:15am for a 135km run to the Gorge, on the blacktop, was a long but enjoyable day.  

We had a suspicion the Gorge might be a let down which it was, and it wasn’t. If you were passing by, yes, but a special long trip, no. It is impressive, being on the Oakover River with a massive perhaps 100metre high cliff face across from a broad deep gravel river bed that is hard to drive through. Lots of people doing things like pulling down the dead trees with long ropes and chain saws echoing off the cliff face opposite. Not the best karma. We had a quick sandwich and departed. A bonus was a small sign directing us off the track to a mound of glaciated rock, beautifully polished and striated.

Hells Bells had a list of other destinations lined up further down the track (derived from conversation with a Port Hedland oldtimer cleaning at the caravan park there) so off we went to find solitude at the Eel Pool thirty kilometres on.

It was delightful. A ribbon pool in the bed of the Oakover river that runs for about a kilometre. Water crystal clear and full of native fish; bird life and peace and quiet. Two more destinations were attempted but our hoped-for tracks turned out to be dozer tracks to exploration sites. They are everywhere and let no one be in any doubt about the determination to dig up, scrape off or burrow in to any opportunity in WA. There is big money being spent and some lost out here, and the common cry we hear is that it is all keeping Australia afloat and anything is justified for the elusive dollar.

Peel the top layer

When the tour guide at the Mt Whaleback mine back in Newman pointed to a lovely range of hills beyond the big hole in the ground, and told us it would not be there in ten years, we politely zipped our lip. What is clear is that the pace is picking up and there are rumours of major finds being kept quiet. Interesting times. Anyway, we got so far down the road yesterday we decided to keep going and return to Marble Bar using roads we had planned to drive in the opposite direction, before the Port Headland diversion. Things are working out better than planned because we have seen two towns we wouldn’t have, and had great fun in both (notwithstanding the tyre changes and gas jet issues). I can’t imagine driving over 500 kms in Victoria to do what we did, but it was all worthwhile, the landscape being so beautiful and different from the home country.

Yesterday Sunday 24^th we drove south to Corruna Downs airstrip, 35 kms away.

On the runway

In WW2 it was a secret airstrip from where Liberator bombers flew to PNG and Borneo to harass the Japanese. There were many successful sorties with relatively few losses and the enemy were apparently well aware that there was a base somewhere in the Pilbara but they tried and failed to find it. Two runways, about 20 dispersal bays arranged across perhaps 100 hectares, with the remains of a barracks, an army support base, gun pits and so on.

Given that summer temperatures here regularly top 50degC conditions must have been extreme; and no one knew about it (in theory I suppose) so there would have been no week end R & R at the Marble Bar pub!

Marble Bar keeps offering more and we keep extending our stay, meeting interesting people and foraying out to see more sights. The Marble Bar itself is a colourfully striped bar of Jasper rock above a lovely pool, barring the Coongan River. Nearby is Chinaman’s pool and stretch of river where we spent a happy hour or so on the grassy verge bird watching – Great and Little Pied Cormorants, White Faced Heron,  flocks of Nankeen Night Herons and Corellas, Azure Kingfisher, ducks…..
The Pioneer’s Cemetery had many unmarked graves and the usual poignant headstones for babies and children, and this lost bushman.

However in town is a memorial to all the unmarked and other lonely graves that have been tracked – extraordinary tales on many plaques.

Despite its record as the hottest town in Australia, Marble Bar is currently delightfully mid 20s, and cool enough for sweaters at night. We love it and keep forking our $22 for another night. The Pied butcher birds sing beautifully every morning. Still to go are a couple more gorges!

