The Outback Way

Hello again from the middle of Australia. We are now in Western Australia sitting in the enclosed camp kitchen of a mining community caravan park - avoiding the rain. We plan to eat out in the "Mess" tonight ($15.00) with the mine staff. There is 3G phone reception and hence Internet service.
This is quite a change from the desert we have just come from, where the daytime temperatures are in the mid 20's C and nighttime temperatures of 4-6 C, with red sand and dust everywhere. But isn't this why we travel? To experience all the varieties of life on this planet - continent by continent. Enough philosophy!

Red Bank Gorge

Ormiston Gorge

From Alice Springs we went out to the West MacDonnell Ranges and spent 6 days visiting the various gorges, walks, and waterholes from our base at Red Bank Gorge NP. Most of the gorges here have permanent waterholes of some sort. See the pictures above.

Bobbie - Gorge rafting

Bill - Gorge rafting

In one gorge we took our Li-los (air mattresses) and paddled up the gorge thru the freezing water pools between the gorge walls, until stopped by a very narrow step, where we could not feel the bottom of the pool under foot, and did not like the look of the frayed rope required to lift you into the next pool.

From the Gorges we went on to Palm Valley.
Here we did some REAL 4 Wheel Driving along the river bed and through it in some places into the valley itself. Four kilometres took 30 minutes driving. Both the driver (Bobbie) and the Toyota HiLux survived.

Palm Valley

Next we played tourist at Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata-Tjuta (The Olgas) where we walked around the Rock and watched a sunset over these remarkable natural landmarks. Feral camels were encountered on the way to the Olgas. Pictures below again.

Feral Camel

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)

Feral Camels

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

By then we had had enough of the cold desert nights and barren landscapes. To escape, we decided to take a shortcut. However this involved even more desert. The shortcut is called "The Outback Way". It goes from Cairns in Queensland to Perth in Western Australia, in an almost direct path. Unfortunately the segment we needed involved 1,100 kilometres of unsealed road (gravel/sand/rock) .

Great Central Road -The Outback Way

We crossed this in 3 days of busy driving, staying at the road houses (Warakurna and Tjukayirla), along the way. The highlight of the trip was a tour of the Meteorological station at Giles (next to the Warakurna roadhouse) our first stop. Here we saw the 9:00am weather balloon launch (done 2x daily - soon to be computer automated) and the remains of the first ballistic missile (Blue Streak) launched from Woomera, Australia's WWII missile range. We also purchased another aboriginal dot painting there (we have a small collection) See proof of our visit below.

Blue Streak Rocket wreck

Weather Balloon launch - Giles WA

Bobbie was reminded again today of her theory that the geology of Australia consists of two kinds of soil:
1.  Deep, soft sand which will not hold tent pegs, or
2.  Half an inch of gravel or topsoil, overlaying solid rock or extremely compacted rock and gravel which bends nearly all tent pegs to pretzels.
The only place we have ever been that dealt properly with this problem was a caravan park in Denham,
WA near Monkey Mia. They provided a drill to make holes for tent pegs. Leinster soil (where we are camped this evening), is half inch of gravel with solids underneath. 

State Hotel - Gwalia

We came out of the desert at Leonora. Here we spent 2 days recovering and cycled out to Gwalia (Sons of Gwalia goldmine) which was initially opened up by Edgar Hoover (later president of USA) in 1895 when he was in his 20's. The mine town was abandoned suddenly in 1939 and much of the contents of the town and mine have been restored or retained for the curious. Very interesting "museum town". The mine has re-opened (with the increasing value of gold) and we also saw mining activity in the large open pit.

Gwalia - Gold mine pit

Today we left Leonora and are headed north to the warm weather. We have booked a caravan park in Broome for July 5-12 for some R&R and will work our way towards Broome via Newman, and Millstream Chichester NP. Till then...