I’ve started writing this sitting in the middle of the
Northern Territory looking out into the vast open space on a very culturally
significant piece of land, Karlu Karlu or as some of you may know as The Devils
Marbles. It’s very dry and red but unusually green in patches which makes for a
nice contrast to this desert like backdrop. This is our pit stop for the night
as we journey further north but for now I shall fill you in on our latest
travels way back to Lake Tinaroo, QLD.
We decided we needed a break from being on the go and on the
road so much so we booked 3 nights in the National Park at Lake Tinaroo to do
just that. Chris and Courtney who we met at the tip were close by too and
decided to meet us there later and stay a few nights. We set up with a few
extra walls to protect us from the light sideways showers that would come and
go, had a few beers when the guys arrived and chatted our way into the night.
The next day we tried our luck at putting a crab pot out (there was supposed to
be some red claw about), cooked up our favourite breakie bacon and eggs, ran
some errands in town, relaxed some more, drank beer, made a fire and we all
pitched in to cook spag bol in the cast iron pot (which none of us had ever
used before haha). Although a little crunchy and some well-done chunky bits we
were all pretty happy and even had seconds! No luck with the crab pot though,
we left her in overnight to see what the night would bring. Another rainy day
as we woke but made the most of the tranquil surrounds playing cards, making scones
on a hot plate with cream and jam, watching the others be unsuccessful at
fishing, us being unsuccessful with the crab pot again, Skyping the Chaffey’s
and having a good yarn with some more beer. We were all ready to get out of the
rain the next day and so we both packed up but not before checking the pot one
last time to find we had caught 1 red claw, approximately the size of a
medium-large prawn. Better luck in a different lake hey?
Chris and Courtney from Warnambool, bunking in at Lake Tinaroo
Sunset at Lake Tinaroo
Our red claw we caught in the trap
We had planned to stop in the ranges before getting to
Innisfail to get our car looked over, but there were road works which were
using our intended camp spot to store big machines. We marched on a little
further and decided to see what Paronella Park was all about. We were lucky
enough to get a spot without booking and were pleasantly surprised by this
beautiful hidden treasure. We took the guided night tour and then in the
morning a guided day tour which were both very different and unique in their
own ways. In short, a man from Spain found this block of unwanted land just out
of Innisfail on a holiday and took 11 years to build his dream on it. He built
a ballroom, a cinema room, a castle, and tennis courts, had a 15m+ natural
waterfall in the middle and had power nearly 40 years before anyone else in the
area. I’m sure I’ve missed heaps but if you are ever in the area do yourself a
favour and make time for a visit here, there is a beautiful love story behind
it too.
Kauri Avenue (a long row of Kauri trees in Paronalla Park)
Jose' Paronella's Castle he hand built
Mena Creek Falls in Paronella Park
A guy we had met coming through Innisfail on our way north,
Joe, had offered us to stay with him if we came back through or needed to leave
our trailer somewhere, and so we did. We dropped Carmen off there about lunch
and then headed out in Gina to do a waterfall circuit near Milla Milla. A cold
and wet day didn’t see us swim at any of the falls but all very lovely to see
in this luscious landscape up in the mountains. We headed back to Joes and met
his dogs, guinea fowls, horse, cows and his pet galah. A really late night
getting to sleep around 4am was a bit unexpected but entertaining. We finally
found someone to look at our sink and water tank on Carmen and dropped her off
nice and early to do some more sight-seeing too. After doing some washing we
headed to Etty Bay and then Flying Fish Point for chips and gravy, with a
little nana nap after as well. A little uncomfortable in the car we headed back
to Joes and had a much longer nana nap (about 3 hours) and then went and got
pizzas for us all to watch the 3rd game of state of origin. We don’t
need to talk about that though;) The next morning Gina finally had a date with
the mechanic for a look over so we dropped her off early and looked around town
by foot, even grabbing some bargains at Sam’s Warehouse. When we picked her up
around lunch we drove to Josephine Falls and The Boulders, two great spots just
a bit north only we forgot our cossies and didn’t have one towel at all in the
car. Our last night at Joe’s though and he cooked us one of the best spag bol’s
we’ve ever had, it even had pork belly in it!
Milla Milla Falls
Josephine Falls
The Boulders
We kind of get itchy feet if we stay at certain places too
long and the rain hadn’t eased for over a week so even with some work and
accommodation offered by Joe we decided to start our next journey and head west
with our first stop being The Undara Lava Tubes. The clouds parted away slowly
and by the time we arrived the sun was shining and we were hot enough for a
swim in there big, clear, salt water pool. We also booked a tour to see the
lava tubes as you can’t just take yourself in. We were very fascinated by the
moulded tubes that were left by lava overflowing here millions of years ago but
our tour guide had no personality, a monotone voice, yawned several times and
ummd and ahhhd a lot. It made for a pretty unenjoyable tour, two very disappointed
customers. We easily got over it though, by eating a lovely dinner under the
stars and downing a bottle of red between us!