Detours to Newman and Port Hedland 17th to 22nd June

Back in Alice we systematically responded to each of the challenges thrown our way with perseverance and fortitude. Dirty gas from somewhere in Alice meant that  by the time we had reached Jupiter Well on the Gary Junction Rd our gas burners had completely clogged, and we were back to old school using the “Bidgee Barbie” over a black fellas fire scraped together from the leaf litter and dead mulga around us. Easy and very effective although grubby. Hence the diversion to Newman where BHP Billiton has its largest Iron Ore mine at Mt Whaleback

and owns a lot – like the only caravan park with great facilities, best loo paper and free washers and dryers! We frequented the pub round the corner every night for their $15 specials. You would think a mining town like this would be a gift for our sorts of repair (clean out gas jets or buy replacements, fill up the gas bottles and leave). Not so easy! It took a day to sort those issues with the senior gas plumber taking the jets home at his lunch break so he could use his home gas welding kit to blow the jets clear. If I had had to use a trailer to bring the jets in they could have dealt with it on the spot! But everyone is so helpful. No charge.

We took a morning tour around the mine, which is extraordinary. Only photos and statistics tell the story so we’ll include them here. The hole was an 805 metre mountain, it’s now 5kms long and 2 wide. Its 135 metres deep. 45 million litres of water flows in and is removed each week, lowering the water table all around (ho hum). Over 1 billion tonnes of ore has been sent to Japan and China since 1969. The trains are over 2 kms long and haul 33,000 tonnes each. There is about a train a day and each train is worth about $2m. When you look at the infrastructure costs you might wonder if it is enough!

Helen of course used this down time to research the opportunities around Newman, in between adding to her encyclopaedic knowledge of country butchers by chatting to the mobile butcher and finding hogget chops (2 tooth or 18month old sheep, so much better than lamb).

She found a fine rock art site 75 kms out, hundreds of petroglyphs scattered across broad rock faces either side of a river gorge. Our own mini Burrup. And another site up another track to which she lured Ian with promise of the Hickman Meteorite Crater, found in 2007 via Google Earth. The art site involved some scrambling through an overgrown creek and up rock faces.

Catfish

Whilst only about 80 kms from Newman it did involve some tricky driving across the tops of these rocky ranges before arriving at the crescent shaped rim of a crater about a kilometre or so across, with very steep walls. We left the rim about 3:30 pm to get back before dark. I hate making mistakes and my father’s words always stay in mind “slowly does it”. Why I didn’t slow, slow down as we picked our way around a muddy drowned section of track, through the mulga that had been burnt leaving short but stout sticks poking up, I don’t know. We both felt the car sag onto it, accompanied by the death sigh as an otherwise good $380 tyre departed. So like Alice, Newman was not going to let us go that easily. Another day was taken trying to find a matching tyre and sorting a fridge that had ceased during the night, but being charged $200 to ship one tyre overnight from Perth was beyond reasonable.

$2m ore train

While we waited for the details to come through I fixed the fridge plug and another potential disaster was averted! The advice was to go to Port Hedland 450kms distant, where sure enough, they had some of our Toyo tyres. Taking the Great Northern Highway is a pleasure apart from the 50 or so 60 metre long road trains we had to pass. With a Prado lacking in herbs this was interesting to say the least. The road train drivers are very good helping you out. They radio ahead to their buddy in the next train who tells them if they have clear road, then they use their blinker to say “go”, or if you are showing signs of wanting to pass when it isn’t safe they dab their brakes. As dusk was falling towards the end of the journey we were happy enough to go at their pace. So, no Nullagine back on the red roads, but a day of blacktop driving and a visit to the other end of that railway where the ships are loaded and sent on their way. 

Rio Tinto's salt at Port Hedland

In 2008 Port Hedland really was a desperate place, with rust coated asbestos clad 10 square houses fetching $1m. Since then something of a miracle has occurred because those prices brought in the developers who have created a very attractive suburb with palm trees, facilities, BHP have contributed a new yacht club although there is a great paucity of yachts (we established that the nearest chandler where I could buy some replacement rope is in Perth). What goes up comes down and since the GFC and the mining “downturn” in WA those now attractive 20 square houses are worth about $0.75m. But things are moving again as major new finds especially in the rare earth department are getting the pundits excited again. Perhaps the next big one is just around the corner.

