Valley of the Wind Walk - Kata Tjuta

When visiting the Australian Outback, the Red Centre, everyone goes to Uluru. As did we.

But entry to the National Park of Uluru encompasses more than just Uluru. The other major site is Kata Tjuta, or the Olgas, and since entry is always for 3 consecutive days, we went there as well. 

Driving towards the Olgas

Kata Tjuta has a few different trails, but we opted for the most well known: the Valley of the winds trail. It starts and ends with a short trail to Karu lookout. From this lookout you have a view over the valley, but this is also a checkpoint. If the temperature is over 36'C the trail closes. During summer this happens a lot. 

Since we did this hike in winter, we had no such limitations. 

Trail head

The red rocks at Kata Tjuta are basically the same as Uluru, though their angle is different. The monolith that forms Uluru is set vertically into the ground, while the rock at Kata Tjuta is set horizontally, causing a different erosion pattern. Form a distance they resemble marbles, morphing in to beehives as you come closer and impressive rock as you wander amongst it.

Red skin

We decided to walk counter clockwise, starting with walk in between the rocks. We followed the little triangles on the signpost, until we lost them...  after a few km the triangles were painted on the rock, and not always very visibly so.
The last bit toward the Karingana lookout went up pretty steeply, clambering on all fours for a bit. and then suddenly we were there. What a view!

Karingana lookout: the highest point of the walk

It's amazing how suddenly you cut a corner, walk over a ridge and you see this amazing view over a valley that been completely hidden thus far. Maybe it should have been named the 'Hidden valley walk'.
But  while admiring the view, we understood how aptly named this 'Valley of the Wind' walk is. At Karingana lookout it was a lot colder than at the rest of the track, the wind was ON.

Valley of the wind

When we arrived at the floor of the valley the landscape had changed dramatically.
The red rock had given away to green plants with a purple haze of dessert flowers in bloom. The temperature had increased, and I really don't want to imagine what it would be like doing this hike mid summer when it was this hot mid winter!

Myriad of flowers

After an hour or so we arrived at the only watering point in the valley. That had a dripping tap. Much to the liking of a few local zebra finches.
We sat watching them for 20 minutes or so, amazed that the cute little bird are so common in this part of the world. I
 

Zebra finch at a watering point

We the walked on for the last little bit of the track, back to the Karu lookout. It was a lovely walk, and a lot more diverse than the obligatory Uluru circle walk.

Driving back to our campsite we had a few anxious moments though... We had gotten up early that morning to watch the sunrise over Uluru, and then drove directly to Kata Tjuta. And only when driving back realised that we're running on empty while the sun was setting. The closest petrol station was 50km away, and after sunset the park is of limits, so a very small chance of fellow drivers fining you. we turned off the aircon, folded in both mirrors, drove slowly and thankfully made it back on the last few drops of petrol. 

Looking back

The red rock - Uluru

When planning a trip to any destination, there are usually a few places on the 'must-do' list. Uluru, or Ayers Rock, is on most Australia lists. And it was on ours, even though it is quite remote. But hey... it's iconic!

Walking around Uluru

We set out from Coober Pedy early morning, heading north. We had intended to drive to Erldunda (Some 400km). But Erldunda is not the most exiting place: it is a roadhouse at the Lasseter Highway turnoff, with a few emus in an enclosure. And since we there at noon, we decided to fill up and drive on.

That day we drove a distance of 750km, arriving at Yulara about half an hour before sunset. The only campsite in the vicinity of Uluru is at Yulara, and it's always busy. We were dishearted to hear they were fully booked that night.... 

Fortunately they do have an overflow field, where we could park for a night! A lot cheaper than the actual campground, but no electricity. Perfect!  

Flowers at Uluru's base

That first night we were too tired to get back in the car and actual go to Uluru, so we stayed at the village. Yulara is a village that is solely created to regulate tourism. It's just some hotels, a campsite, restaurants, shops and a petrol station in the middle of the desert, very artificial. But having said that, they have made a real effort to minimise scarring on its surroundings.
The efforts that stood out most for me: No building is higher than the surrounding sand dunes so they blend in from a distance (you don't actually see Yulara until you're there) and there is minimal lighting at night. In the middle of the village is the highest dune, planet with local species, from where you can stare at Uluru some 20km away. The lack of lighting can be annoying when you have to walk to an amenity block in the dark, but certainly ensures that you can enjoy some serious star gazing. 

Sun on stone

The next day we got up (too) late, and after breakfast, we drove to the National Park. We started at the visitor information centre, to learn a bit about the indigenous people's background, the Dreamtime and history of the area. A highly recommended visit.
By the time we were ready for a walk, it was almost eleven.... not a sensible time for a walk in the desert. But since it was winter, we decided to go ahead.

