22 Jul 10 – King’s Caynon

By Craig: One of the best all round walks I’ve completed to date, not too challenging on the legs and very soothing to the eyes. Just magnificent views of deep gorges and rocky outcrops with sheer drops, beautiful!


























At one point high up on top of the Cannon we came across evidence of a sea bed with ripples seemingly caught in time.










Our camp at Kings Canyon Resort Caravan Park had a magnificent backdrop and our stay there included the rim walk around the top of Kings Canyon and a night out at the local pub to see a show ‘The Roadies’.
A great night as we were able to catch up with two other couples we had been chatting with during our stay. Sam was happy as both families had children.
The show included a starring act by Sam playing or at least role playing a solo piece on the didgeridoo which sounded more like the baked bean scene out of Blazing Saddles (showing my age now) and I got a musical role singing “A Frog went walking Ah Hum”

Louise was also called to the stage with some other mums for a chorus of “Do A Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Dum”.

By Louise: The 3 hour walk around the rim of King’s Canyon was spectacular. Sam did really well despite his only walking shoes being threadbare but was most happy when we caught up with Caroline, Steve, Liam and Tara who we had initially and briefly met in Yulara.


We tagged along together for the rest of the walk which was lovely. The Northern Territory seem to be pretty liberal with allowing access to cliff faces, and a couple of times when I looked back to where we had been standing at a cliff edge I was horrified to see what a massive overhang lay beneath.






We managed to get a few hours school done in the afternoon of the walk which was a herculean effort for Sam with all his friends running around playing.

One evening we wandered over to the pub for some “music and comedy for the whole family” and had a bit of a laugh.

We all managed to get dragged into some part of the act and received chocolates, pens and even a beer for our effort. And if you’d told me hours earlier that I’d finish the evening on the dance floor waltzing with my husband I would have called you daft but lo and behold that’s what happened. During the night we got chatting to the parents (Carolyn and James) of Sam’s new playmates (Nathan and Charlotte) from Victoria and enjoyed a few camping horror stories (of the suburban myth type).


Other points of interest were the flowering native plants


Beautiful landscapes


and some of the local characters

20 Jul 10 – Uluru and Kata Tjuta

By Lou: Uluru was one of the few things I had specifically wanted to see on this trip, and I wasn’t disappointed. I must admit I was expecting her to have a lot smoother appearance whereas in fact she is rather pocked and scaly up close.
Also, I thought she would be plonked in the middle of red dirt, but there is substantial vegetation right up to the base. I also thought Alice Springs was the nearest town so all up I'm quite the dummy aren't I? Prior to arriving I had decided I wouldn’t climb Uluru out of respect for the traditional owners’ wishes but when I stood at the foot of it and looked at the sheer height and incline, fear became a more compelling reason to abstain.

I settled in on a bench seat to watch the boys climb and knowing it would take several hours, thought I might break up the boring wait by going for a walk. But between just sitting in awe of The Rock, checking out the boys’ progress through binoculars, chatting to passers by and general people watching, the time flew. I was relieved when Craig and Sam returned to earth safely and equally impressed by their effort.

Next day we returned for a 2½ hour walk around the base of the rock which was a bit more boring than I had hoped. There is a free guided tour for part of the walk but we weren’t there at the allocated time so unfortunately missed some good local knowledge. At particular points along the way you are not permitted to take photos as they represent sites of spiritual significance to the traditional owners. Consequently, my ears were sore from listening to Craig complain about not being able to take photos in his own country.










I really loved the 3 hour “Valley of the Winds” walk at Kata Tjuta (Olgas) on the 3rd day. Kata Tjuta means “many heads” which is most appropriate for the 36 or so outcrops of rocks, some much higher than Uluru. The walk winds through beautiful countryside and the steeper, rockier sections provided lots of interest. We had been warned that the valley sure could produce some howlers (and in fact is closed from time to time due to strong winds) so we rugged up but we needn't have worried. Like anywhere else at the moment, it’s cold in the shade but fine in the sun.


The campground at Yulara was huge but great. The whole resort complex at Yulara is owned by one company, and despite the huge involvement traditional owners have in the running of Uluru, aboriginal workers are conspicuously absent in the complex. Sam had a ball zooming around on his bike or hanging out at the children’s playground with heaps of kids, despite the school holiday period finishing. We were a bit slow off the mark (in Sam's terms) chatting to our neighbours as he had played with the kids for a whole day before we got around to meeting the parents. Caroline, Steve, Liam and Tara were from Victoria and enjoying their first stint at 4WD/campertrailering after hiring all their gear from Darwin for a test run. We didn't have long to chat but knew they were heading in the same direction as us so parted with the obligatory "See you down the track".