Rudall River National Park (Karlamilyi NP) and Desert Queen Baths, 16 & 17 June

After two nights at Jupiter Well we continued along the road almost on our own, until we reached the Gary Junction with Gary Junction Highway running south. Now on the Jenkins Rd and across the Canning Stock Route, that corrugated nightmare (Helen says gorgeous and varied despite the corrugations) which we travelled in swags in 2012. Just across the route is Kunawarritji, an aboriginal outstation run by the usual handful of white folks behind the pump and the till. We topped up the tank at $3.40 / L to be on the safe side and continued west on the less well maintained Wapet road aka Kidson track, with devilish hard corrugations on and off for about 150kms. The wind was getting up and the landscape no longer set between sand ridges with their wonderful range of plants, but open plains and burnt, desolate if the sun isn’t shining. The only wildlife spotted were birds - several groups of Australian bustards, commonly known as bush turkey, swift birds of prey, wagtails, budgerigars, finches and others to fast to identify. We found a claypan with a broken windmill off the road and made camp.

For the past week the moon has been up during the day so star gazing has been good. I am aware how our eyes have deteriorated at our now somewhat advanced years, the milky way not as bright as memory would have it. It is different because you see the whole arc of the galactic spiral from horizon to horizon and can see where the galaxy centre roughly is, and our position relative to the whole big deal. Thank you Brian Cox for reawakening our interest in the night sky.

With the Rudall River National Park (or now more correctly known as Karlamilyi NP) in our sights we made an early start. Punmu is another settlement of c200 with a school P-12 perched on the edge of dry Lake Dora, pictured here,

and the last chance for fuel or an icy treat before the road becomes the Telfer Mine Road. With the GPS giving up the ghost temporarily with a flat battery, we turned left towards RRNP driving past the road sign that informs everyone they are going to be banged up without a permit. This is one of those occasions that goes to the middle of personality and how people tick, particularly as a couple. Helen’s viewpoint is “of course we can go down there because everyone else does; ignore the mine road trains (that are meant to lumber unimpeded along their privately paid for road)”. My reaction is to balk at that sign and say “bugger, we’ll have to find another way”. She (who must be obeyed) is usually right and I continue on feeling deeply conflicted and drawing on all the lessons I can remember from our years of analysis. Sure enough, after 20kms of mine road up comes the road block and more signs saying “YOU SHALL NOT PASS”. She sashays up to the very large young man, brilliant in his iridescent green vest, shorts and wrap around sunnies who is manning the boomgate, and pleads the case. “Of course you can drive through the mine, you’re the first today, in fact I’ll escort you through”. We have a personalised escort off the good roads for 10 kms and onto the start of a very tough 90km section of heavy corrugation, deep sand, long gravelly river beds,

followed by the final 18kms of rough rocky country in to the Desert Queen Baths at the north centre of the park.

Beautiful views of the red East Pilbara everywhere.

Arriving early afternoon we found a group already there who are from Melbourne and Toronto. They tick tack between the two continents trying to outdo each other with extraordinary feats like canoeing 400kms down an arctic river counting grizzly bears as you go. In Australia they explore the deserts on quad bikes (very special ones) and follow the courses of the early explorers, occasionally finding artefacts at campsites long deserted. Their command of the latest navigation technology is complete as you would expect, and they are the true adventurers, venturing up to 200kms from base camp. We enjoyed an hour telling tales at their campfire last night, marvelling at how imaginative some people can be, squeezing every bit of juice out of life on the way.

The Desert Queen Baths are a string of water holes running up a sunny gorge that is totally tumbled with rocks, but well worth the effort if a bit testing on ankle and balance. We made it to 4, with 2 apparently still to go. The path is gated regularly by large sheets of cobweb, each owner leaping into action as you stumble headlong into it, hopefully mouth closed. After the spiders there are the bees. Two great fans of beehive constructed one above a cave mouth, the other just in the small branches of a shrub, not enclosed but open presumably for the cooling breezes. The cave contains some rock art, with the rock roof blackened by millennia of Martu people living there.