Uluru's surface has many more holes than I expected

You are still allowed to climb Uluru, but are requested not to, something I personally think you ought to respect. So we did the 10km base walk around it instead. An easy walk on level surface, with no shade. At all. I do not want to know what that's like in summer!
The base walk circles Uluru, so you see its different sides, and we were surprise how varied its surface is.

Grey-headed honeyeater at Mititjulu waterhole

Uluru is seen as a visible reminder of Dreamtime tales, and as such, some parts are not to be photographed. Most of these areas have informative signs, telling you about the remnants of a particular tale visible on the surface.
One of my favourite areas was the Mutitjuli waterhole at the south side. We sat there for a good while, and watched the wildlife. Brightly coloured blue and red dragonflies, brown-red butterflies and the inquisitive grey-headed honeyeater.

It was a very tranquil place. We were amazed when we saw a video that was shot 6months later, that showed massive waterfalls at this exact spot!

Uluru Base walk

That evening we returned to the park to watch the sun set over Uluru. This is what is features in all the brochures! It was very busy. Rows and rows of campervans. We had one of the last parking spots, and enjoyed nibbles and a drink while we waited comfortably, sat in the back of our van. It was a pretty sunset, though it didn't feel like all it's made up to be.
Until I saw my photos. They make it look amazing!
On our way back we drove under the light of the moon. It was full a moon that evening, and it must've been close, because it looked very big.

Classic Uluru sunset

Bird Paradise - Corroboree Billabong

Our journey north ended in tropical Darwin. Heading south again our first stop was in the Mary River region, where we booked a 'lunch cruise' on the Corroboree Billabong. The billabong is the last remaining water of the river system during the dry season. It's in the middle of flood plains, but now surrounded by dry, burnt land. It's hard to imagine that this whole area will be flooded in a few months, maybe even weeks. The road to the billabong closes for 4 months a year.

Lotus love

Late August the billabong is a green oasis in the middle of the red and black. A humid oasis though! Especially at this time of day... We boarded at 12:45 and disembarked at 14:15. But it was so worth it! The whole billabong is covered in big pink lotuses, and smaller purple water lilies. Almost immediately we spotted our first salty, just as our packed lunch was given out. We ate while we continued. At first we mostly saw egrets and Australasian darters. One of the darters kept close to our boat for about half of our trip.

Salty in the shade

But quickly we saw other birds as well. The little comb crested jacanas walking on the lillypads our quite a sight. It's fascinating to see them with their enormous feet and bright red comb.

Look at those feet!

And how about the purple swamp hens that hid in the shrubs, accompanied by several species of ducks and geese. And the crocs lurking in there of course. 

Purple swamp hen

I think my favourite birds might've been the amazingly coloured Jabirus, or black-necked storks as they're officially called. The female has a bright yellow eye and her black and blue feathers shone in the sun. Our guide said that their nest was not far off, and he was right off course. The male Jabiru was garding the young. Not nearly chicks anymore, the brown juveniles still looked very clumsy. One attempted to fly, after aimlessly poking in the water for food, neither looked particularly smooth. The other one, a bit more fluffy, was still just waiting to be served like a good little chick. Just an adult sized chick. 

Female and juvenile Jabiru

Towards the end of our cruise we even spotted a pair of white bellied sea eagles. Those are pretty impressive birds! And we saw much more wildlife than the few I mentioned above, like whistling kites, of course a few more crocs, both freshies and salties, huge dragonflies and arboreal termites. And we got loads of info on the local plant life and seasonal changes as well. We loved out little detour.

White bellied sea eagle

Just another day - Northern Territory

Driving in Australia often means covering a lot of kilometres a day, especially when driving trough the Outback. Petrol stations are usually 100km apart, if not more, and towns are even sparser. So does it get boring? Yes and no.

When planning our trip, we really wanted to drive through the desert, because part of that experience is to let the relative monotony ease your mind and your senses. I do say relative monotony, because there is a lot of variety out there, it's just more subtle, and sometimes holds unexpected surprises. 

So let's describe a random day out there, the 25th of August we drove from Barrow Creek to Daly Waters, some 650km. Now Barrow Creek really is a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. We parked there for the night because it was 5pm and we weren't sure we would make it to the next one before dark. There was really nothing there besides fuel, beer and cow patties. 

We made breakfast in the campervan (fried eggs) and drove off around 8:30. As usual Rodie drove the first bit. Our first stop was a our an hour and a half later at the Devils Marbles. This is a rock formation that has eroded in a manner that it now looks like there are giant marbles heaped together. According to the first explorers these must've been the devil's own. The indigenous people call them Karlu Karlu: eggs of the rainbow serpent.

Devils Marbles

All these sites have some information like the history, geological formation and cultural significance, on a shaded sign. Most of them have (long drop) toilets and some have a rainwater reservoir. A few have an emergency phone, since mobile phone coverage in the outback is nonexistent. And this one had satellite internet! Which we didn't use, you had to give your full personal details, and we couldn't be bothered.

