it's a bit long, but here's my trip report
Our trip started somewhat dramatically, firstly Callum got croup while we were in Pt
Augusta and after a late night call to the Hospital for some reassurance and quite a bit of steam he was fine in the morning and we set off for
Coober Pedy. Then, about 70kms out of Pt
Augusta the driver’s side wheel came off the camper trailer. Luckily we were in a clear part of the Stuart Hwy, after not long passing a truck. We were travelling at about 105kph and felt a jerk and a lurch and Al exclaimed “something serious just happened to the camper trailer” and the wheel passed us at speed, much to the excitement of Callum who spotted the wheel first as it flew past us.
After a repair at the side of the road, [luckily the camper came with a spare stub axel], we were able to continue on to
Coober Pedy albeit slowly and had the original hub repaired, the nuts had sheared off and we decided not to put it back on the trailer, but rather keep the spare on.
We spent 2nights in
Coober Pedy, staying in the Underground Motel, which was a real treat, and a great place to stay. It is located out of town a bit, up high with a great view of
the Breakaways, and it was great to sit out the front enjoying a beer watching the sunset. While in
Coober Pedy we checked out the opal shops [doesn’t everybody] with Callum exclaiming that he was sick of Opals after the third
shop, we didn’t purchase any, as I have to admit I’m not a fan of Opals, but it was nice to gaze at the really expensive ones. We had organised a tour of the town with a bloke called Merv who runs Arid Zone Tours, and he was certainly an interesting character. He has been a permanent resident of
Coober Pedy for 11 years but has been an off again on again resident for the past 25 years, and tried his hand at opal mining as
well, doing reasonably
well in 2 years earning about 80K. Merv took us around
Coober Pedy, including the underground Serbian Church –
well worth a visit, the suburbs of
Coober Pedy, explaining to us how dugouts are constructed. Dugouts are an interesting thing to look at as you just see the front door, but I took Merv’s word for it when he said one of the houses we passed had 15 bedrooms and another had an indoor pool. He took us to the
cemetery, and a drive around the golf course – the golf course being all dirt and sand, during summer they play at night with fluorescent colour balls, and it has a mobile bar which is the back of a ute – sounds OK to me, he then took us into a dug out home [his own] and it was great experience checking out one from the inside. All in all it was a great 2 hours spent.
After Coober we headed towards
Oodnadatta visiting
the Breakaways, and via the Moon plain to
the Painted Desert and then on to the Alagebuckina rail bridge for the night, the
waterhole there was dry. We met a couple there from Eltham travelling in a standard BA Ute with no coms and they had just blown one of their standard low profile tyres and felt they’d be up for big bucks to get it repaired - I’m sure they weren’t wrong! In the morning the Tour de Kangaroo arrived – a car rally for vehicles over 30 years old and who were raising money for the North
Melbourne football club, they explained that they’d be there for a couple of hours, and would be tearing past our
camp, but we had decided to head down the road to
William Creek, we passed many vehicles on our way to
William Creek and were tuned to the same channel as them, and had a few laughs with some of the comments. We dined that night at the
William Creek Hotel, which has recently been taken over by a family from the
Adelaide Hills who sounded like they were going to spend some money on the place. Our next stop was
Coward Springs, but not before we drove out to Haligan Bay on Lake Eyre north to check it out, walk around on the salt and the kids and Al playing a game of chasey. We headed to
Coward Springs where we had to deliver the mail and spent an enjoyable night there – apart from the Mozzies in the
toilet who attacked me. We met some wags from Pt
Adelaide – Baz, Bill, John and Al [foul] to his friends who were on their way to cross the Simpson. We had a couple of drinks with them, they were a lot of fun. While chatting to them, we were approached by a
young couple who had pulled into
the springs for a spa, and had found that their car wouldn’t start and were after help, this was about 4pm and they were hoping to reach
Marree by night. We convinced them to stay the night and we’d get them going in the morning, and after a great night sleep – apart from the scratching [re mozzie bites] we push started them and they set off towards Pt
Augusta, we told them that we would be behind them as far as
Farina so if they had any trouble we could help them, but as we didn’t pass them I guess they were ok.