Cold water but not as cold as Cave Creek at Currango

There have been heavy rains recently, the rain that caught us out when we left Arkaroola and headed up the Oodnadatta Track. The rains have washed out a 250km long stretch of the Canning Stock Route. Consequently those travellers have been diverted north through the RRNP and along the road we have entered on, a 620km detour for them altogether. Most of them have decided to stay here overnight. This was marketed as the loneliest spot in Australia!

Discussion with our desert explorer folk (he is CID Melbourne so investigation comes easily to him) has lead us to change the plan, and to leave by heading south through the park and on to the Talawana Track (recently graded), thence west to Newman where we can more quickly replace gas burners that have blocked with dirty gas picked up in Alice. And of course find rock art that Helen has heard about. That leads to a zig zag return route to Marble Bar through Nullagine, east again on the Skull Springs Rd that returns us to our previous plan to see Eel Pool and Carawine Gorge, then west again to Marble Bar. Crazy really but that is part of the joy of making it up as you go along. So, maybe we will post this in Newman, day after tomorrow?

Gary Junction Road, 9-14 June

Alice did not want to let us go! We hadn’t gone 10 metres before we found the issues of last night’s unquenchable brake lights had not entirely freed us. We fixed that by disconnecting the battery which reset the computer (just in time for our last meal at Hanuman at the Hilton, excellent Indian and Thai and very reasonable). The electric windows were now inoperable so we had to visit Kittle’s Toyota where in best Punjabi English a lovely mechanic showed us how to reset the window winder computers to behave. So with adjusted tyre pressures to suit the extra weight of fuel and water we are carrying we crunched out on Larapinta Drive to run parallel with the zebra shadowed, blue, scalloped West MacDonnell ranges. We bypassed all the lovely sights seen in 2008, except for the ochre pits,

and a visit to the last gorge - Redbank, a walk insisted on by “Morton of the Gorges”. Then at last off Namatjira road onto the dirt to our first night’s camp on the Gary Junction Road below Haast’s Bluff. Was the camper trailer trying to tell us something about its age by dropping the floor with a thud: failure of the gas struts. However with Mr Intrepid’s new rope and pulley set-up, no problem shutting or opening any more.  

It feels good to be back in cooking mode again, while set up among ancient landscapes of mountains, plains or dunes, in beautiful sunsets. We do not stint on the menus – mushroom and pumpkin risotto, beef cheeks in the Dreampot (boil up a stew/corned beef/whatever in the morning, clamp the pot in its thermos-like container for a cooked meal that evening). There is a vegetable green curry on the go for tonight’s meal. Always accompanied by a decent bottle and often a wee dram before early bed. When on our own which is almost always, we can listen to music recorded on an old Ipod which plays at random – Gurrumul followed by Mozart’s Requiem in the dark seemed pretty appropriate under a Hakea  a couple of nights ago.

There is sometimes additional excitement to be had in the evening – a small yellow snake made himself at home under the warmth of the car at Haast’s Bluff, a camel bellowed nearby on night 2, and we are surrounded by scorpion holes under the Desert Oaks at Jupiter Well. Keeping the boots on.

Driving is a joy on the Gary Junction Road. Although it follows the line of Len Beadell's original track, the road has been re-graded into a wide relatively smooth gravel highway. It varies from smooth to corrugated gravel, stony patches and deepish red sand where dunes are crossed – we saw 2 low loaders bogged in it. We are very happy tooling along between 45-50-60, top gear 1200 revs, don’t want to be through too quickly!

The road’s built by Len Beadell and the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party in 1960 as part of a network of roads for the Weapons Research Establishment at Woomera, South Australia is an epic tale which can be read further eg http://www.australiaforeveryone.com.au/nt/gary-junction-rd.htm. His aluminium plaques, or replicas, mark various spots along the way, such as Sandy Blight Junction, or the NT/WA border (picture). His ration truck which caught fire and was destroyed in Nov 1960 has been moved to Kiwirrkurra.

