28/08/2005Another day in Alice - it's actually a pretty boring place but since it's a "biggish" town we decide to stick around for a while and upload our new travel blog, do the shopping etc. While we are in town we check out the Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum and a few other bits and pieces. We fall in love with an expensive Aboriginal painting and decide to stay in town another night - to sleep on whether we want the painting or not. We spend another night in the paddock.
29/08/2005Before we head out of town it's time to check up on the car and the funny noises. As we check the rear tyres a couple of men come over and help us have a look and check the tyres and breaks...as we can't find anything we drive to Toyota to get it checked. The guy at Toyota can't really find anything either and says that it might be the tyres (getting a bit worn out) making the sound...We decide to head out of Alice (without the painting; too many doubts).
We check out Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm. Nothing compared to the stuff we have seen in the Kimberleys. We drive out to Finke Gorge National Park and spend the night there. At nighttime the wild horses (and a newly born foul) visit the campsite.
30/08/2005Not only the horses visited the campsite during the night - the dingos also came for a visit, we can find patterns of their paws in the sand! We drive into Palm Valley - a very rough ride in the creek bed and over shoulders of rocks - and go for a walk once we get there. It's nice but nothing like some of the valleys and gorges we have seen furhter up north. Daniel gets a really bad allergy reaction against something and his medicine doesn't seem to be working, so we have to get out of the valley as quicly as possible...In the late afternoon, after plenty of corrugation, we hit Kings Canyon Resort.
31/08/2005
After D has popped a few pills we are fit to do the 6km walk on the rim of Kings Canyon. Lovely scenery. Lovely cliffs. Some of the rocks are a little bit similar to the ones in the Bungle Bungles. After the walk we head for Yulara Resort, and get there in the late afternoon. Daniel's allergic reaction only gets worse and worse and he is sniffing himself through the night.
01/09/2005Royal Flying Doctor Service the first thing this morning (for REAL this time). D has to check whether he can actually take as many pills as he has been doing in the last couple of days. The doctor says that Central Australia is notorious for big allergy reactions (because of the dry air, dust and
pollen) and that he can pop a few pills extra a day and that he should get rid of the allergy as soon as he leaves the area... So instead of going for the long walk around Uluru we go for a few short walks around certain sections around the big rock. Uluru is truly an amazing place - it feels unreal to see such a big rock in the middle of nowhere! D thinks it looks like a space ship. He now really believes in aliens!!! It's a cloudy day but the white clouds seem to add an extra dimension to the landscape and to our photos. We also have a look at Kata Tjuta, another spectacular rock formation - but not half as impressive as Uluru. Before sunset we, and another couple of hundred other tourists gather to watch the sunset. We can see some shades of change in colour on Uluru but unfortunately it's a little bit cloudy and the colours on the rock don't seem to change as much...Anyway we are happy to have experienced a few of the big features in the red centre in a short time so we fall aslepp exhausted...
02/09/2005Time to leave the allergy area and be able to breathe properly again. Long stretches of straight roads. On the way we (D) stop to do an oil change on the car. Brutus is happy again. We stop at Cadney Park and camp pretty much for free (only $2pp for the use of water) and we treat ourselves to steak and beer at the roadhouse. We are woken up in the middle of the night by a thunder storm that lights up the whole camp.
03/09/2005The weather is pritty shitty as we wake up so we are not sure whether to take the road through the Painted Desert to Oodnadatta or not...We call the SA road service number and their line hasn't been updated for 3 weeks so we call the Pink Roadhouse in Ooodnadatta to check on the conditions (roads and weather). The man at the roadhouse tells us that the road is pretty bad but that it's okay...he also tells us to have little pressure in our tyres (20 in the front and 26 in the back)...we take some pressure out but not as much as he has suggested and off we go...
The road is pretty fine and we are cruising along and talking about how lucky we have been not to have a puncture yet and pooooffff....one tyre is gone...Luckily we're carrying two extra tyres!!! D thinks it's pretty exciting to change a tyre in the middle of nowhere...you can guess what H thinks...