On our last night we got takeaway at one of the bars and listened to some live music. We would have loved to have grabbed a bottle of wine for back at camp but takeaways were ridiculously overpriced so abstained on principle.

By Craig: Louise and I are very different people and I respect Lou’s decision to abide by the aboriginal request to not climb the rock, but bugger that it’s a bloody big rock, it’s a part of Australia and of my heritage as an Australian. The rock calls to you from afar. Every time you look at the rock it seems, you have to stop and take in the view, it changes so often you feel that if you don’t stop you will miss something.






I climbed it! And Sam came with me and it was a hard climb and together the little man and I did it.
I must say as I stood at the bottom looking up along the long chain a moment of doubt did cross my mind, just a fleeting moment.

I was proud of Sam’s spirit on this day as it took every bit of his energy to get those little legs up that slope but he didn’t give up and we talked each other over the humps, one step at a time I’d say and we both came back down to earth a little better for our troubles.





The feeling you get as you climb up and on to the marker on top of the rock leaves you with a better understanding of why the local aboriginal men made the climb a part of the men’s business ritual, it is truly a spiritual moment.





















All round though the Olga’s were the better experience. Once inside the gorge the walk is picturesque and the formations of rock are astounding. It will take some beating.




Foot note: Australia is a big place but as I stood seemingly 1 person in amongst many strangers viewing from the caravan park lookout the sunset for yet another day, I noticed a familiar face. It had been nearly 4 years since we last spoke and I had changed over the past 12 months now with longer hair and beard however once we recognised each other it was a pleasant surprise to catch up with Peter and Karen. Who would have thought old friends and colleagues would pass by each other in the middle of Australia?

15 Jul 10 – Great Central Hwy (Warburton-Yulara)

By Lou:
I had been curious to see Warburton as Len Beadell had spoken fondly of it in his books.
Mind you, his experience was at the mission which has since been abolished and now Warburton is actually a closed town of aboriginal residents. So we rocked up to the mesh cage-enclosed petrol bowsers at the roadhouse beyond the settlement and an Irish attendant filled the car with diesel. What is striking in these remote and predominantly aboriginal communities is that you rarely see an aboriginal employee but you will find a European backpacker working to fulfill their requirements for a work/travel visa. This chirpy fellow was coping okay with the dust and heat but found the alcohol-free situation testing.
You can’t buy unleaded petrol in these parts in an effort to reduce petrol sniffing and there are signs everywhere advising to keep supplies on trailers etc under close watch. We had hoped to pick up a few fresh grocery supplies too and although I knew things would be expensive, I hadn’t expected exorbitant. Fruit and veg and meat supplies were low as they were expecting their fortnightly delivery the next day (non perishables are delivered in every off fortnight.). We grabbed a bag of frozen chops and thought they’d do for a bbq on the campfire, along with half a dozen grocery items, and grabbed burgers for lunch. A group of local, very dark skinned, aboriginal kids came into the shop and were livewires. They were quite interested in Sam (they were pointing at his blonde hair) and wanted to know his name. Sam was quite intimidated and put off by the snot running down their noses but we gently encouraged him to interact. He was quite bamboozled by all their names but I loved their cheeky grins and the shopkeeper was obviously quite fond of them. (Postscript: I marinated the chops for hours but they were as tough as the soles of my boots. We think they neglected to write "10 year old camel" before "chops".)

We wanted to get a statutory declaration signed by a police officer so first had to go to the shire office to get permission to enter the township (it's a closed community).
Whilst on that shire office mission we stumbled across an art gallery and had a great discussion with the curator and another worker. No exhibition was being held as they were in the middle of classifying several hundred original artworks by local indigenous women, and selecting 70 of them to be exhibited in an overseas exhibition. I found it surreal that work of a quality to gain international recognition could originate from this dustbowl called Warburton. Again, I was reminded how easy it is to drive through a town and discredit it based on the brief glimpses from the car. I am so intrigued by the two worlds aboriginal people appear to occupy: one of beauty, wisdom and talent, as seen in the art work; and one of squalor, neglect and lack of pride as evidenced in their neighbourhoods. I’m keen to get a handle on this whole disenfranchised aborigine predicament and love an opportunity to talk to non indigenous people who live amongst aboriginal people to get their perspective and the common theme so far is a sigh followed by “it’s complicated”. I would love the chance to get an Aboriginal’s perspective however opportunities to interact have been limited so far.