Many think of deserts as featureless, dry and boring. Dry yes, but so far from featureless or boring. Range after range of ancient mountains like Mt Liebig (1500metres) pictured, the Amungurunga and Ehrenberg ranges, jump-ups, dunes and densely vegetated swales. If you are botanically minded like H, there is never a dull moment. The vegetation changes constantly, and there are frequent stops to identify or photograph anything flowering; we’re a bit early this year for the real show.  Wattles are tricky to ID, but this Acacia stipuligera I’ve not seen an any trips before. 

Handsome Desert Bloodwoods (Eucalyptus ocapa and other species) with their “bush coconut” galls (lerps exude sweet substance prized by Aboriginal people) are among other Euc. species like Coolibahs and Mallees, with Red Gums in dry river beds.  Sister Ann’s present of A guide to Plants of Inland Australia is a constant bible. Hakeas, Grevilleas, Daisies and so much more, with the ever-present Spinifex dominating the ground cover but lots of forbs and other ground cover still to be spotted.

Mind you, this is from the perspective of travelling in a comfortable vehicle, with GPS. Deserts of course are also dangerous - the Gibson was named by Ernest Giles after young stockman Alfred Gibson, who wandered off the track riding ahead for help on Giles’s expedition in 1874. His remains were never found.

We have not seen any kangaroos, but plenty of camels and one lovely pack of dingoes – 4 the classic cream colour with dark tips, one black and another a brindle.

Prints tell stories – too many cat tracks amongst the spinifex mixed with those of tiny marsupials, mice, reptiles…As Queen’s birthday weekend meant public holidays and we didn’t need fuel, we bypassed  the Aboriginal settlements of  Ilkuntji (Haasts Bluff) and Kintore near the WA border. We did go into Papunya, famous for being the start of the art movement, but the art centre was closed. Kiwirrkurra into WA seems a thriving settlement with various health and community services, where we added some diesel and replaced our mouldy bread with fresh from the store. 

Jupiter Well campsite where we spent 2 nights (12 and 13 June) is a wide camping area set under a large stand of swaying desert oaks (Alloasuarina decaisneana) with a soothing soughing breeze through their branches.

In the centre is a hand pump installed by a survey company in the 1960's which pumps good quality water – we filled our tanks and caught up on washing. A late breakfast before a lovely walk through the dunes, below, 

followed by photo sorting, reading, blog writing and cooking dinner makes for a perfect day apart, from the flies.

Writing under the peppercorn tree at the Telegraph Station

Having completed all our maintenance jobs we have had time for a bit of sightseeing. Hartley Street has several of the older buildings with verandahs to keep cool, near the heritage precinct where we visited the tourist facility for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, a great story and service.

At Traeger Old Timers Museum, part of the Old Timers retirement village set up by Rev. John Flynn (of the RFDS and Inland Mission), we met a special old lady called Ruby who volunteers there and has donated many of the items on display. Ruby’s stories of her early adventures driving around Australia with her sister, then her life on Ti-Tree station after marrying the head stockman and later moving into Alice after the station was compulsorily purchased, were so fresh first hand; we find it very poignant that soon these precious stories by the old people will no longer be heard. The National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame however is doing a great job of showing women’s achievements, including a national celebration of Australian women who were first in their field. In our 2014 blog we mentioned Molly Clark of Old Andado station; Molly was responsible for initiating and promoting the project.

Araluen art precinct houses the lovely Territory gallery which showcases Aboriginal art as well as cutting edge exhibitions without being exhausting. Modern stand outs were two video pieces, The first by Arnala Groom titled “Does she know the revolution is coming?”, based on a conversation with an ex-PM’s wife at a posh NY party with indigenous artists as token invitees – wonderful political satire about how clueless the political class is about Aboriginal issues and art.  The second was called “Red”, with Cate Blanchett as part of a creation myth involving sexually cannibalistic red-back spiders! Is there nothing that fabulous actor cannot do?! The place will be abuzz later in June when the Beanie Festival takes over. The day has been topped off delightfully with one of those chance events that make your day. We were at The Old Telegraph Station, where the telegraph signals to London were boosted on their way north from 1872 until the early part of the last century, and where there is great banana bread made on the premises. Chatting as you do to the lovely lass running the place and she said to Helen “don’t I know you from somewhere?” She hails from Adelaide so we mentioned having family in McLaren Vale, then she says, “do you know Alice, Jesse, Nina Keath and their mum Margie?”. Who of course is H’s sister! Kate West is her name and she’s wondering about making a move to Melbourne where her mother is based. Funny isn’t it?