Beautiful tree at the entry into the Undara Lava Tubes
One of the many lava tubes created
Inside the lava tubes
Just driving further west again this time to a town called
Croydon, seeing many dry rivers, some ratty emu’s, plenty of road kill and
really…..not much at all for hundreds of km’s. To kill some of these km’s we
have been entertaining ourselves by having acapella sessions and giving
different kinds of waves to fellow travellers, these including: the salute, the
one finger off the wheel, the two finger off the wheel, the shaka, the fan of
the whole hand and even a double wave from both of us (highly amusing for us
anyway).The caravan park at Croydon was awesome though run by a young aussie
couple with another sweet swimming pool, free laundry and they even joined
everyone for ‘beer and bullshit’ around the fire from 5pm.
It was further west and a little north the next day all the
way to The Gulf of Carpentaria, Karumba! Everyone said “Oh you must book in
there, they were turning people away the other day” and “yes we booked several
weeks ago we were lucky to get a spot” but we thought what the hell and tried
our lady luck, we got a spot just fine. A short drive through town, a few beers
while watching the footy and then we decided to stay for dinner and watch the
sunset at Sunset Tavern, spectacular!
Just a Brolga frolicking in the sand dunes
Sunset at Karumba, from Sunset Tavern
Krys the 8.64m salt water croc statue (life size replica)
Still with big km’s between towns worth stopping at, we
drove all the way to Cloncurry, stopping at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse for a
meat pie and sausage roll lunch. A cute
little caravan park called Wal’s Camp was where we set up and then into town to
stock up on some meat, veg and food supplies. A goodnight uploading several
videos was enjoyable to watch and syncing our new iPod finally. Hundreds of new
songs! (We’ve already been through all our CD’s and our 3 other iPods at least
twice).
Pit-stop for lunch
Self explanatory
Only about 120km’s today and we made it to Mt Isa. This
really was our last big town before going down to the centre and we made the
most of it by visiting Supercheap Auto, BCF, Bunnings, Woolworths, Kmart,
Telstra and the Caltex for an array of random things we forgot or had ran out
of and of course a bottle shop for our first goon bag of the trip haha (soft
fruity white). Our shopping efforts took us nearly all day so we found a camp
spot for the night and made some mean stuffed mushy’s covered in white sauce!
Beautiful Mt Isa... or not
We thought we may cross the border today but not to be as we
only made it to Camooweal and found a free camp on the billabong (basically on
the river bed as it was dead dry). Our night here really opened up our hearts
and minds to the outback and we soaked in every bit of it. We had a guitar jam
session, cooked dinner under our solar fairy lights, made a killer fire,
watched the sunset into the distant gumtrees, watched the full moon rise,
watched the stars from one horizon to the other get brighter as the night got
darker and laid on our bed staring through our skylight until we fell asleep
watching the stars. Waking up with the skylight open we also saw the beautiful
sunrise (not something we do often enough) to start our day.
Relaxing at Camooweal
Sunset and fire
We were finally crossing the border today into the Northern
Territory and we were lucky to have some fellow travellers at the sign and we
could both get in a photo to prove it (in case you don’t believe we’re really
travelling around Australia). Yet another long slog to make it to Threeways
Roadhouse though today, named simply because it is in the middle of the
Northern Territory and you can go North, East or South. We cracked the goon sack
that night and ran into some fellow Central Coastarians who’d just come up from
Uluru and gave us same great tips where to stop, where not to stop and some
good contacts. We’ve also learnt you can do all the research you want on a
place you’re going or wanting to visit but the best information is nearly
always from someone who has just been or a local.
Crossing the border
Just your regular speed limit in the NT
Feeling happy on gooooon!
We wanted to get a reasonable early get away this day but
whenever you plan to it never happens. This time it was the bike tubing on the
rear end of our trailer, Sandra and Bella’s only real ride on the bike rack, ¾
snapped off. We certainly didn’t have a welder and weren’t keen on asking
anyone so we sadly bid farewell to our rusty pub rides. 530km’s to Alice
Springs today, although it may not seem far for some in a day, it takes its
toll when towing a one tonne trailer, its hot, the speed limit is 130 and you
can only really go 110 with a good tail wind and you’ve seen the same bush and
dirt for 8 days straight. We made it into town just before sunset though and
were pleasantly surprised at how developed it was with all your modern shops,
takeaways, sports complexes, street lights and green grass. We expected much
less. G’day Mate Tourist Park is where we stayed and spent the night catching
up with our phones that had been out of reception for a while. We decided to
have a look around town and found some great local art in some art galleries
but everything else we visited seem to be too expensive or just closed. We
found a nice little spot called Anzac Hill by late afternoon which had a nice
memorial on top and from there we spotted some local league being played down
below. We both looked at each other and said “Let’s get amongst it!” $5 each to
watch what we’re pretty sure was a 1st grade level game between two
local clubs. It had everything: tries,
biffs, high scores, good talent and cheap beers. That ended our first visit to
Alice nicely and it was off to Uluru the next day.
