Paul, Bina, Nieve and Yelena

Started our journey to the red centre on the 25^th June, there is a map at the bottom of this page. We left Melbourne at 12pm on the Friday and made our first overnight stop at Murray Bridge - SA 90km short of Adeliade arriving at 7:30pm.

 

Saturday we moved on to our next stop of Glendambo passing Port Agusta,

 

Port Agusta is the gateway to the NT and WA, you don't want to get this junction wrong!

 

 

 

For a child of the 70's Woomera is real Dan Dare stuff, rocket testing and secret bases. However it is really only open weekdays and arriving on a saturday afternoon wasn't a great idea.

 

 

 

 

 

Woomera has a real 50's feel to it and an outdoor museum of rockets so all not lost. It is very tidy as only a military base can be.

 

 

 

 

 

However this forced us to get on to Lake Hart and another amazing sunset across the salt lake

 

 

 

We added 10% to the population at Glendambo 

 

 

 

From Glendambo We set off for Coober Pedy, Opal Capital of the World and home to Australia's national jem. Here we visited the underground museum, cafe and church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For lunch it was National Crest pizza, Emu and Roo, well Paul ate it any way.

 

 

 

 

 

Most people live underground. To purchase a dug out is around $220,000 with a steady indoor temperature of 22^oC to 25^oC a house on the surface is $70,000 but the summer temperature is 50^oC.

 

 

 

 

We also got native with the natives;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed overnight at Cadney Homestead which is around 100km North of Coober Pedy.

 

 

We also had a free flying display when the helicopter left in the morning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was our last stop in SA as we set off for the NT Border. The kids (all four of us) had great fun moving from one side to another from NT to SA and SA to NT and being in two places at once.

 

 

 

 

Kulgera is the most central pub in Australia, or it could be the middle of nowhere, this seems a good enough reason to stop for a beer and a feed. Oh it was lunchtime too. Beer comes with a stubby holder, perfect.

 

Yulara, Ayers Rock Resort and Uluru - NT 

 

 

You can see Mount Connor from the Lasseter Highway and many people confuse it for Uluru. In fact there was a bus tour stopped there both times we passed by.

 

Arrived about 3pm to our pre-booked cabin however maintenance issues caused us to be relocated to the 4 star hotel on site, shame we weren't staying a week.

 

The hotel was fantastic apart from the large (Enormous was Bina's description at 2am) Red Back in the bathroom.

  

 

 

 

 

 

This was our base for an amazing sunset over Uluru and early to bed to catch the sunrise at 7am. This was even more amazing than the the sunset but freezing, as we all can be seen in our ski coats and fleeces in the centre of Australia. Its a cold winter in Alice too.

 

 

 

 

We took a walking tour around part of the rock with the rangers, we sat under the rock and had great views of the Olgas in the distance.

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Before we arrived we had discussed climbing to the top however once we were here it didn't seem so important.

 

 

 

 

So we didn't climb

 

 

 

 

Our final northward journey started that afternoon to Alice Springs. Alice is named after the wife of the Telegraph Manager who never visited the city and the springs is just a waterhole too! We also had our closest animal encounter when a Galar decided to fly into the windscreen.

 

 

We finally let someone else drive and took the tour bus around the city, including Anzac Hill with views across the whole town.

 

 

Our first stop was the School of the Air the worlds largest classroom at around 1,300,000km² reaching all the children living in the bush.

 

 

We also stopped by the Royal Flying Doctor Service in a great Art Deco building. This was interesting as we had driven over an RSDS airstrip which shared the Stuart Highway tarmac. The RFDS area enables a doctor be be within one hour of flying to any emergency.

 

 

We also mixed with some of the reptillian wildlife, held a massive (Bina's description again) python, a blue tonged lizard and a thorny goanna.

 

 

 

We left the Bus and took the car to the MacDonnell Ranges and Simpsons Gap for more spectular scenery. This area was made famous by the Biggest Looser and is even more spectacular close up.

 

 

 

 

On the way back in to town we got to feed some rock wallabies in the garden of one of the other hotels hich was a great treat for everone, but mostly the hungry wallabies.

 

We ate at the Red Ochre Grill for some more local tucker. 

 

Thursday was the big adventure and our return to Adeliade on the Ghan, an overnight stay in a cabin with the car on the back. Arriving in Adeliade the following afternoon.

 

 

The train is 763m long but we only made it to the Restaurant and Bar! Fantastic food for Lunch, Dinner, Breakfast and Morning Tea, plus a glass or too of bubbly for our 10th anniversary.

 

 

   

 

We used the free bus to tour Adeliade CBD and had a lazy evening in our Hotel which was opposite the train station. Fantastic not! as it was not the station the Ghan terminates at!

 

 

We spent our last morning in Glenelg on the beach and another place we will be visiting again.

 

 

 

Leaving Glenelg at lunchtime we returned home in the early hours of 04^th of July. Having finally seen some roos at the side of the road, just as we crossed back into Victoria! This also provided our only scare with fuel when the servo at Hamilton had a computer failure and no pumps worked, less than 500km from home and after the spare 20l went in the tank in Alice!