Well, we are ticking off the last things to do before we fuel up with 300L ready for the march westward. Ian’s just had a second physio session, and is feeling up for almost anything. The weather has warmed, there is a mackerel sky we’ll keep an eye on, but all the signs are go. It’s interesting how in the course of the usual banter people ask “which way you headed?”, there being north/south or east, but when we say west folk sort of glaze over and a bubble appears with “must be f…..n mad” overhead. This probably from someone pounding their vertebrae and taking tumbles at 70kph on the way to Finke! We have discovered the road we want is more travelled than we thought and in better condition as it is off the usual 4WD beat.It is the main road for aboriginal people out to their traditional lands in the Gibson, including Papunya, Kintore, Kiwikurra and Kunawaritji.

Looking east along Gary Junction Road towards Mt Liebig

We have attached here a picture of tomorrow’s road, which we think is very alluring. More on the web if you are curious eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Junction_Road

On our last morning we are at cousin Celia's place at Campfire in the Heart, with more stimulating conversation over tea  and cake. She has kindly invited us sit here to finish this post in the surroundings she is so at home in, on the outskirts of town. A dingo has strolled past, we watch various honeyeaters and wattle birds, and Levi the lizard, and take a journey along the labyrinth to the heart and back. Lovely to share a home base for a short time, thanks Celia

What can be said about why we enjoy this travel so much? What does it offer that is different? For us it puts fuel back in the tank. Just staying in Alice has been special time because we have let go of an agenda. We haven’t even cooked for a week, been out every night to a different restaurant, in other words we’ve done what most people do on holiday…very little. But no, we’ve done heaps of preparation, stuff that comes to mind when you give yourselves time to think carefully. And now we are itching to be off on the next part of this challenge. Sometimes the road is very testing (where everyone else has been), other times it is a dream-like scrolling-by of rolling hills and ranges, birdlife and vegetation that can seem like a David Attenborough documentary (some imagination needed here). It is satisfying trying to anticipate our needs and reflecting at the close of a journey that it all went to plan…better than plan. For us, more than other ways of holidaying, it is rewarding.

Alice Springs

Such an interesting and ever changing town, centre of our universe currently as we work through many issues. Very first stop was the car-wash before booking into Gday Mate caravan park, much upgraded since a previous stay. Permits to cross Aboriginal land in SA and WA at Central Lands Council and Ngaanyatjarra Council, no problem. Conquering the satellite phone hook-up, done. New shock absorbers on the van, done. Getting to know all the welding businesses in town to remake brackets to fit a new water tank – too easy! Actually this was a long job but they are all so friendly and helpful and we now know the back streets of Alice quite well. Ian is too modest but his wife can say what a clever and innovative problem solver and fixit man he is! Pop-riveting, tank fitting, hose repairs, and the latest a rope and pulley system designed to make it easier to close the camper trailer (Bunnings is now a very familiar stop). This is necessary for his sore back that has necessitated a longer stay than we anticipated in Alice. Helen’s persuasive powers with the caravan park worked to extend our stay despite it being full - the Finke Desert race means all Alice parks are heaving with every sort of tent, camper, and caravans ranging from basic to gin-palace. We cannot imagine towing a monster and being restricted to bitumen, or needing to always hook-up to power, thanks to our 2 extra batteries and an inverter. 

No bigger utes than this Texan!

Ian being a designer, the evolution evident in caravan and especially camper trailers is very interesting - an ongoing mental exercise imagining how our humble rig might be further Improved. Australian manufacturers who until recently could charge $50-60,000 for a hard-floor camper are competing with Chinese product below $20k.
A classier offroad caravan "Aussie made" for $65k

Check out this European option in which our dear friends Hamish and Heather will be living for some months in UK and Europe!