From
Coward Springs we headed to
Farina Ruins for the night where we met EO member Phil from
Adelaide who was heading to the Simpson too.
Farina is
well worth the stop, even if you just want to check out the
ruins there. From
Farina we headed to
Arkaroola via a stop at Copely for a
Quandong pie at the Bush
bakery – yummo!
Arkaroola was a bit disappointing, I didin’t enjoy the caravan
park there, however, the couple of drives we did were quite nice, and the star talk we went on was GREAT –
well done Wayne who conducted it. The kids and us loved looking at the stars and especially seeing Jupiter and four of it’s moons, as Callum said to the amusement of the others on the talk “that is awesome”. We did meet EO member Ray who is from
Brisbane and his brother inlaw Ron who had been travelling for quite sometime and from the sound of things having a ball. Lovely to meet you fellas!
After
Arkaroola we went to the Jewel of the Flinders – Warraweena Conservation
Park, if you’ve never been there GO! It is a top spot, and Stoney and Gina Steiner who manage it are fantastic. Warraweena is simply beautiful with fantastic
bush camping spots, great public showers if needed, and wonderful drives. We chose to do the Old Coach Road, and checked out the drive through
Sliding Rock Historical site they were both great. We have decided to leave the more challenging drives for when we return with friends. Warraweena’s campsites are spread out with at least 1km between them and it is lovely and peaceful, more info can be obtained via their website, www.warraweena.com .
Our next stop was
Rawnsley Park, where we spent 4 days. It was a top spot and the kids loved playing with other kids on the play equipment. We spent the days exploring the area. We did a hike into
Wilpena Pound to Hills
Homestead, this was the shortest and easiest walk and we thought it was probably the best with the kids. They stated out enjoying it, but then getting close to the 5km mark they started to complain, luckily there wasn’t long to go after that. We drove through Bunyroo Valley and
Brachina Gorge and I fully understand why Geologists get excited about rocks, absolutely beautiful. We met a bloke up there who was looking for a bunch of kids he’d lost, a school group I think, they sent him off to get some fire wood and took off, I guess he found them, he was looking through a huge set of binoculars. We also visited
Sacred Canyon and had a great meal at
the Woolshed Restaurant at Rawnsely
Park.
From Rawnsley we headed further south to
Quorn, stopping off at
Kanyaka Ruins which is really interesting and
well worth the stop.
Quorn is a nice quiet town, and the kids enjoyed seeing the Afghan Express train leave the station on it’s way to Pt
Augusta. We then headed to
Burra, via a stop at
Sevenhill Winery just out of
Clare for some fortified Verdelho made by Jesuit monks.
Burra is an interesting place to visit with many historical buildings and the old copper
mine. We went to the pub that night and bumped into a family from Wallan who were also at Rawnsely
Park. Our next stop was
Adelaide where we stayed at
Semaphore Park while Al attended a couple of business meetings. We caught up with fellow EO members Muddy and Trippin [Steve & Judy] and had a lovely meal at the Palais, it was great to meet you Judy. Al also caught up with one of the guys we met at
Coward Springs [Foul] who is in the Engineering business as
well.
Mildura was our final stop and on the way there we took a couple of hours out and visited with EO member DesLexic and also met another eo member Glenn who runs a computer store in
Berri. It was lovely to catch up Des. We got into
Mildura as the weather was on the change and some rain came in, luckily we were in a cabin so we didn’t have to worry about packing up wet canvas. We went out to Woodsies Gem
shop and walked about the shopping precinct, deciding to leave a ride on a paddle steamer to another time when the weather was better – the kids did not fancy being out during a thunderstorm.
And so, 4 weeks after we left home we set off again for home, it was a great trip and we all enjoyed it.
I did a quick survey to find out what everyone liked the best and this is the results:
Al – spending time with family
Tegan – seeing Jupiter through the telescope at
Arkaroola
Callum – the pub [not sure which one]
Lyn –
camping at Warraweena and meeting some lovely folk along the way.
cheers
Lyn