After Warburton we pushed on for a few hours and at about 5pm pulled into a roadside stop and joined a convey of 3 families (lots of kids!) for a campfire dinner and bunked down for the night.


Next morning we were away by 8am and headed to Giles Meteorological Station, the reason for which part of the Gunbarrel Highway had been made. We looked around the visitors' centre (well, room) which was dominated by Len Beadell memorabilia and then headed to the roadhouse to fuel up and get a drink only to find it was closed till noon due to a funeral. By the time we flitted around chatting to fellow travellers, scored a much needed spare trailer part from a complete stranger and gained 1 1/2 hours (although on WA turf they go by NT time), noon came by pretty quickly. The owners looked pretty morose and we acknowledged that it must have been a rough morning but it turns out they weren't invited to attend the funeral and had to close the shop out of respect. Craig and I both attempted conversation with them but struggled to get 2 grunts out of either of them and certainly no smiles. We had been told they'd only been there 6 weeks so either they were still shell shocked about what they'd got themselves into or they were already done in.

We continued on our way east but not at a cracking pace as the road had deteriorated since its grading several weeks earlier. It was very exciting to get to the WA/NT border as none of us had been to NT before. Despite the quality of the road deteriorating noticeably upon crossing the border, the scenery was actually the prettiest it had been so far along this route.
Just short of the border we came upon a solo cyclist from Poland who was doing it tough over the corrugations but was in great spirits.


We pulled into the first 'town' over the border, Docker River, just to sus it out and came upon a typical scene: lots of locals sitting around, with dogs and kids running around through the rubbish scattered everywhere. We did a lap and then pulled out onto the highway again only to come across some more locals.



We continued on our way until trailer woes pulled us up about 80 kms short of Yulara (Craig will elaborate). What I found curious was that the only 2 vehicles which passed by and offered help were women who had neither the tools nor the expertise to do so. I'm glad I had my bush mechanic with me and after x hours we were back on our way. It was a weary family that pulled into Yulara caravan park at 10pm.


By Craig: The Great Central HWY well never again, one very long, very bumpy and extremely boring trip.

Some exceptions were our visit to Giles weather station







and of course another brush with Len Beadell memorabilia.








Of course some of the towns we ventured into, missions or as they call them these days communities, were not so desirable. Docker River was an example of such a community.

Well I’ll leave the deep cultural discussion and learning to Louise as I am from a time and place that leaves me with a very blunt point of view. Work hard and you tend to have more respect for the material items you own. Some of the places we have seen and the way they are managed and kept are disgraceful and there only the places we are allowed into.
I don’t enjoy pulling into towns where the petrol bowser is caged up, the litter starts 1km out of town and the houses you can see are run down with old car bodies on properties outnumbering unbroken windows in the government provided houses.
It is unfair to comment further as our travelling has only briefly ventured into aboriginal communities however an observation suggests that if I was to act, live & present myself in a similar fashion I’d be fined, run out of town or locked up.

One place of interest was Lasseter’s Cave, poor bugger and what a task being an Australian explorer in the 1930’s. Lasseter attempted to walk 140km in desert conditions with less than 2 litres of water, what was he thinking. The cave in which he stayed in retrospect would have been the better place to recover and await others to arrive. A friendly aboriginal family assisted him in his attempt to walk but he only made it 55km and died.












Now I know ‘Shit happens’ but the trailer has had it’s fair share of happenings and yes I know we haven’t backed off putting it places it most likely shouldn’t be but fair shake of the old stork, enough is enough!
Well that’s at least what I was thinking when I was ratchet strapping the axle forward so that it wouldn’t disappear backwards out from under the trailer.
A quick assessment of the blue smoke pouring out from the drivers side trailer wheel was the locating pin which centralises the 9 leaf springs appeared to be broken allowing the axle to slide along the top spring. Not happy at all with the quality of the new springs, I will be having a discussion in the near future with the salesperson.


In the meantime the best we could do was to slowly drive into Yulara and after spending the night at the caravan park take the trailer to the one and only mechanic in Yulara. The bill? Well I could have bought a new spring but from whom??