Our beloved Prado is probably the oldest vehicle here and touch wood has never missed a beat. The old Aussie Swag camper is almost the roughest in the Park.

In between we have had tea and crumpets at cousin Celia’s place, and made contact with Maya Cifali, who has lived here for 35 years and has been very close to and involved with indigenous issues. Over Sunday roast at the Todd Tavern and the following evening at her charming house and garden Maya has been fascinating to talk with and has shone light on aboriginal issues that have had us wondering for a long time. We are looking forward to reading her book on her early life in Egypt. Thanks Suzanne for giving us the contact and a new friend. 

We are being idle about cooking, and our favourite eating hole is Casa Nostra – Italian pizzas, pasta and byo, (since supplanted by Hanuman at the Hilton). We have actually explored other culinary delights: Indian, Chinese, a great steak in the most hideously noisy tavern, and a good salad lunch at the Olive Pink gardens, a bit drier and less maintained than the loveliness I remember on previous visits. We are enjoying being in range to make contact with friends and family – very excited to hear about the VCAT win for the community against the Shell petrol station complex in Woodend. Next post we’ll talk a bit about our forthcoming adventure on the Gary Junction track through the Gibson desert west from Alice. 

Arkaroola and old Ghan tracks

I think I've cracked this blog business, with the help of a new mouse instead of finger dragging! 

Leaving Waukaringa, on up past various sheep stations (south of the dog fence) and into the northern Flinders Ranges and Arkaroola. This is our third visit to this barren, geologically fascinating, beautiful place, still owned and run by the Spriggs family. Apparently it is so dry that every waterhole is empty for the first time, as evidenced by this photo of Barraranna waterhole at the end of the gorge. 

Dry waterhole and dead roo

The euros, kangaroos and yellow-footed rock wallabies are of course suffering, and the vegetation – especially my favourite Eremophilas, rather crisp! The Acacia Ridge walk had some treats though, like Mt Lofty grass trees.

We probably unwisely chose to leave Arkaroola via the back route, possibly the roughest we have tackled: it took 2 hours to travel the 20km to the boundary, past the Wheal Turner mine, another of various deserted copper mines.  Then through enormous sheep stations to the main road, but unfortunately it started raining and we became covered in red mud. Scraping it off in gobbets with sticks is not a favoured activity. After the usual compulsory quandong pie in Copley we fell into the pub at Marree for a bed and dinner, and listened with trepidation to thunder and rain which often shuts the Oodnadatta Track, now very familiar to us.

Warburton Groove, Lake Eyre

However it was fine next morning and we arrived at William Creek to discover all tracks closed. Sigh, booked in to the caravan park and consoled ourselves with a flight with young pilot Laura over Lake Eyre. The enormous lake is filling from the north Channel country - we saw the water where it flows at 4km per hour down Warburton Groove; Madigan’s Bay where Donald Campbell did his speed trials; and Anna Station, the world’s largest cattle station, in Australian hands thankfully. It was bought from Kidmans by the Williams family, who live there; they also own Hamilton station which we passed further up the old Ghan track – huge expanses of desert and gibber with contented looking Hereford cattle scattered sparsely. 

A meal of goat curry and a good red in William Creek pub with our friends from Marree once more saw us set up for the drive next day to Oodnadatta where sadly the Plates no longer welcome travellers at the Pink Roadhouse. Adam was killed near Adelaide in a motor racing accident a few years ago and Linnie, his widow, sold and  moved a couple of years later. The pubs and roadhouses are all run by young backpackers who sometimes stay for months but don’t know the history or have the knowledge to advise often very inexperienced travellers about road and weather conditions, tyre pressures etc. As the track is more accessible now to SUVs and even ordinary cars when dry, many drivers blow ordinary road tyres by insisting on keeping to manufacturer’s recommended pressures. Big mistake. Get Adam Plate’s hand-drawn sheet of advice still available at the Pink Roadhouse. 