When we get to the famous but pretty run-down and ugly pink roadhouse at Oodnadatta we talk to the man that gave us the road and weather advice earlier in the day...we are trying to buy a spare tyre of him...but he only seems to be pissed off with us for not listening to him in the first place and not having the correct pressure in the tyre...not our type of man - we leave the pink roadhouse and continue towards William Creek - a much nicer and friendlier place. The pub has got all kinds of stuff hanging on the walls and from the ceiling, bras, knicker and t-shirts...we have a few drinks and talk to some other tourists who tell funny stories about their past...
04/09/2005Driving, driving, driving. The Oodnadatta track is a pretty good road - just like your average gravel road. We stop and have a look at a few bits and pieces along the track - southern Lake Eyre, the Bubbler (a cool little bubbling water in the middle of nowhere) etc...As the road conditions are better than we thought we get further than expected - so we get all the way to Arkaroola in the Northern Flinders Ranges. The drive to Arkaroola is pretty scenic. The landscape is quite bare but the mountains are pretty impressive.The camping ground at Arkaroola is pretty rundown and way past its many medals its received for tourism awards...The air is cold so we go to sleep early.
05/09/2005Instead of doing the well-known ridge-top tour with a guide (it's $85 pp) we decide to go for the cheaper option ($30 per car) and do a tour of the Arkaroola mountains ourselves. It's said to be an extreme 4WD tour and to start of with it's pretty smoth but as we go further it's getting rougher and
rougher. Some slopes are realllyyyy steeep, and some bits are reallyyy roccckkyyyy. It's a pretty different landscape of Australia to what we have seen so far. It reminds of places like Canada or Afghanistan even though we haven't been there...After the rought 4WD tour we travel through Blinman and Angorichina and find a lovely green spot to camp on. It's on the river, surrounded by great gum trees, in between the mountain ranges. It's a lovely and peaceful place. We have a quite night by the fire!
06/09/2005We drive further south the Flinders Ranges and the landscape is getting greener and greener. We check into the camp ground at Wilpena Pound - a lush, spacious camp. We go for a very, very tough walk up Mount Olssen Bagge (6,4 km return - 3,2 km of puffing uphill!!!) to get a good look at the pound. There are plenty of strange-looking lizards around and on the walk down we come across a very strange-looking and acting snake (it's small but very hyper and we get scared). After that tough walk and the laundry we are ready to pass out.
07/09/2005
The camp at Wilpena Pound is lovely, especially with the friendly kangaroos jumping around here and there, but we decide to leave and head towards the valleys of vinyards...As we get to Clare Valley in the afternoon we stop at a few of the wineries and fall in love with their rich red wines. Yum! Soon after that we are asleep in the caravan park...
08/09/2005We check out a few more nice wineries in Clare Valley (this time it's H driving and D tasting; yesterday it was the opposite). We make a few stops, at Mintaro, at Martindale Hall (where parts of Picnic at Hanging Rock was filmed), at Auburn, and at Kapunda. All the places are filled with history and old stone buildings... probably similar to what the English country side looks like. We get to Barossa Valley rather late in the afternoon and only have time for one vineyard but it's a good one (Wolfblass) so we are pleased. We check into the caravan park in Tanunda and are happily surprised of how green and clean the caravan park is.
09/09/2005Third day of winetasting. It can't get any better than this can it. It's H turn to taste again and D turn to drive. Plenty of wineries to go through. Yalumba. Saltram. Two Hands. Chateau Tanunda. Rockford Wines. St Hallett. All of them pretty good but some of them better than others. We have a great lunch at Tanunda Hotel. We taste cheese at the factory in Angaston. Margaret River relived all over again - the only difference is that we like the wines better here!!!
10/09/2005Time to leave the Barossa and to go to Adelaide where we have booked ourselves into a pretty nice hotel for a couple of nights. We are lucky and can check into the hotel early in the morning instead of waiting until 2pm...once settled in the comfort we hit the streets of Adelaide (pretty and nice architecture) but after a few hours wandering around we go back to the hotel and snuggle up. H has a bit of a cold and needs a rest.
11/09/2005Waking up in comfort. How nice! We go out for breakfast and then go for a walk through the beautiful botanical gardens. Afternoon relaxing at the hotel (and H dying her hair; that's why she looks a little different) and then out for thai at night - we get to try one of our rieslings with the food and it's superb!