Local footy and beer
Leaving behind Sandra and Bella
Surprising to some but Uluru is actually about 450km from
Alice Springs but for some reason it didn’t seem to bother us as much as all
the other long legs we’d done before hand. It’s something we’ve both always
wanted to see with the naked eye and when we pulled over those last few hills
and could see it peeking through it was even better than we had imagined. We
pulled into the campground to check in for 3 nights and setup as quick as we
could and straight to the sunset platform to stare in awe of this beautiful
spot. It really does change colour even just in the short amount of time we saw
it that night. The next day we travelled over to Kata-Tjuta (The Olgas), which
are in the same national park as Uluru (Ayers Rock) about 50km’s away, to do
The Valley of the Winds walk. We also visited the Cultural Centre which had a
great display of art, instruments, souvenir’s, books, short films to watch,
plenty of cultural history and we even picked up a hand painted canvas from a
local artist to bring home from our travels. We decided to watch the sunset
from a different perspective that night closer to Kata-Tjuta but in the near
distance we could still see Uluru, again stunning and beautiful. The next day
we had a Skype session with the Cartwright’s with Uluru as our background and
then we headed to do the base walk around Uluru. This gave us a whole new
viewpoint of the rock and a greater understanding of significant happenings in
certain areas surrounding it. We booked ourselves on a sunset camel ride that
night too with some free beer and nibbles at the end (that’s what sold it to us
of course). We doubled on a camel named Murphy (who has walked from Carnarvon,
W.A to Byron Bay, N.S.W) and got to ride through the sand dunes to see the
sunset with Uluru and Kata-Tjuta as the back drop. As we were not quite ready
to leave this beautiful place we booked another night just to relax, catch up
on some washing, buy some souvenir’s, do some last laps around the rock oh and
see the sunrise as well (with every other tourist there).
Sunset the first night on Uluru
Valley of the Winds walk lookout
My trendy shoes and Kata-Tjuta
Sitting at a lookout with Uluru in the distance and Kata-Tjuta to Ash's left
Mutitjulu Waterhole on the Base Walk
Sunset camel ride through the sand dunes on Murphy
Beautiful Murphy boy
One last lap and a sunset pic
Our next journey back along similar roads was up to Kings
Canyon. We set up camp once again and headed to the Thirsty Dingo Bar for a jug
of beer. We met a couple there from Wollongong, Michael and Lisa who were also
doing a lap. We watched the sunset with them set on the cliff face nearby and
then headed for some bistro pizzas next to the bar. The next day (4 months
exactly since we left home!) we got up relatively early and did the Rim Walk
around the canyon, a good steep climb at the start which they call heart attack
hill and then a great view from the top looking into and all around the canyon.
Ash had a dip in the freezing pool in the afternoon but I myself did not, we both
had a few goons with dinner that night and then met Deb and Scott from Mt Isa
and had a few drinks, a yarn and a good laugh with them.
Back up to Alice Springs the next day and arrived by late
afternoon to get the best news of the day that my sister got engaged, proposed
to at the vineyards in the Hunter Valley lucky girl. We had takeout that night
and then went to a local club to watch some footy but they only seem to watch
AFL, cricket and TAB races. We won our dinner back on the pokies though which was
a bonus and only put $4 in! The next day we had an adventure out in the West
McDonald Ranges (WMR)exploring waterholes, gorges, ochre pits and stunning views of the
landscape. We had seen the Red Centre and we were leaving with very big smiles
on our faces and a sense of accomplishment of seeing and experiencing this
great place that’s in our very own backyard.
Sunset at Kings Canyon
About to walk up heart attack hill
View from the top into the canyon
All the way in and looking back into the canyon
A little lizard Ash spotted on our walk
Redbank Gorge, WMR
Ormiston Gorge, WMR
Glen Helen Gorge, WMR
Ochre Pits, WMR
Ellery Creek, WMR
We made the next days drive a big one and got to Devils
Marbles just in time to get a spot, stopping at Aileron for a sausage sang bang
lunch and to see the amazing, gigantic, indigenous statues they have there. We
watched a beautiful sunset over these beautiful rocks and listened to a ranger
talk after dinner around a fire. The left over coals were kindly put in a pit
right near our camp and we chatted with our neighbours and boiled a cuppa in
the billy as well. Although we have
moved on from here now and are right up in the top end I’m going to leave this
blog as it is and hopefully have another one up really soon to keep you all
updated and or informed! Happy reading everyone!
Ash chillin with the Goannas
One of the statues at Aileron
Another statue at Aileron
Devils Marbles
Sunset on the Devils Marbles
More of the sunset