Abminga Siding

With our pressures down we set off on the Simpson Desert access track which follows the old Ghan railway and ruined sidings like this one at Abminga, camping overnight at lovely Eringa waterhole. Next night was a detour after coming through the Aboriginal community at Finke/Apatula and driving alongside the Finke race track (still along old Ghan railway) to camp at Chambers Pillar.

Through South Australia

One of the things all Victorians surely look forward to is warmth as you travel north.  -1deg Celsius last night in Alice, with our breath steaming in the camper trailer as the 5:00am 2 km long train rolled past nearby. Things warmed up nicely by about 8:00am when I hopped under the trailer to start some repair work. As with each journey we’ve done we expect there will be things that need to be sorted after the first week or so and this trip is certainly no different. Fortunately Alice is a great town to get things done. We have landed here a week before the Finke desert race that begins next weekend. Nearly every workshop, and there are many, is involved one way or another in this great race that draws entrants from around the world. So finding a metal working shop able to make new brackets for a new water tank has been time consuming but eventually fruitful. Before I go any further a message for Greg who did a marvellous job fitting a new tank under the floor of the trailer….not your fault!

First day out, on our way to Penola over the SA border, I drew water for a drink and scalded my lips with water that had turned toxic. Fortunately I didn’t swallow any, but dumped the water and refilled, only to find the problem wouldn’t go away even after six rinses that jiggered the hand pump (no drain plug provided). As chance had it we bumped into old Williamstown friends in Maree in the hotel there, and Henry is an industrial chemist. Apparently whilst I had purchased the tank on the web on a site called “water tanks”, I had been sent a tank that had been treated with Fluorine or Ozone to prepare the plastic for diesel. No matter how many rinses we might do we wouldn’t get rid of the stuff, which is carcinogenic anyway. Oh joy! So, a new tank that sort of fits, new brackets being welded up in the morning whilst the trailer has its seized-on 20 year old shockers changed, new hoses already prepared, and after hopefully no more than an hour underneath we’ll be back in business. Alice people are so helpful. Already we have had two repairs on things done without charge. 

Early in May we went over to McLaren Vale for a wedding and enjoyed the journey through the Grampians so much we opted to go that way again, this time on a damp day following the Glenelg River much of the way through fading regional towns. Not so Hamilton with its excellent regional art gallery. We were offered a free night at the old pub just over the SA border in Penola “next time you are passing this way” because they forget to turn on the hot water system for our morning showers. Little did they realise we would take them up on their word!

Strawberry Lane cottages, red gum kerbs

Penola is a pleasant small town with a fine modern memorial building to Saint Mary McKillop, and a delightful historic cottage and garden streetscape called Strawberry Lane. We wasted a day by going so far due west rather than heading for the top left hand corner, but we weren’t about caring. We headed north on day 2 and landed on the Murray at Morgan, one of the old trading towns from the riverboat days, with two competing pubs and a ferry that goes all night. Like the Nile, a mile wide and 1000 miles long, the Murray here cuts a green swathe through near a barren landscape on its way south.

Our northward advance, now on dirt roads, took us into a far flung and somewhat sombre landscape. We crossed the Barrier Highway and stopped overnight at an old gold mine we had visited a few years ago when we did the Simpson Desert crossing. Waukaringa mine was supported from 1873 to the 1950’s by a magnificent hotel and a township in 1890 of about 750 people.

Only the lethal shafts, the treatment tanks and a tall chimney rising high above the ridge, the unroofed hotel and the a few graves in the Catholic cemetery remain, with stone remains of a mortuary a few km away. It is hard to imagine how the town worked socially in such a remote place, yet it is typical of how miners lived, then as today.

This blog could die an early death as I am being defeated by technology - the pics won't be dragged into order on the left, hotspot from mobile to laptop is tricky despite much help yesterday from a young Israeli in the campground and internet connections a mystery! However we are stuck in Alice for a few days fixing things and mending Ian's sore back so who knows?

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