Internet options

It took another hour to get to Tennant Creek, which was suprisingly big. It has about 4000 inhabitants, shops, hotels, and 4 petrol stations. In our minds this is now big... We bought lunch (freshly baked bread!) and chocolate at the supermarket and petrol at the BP. We are very alert that our rental company does not allow us to tank Opal fuel, but we must buy premium. So we got BP Vortex 98 at $1,69 per litre instead of Opal 91 at $1,29. Just as we filled up, we saw that this station also had Unleaded 95 at $1,50! That's a few dollars wasted...

We aren't used to this much choice, usually we're happy if they sell anything other than Opal. Anyway, we switched seats and headed north. 

As we drive, the landscape changes continually. Today is definitely a termite mound day. The number of trees varies, the landscape goes from yellow to brown and green, it's sometimes burnt black al around, but we continue to see thousands of termite mounds. We're also in cattle country,  we don't just see the signs warning for wandering cattle (roads are invented) but we sees little herds of cows beside the road too. And quite some dead ones as well. They've dried into bags of skin with some bones insite. Lots of birds of prey circle the sky. 

Dead tree with dark dangly things

Around 2pm we stop for a late lunch and some petrol in Elliot: a general store with extra petrol station type of town. We park the van in the shade, and eat our sandwiches. While we eat we suddenly see a huge flock of bats emerge. In broad daylight! 

We take a closer look, and they seem to come from a bunch of trees, and take flight every time there's a loud sound. We walked closer and saw dead trees full of dark dangly things. And the live trees had them too. Hundreds, if not thousands of bats. I reckon flying foxes. Some of them just hung there, others clawed for branch to branch and others flew around, you could see through their sheer wings in the bright light.

Flying foxes?

After this little intermezzo, we switched places again and continued north. We discussed how much further we would go today, and we decided on Daly Waters. We wanted a shower, so no free camping tonight. And Daly Water, at the crossing of roads north, west and south, has two campgrounds. After checking the Campermate app we decided on the Wayside Inn as opposed to the hyped Daly Waters Pub. A good choice, it felt like a little oasis with grassy sites with a nice view. Little wallabies grazing in between termite mounds, and galahs, lapwings, crows, willy wagtails, and neon coloured parrots at the horses drinking spot. Some kites and hawks slowly circled low in the sky.

Our view from the campsite

We went to the inn for our complimentary beer, but decided we shouldn't order dinner here. We're spending so much money on petrol these days, that we are structurally over budged. And we rather eat out in an actual restaurant than in a roadhouse, so we'd better make dinner from our 'outback stash'. We chose our microwave meals, and they weren't all bad. That night we spotted our first cane toad, and didn't kill it...

Rainbow lorikeets

Salty scenes - Lake Hart

Driving on the Stuart Higway from Woomera to Cooper Pedy we saw something glittering in the distance, it looked like water. As we came close we realised is was indeed a lake!

Remnants of times long gone

We parked the car and walked closer. The lake's shores glittered in the sun, they were covered in a thick layer of shine white salt.

Salty shores

The salt crust was so dry and thick, we didn't even leave footprints in it while we walked to the lake.

Big flakes of salt

Close to where we stood was a jetty with the remnants af a little boat, and even those were encrusted in salt.

Frozen in time and salt

Opal capital of the world! - Coober Pedy

We've made it to this 3rd leg of our trip: our journey north trough the Australian Outback from Adelaide to Darwin. Well, actually, we started in Port Augusta, and we're already a week into our journey as I'm writing (spoiler!) But we did stay in Coober Pedy, and there's no escaping that Coober Pedy is all about opals. 

The landscape around Coober Pedy

About 60km south of Coober Pedy the first signs appear: watch out for mining machinery on the road. And about 30km south of town the molehills appear. From driving trough endless plains for the last few hundred kilometres, you suddenly drive through a bizarre landscape, soil turned and heaped. When you reach the turnoff into town, you've passed many warning signs, varying from 'no acces' to 'do not run' to 'don't walk backwards'. This, is mining country. 

Be careful?

We expected Coober Pedy to be not much more than a petrol station and some campsites, and very touristy of course. Which is partially true, but it has not 1 but 4 petrol stations! And 2 supermarkets. One of which sells mining equipment, chain saws and plastic flowers too. And it even has a roundabout! Imagine our surprise. 

Opal mine museum!

After we refuelled our campervan, we only had 10% left due to erroneous fuel consumption expectations, we parked at the Opal Inn Campground. We walked to the supermarket, passing the Opal Bar, the Opal Cave, the Umoona Opal Mine and the Opal Beetle on the way. They proudly advertise Coober Pedy as Opal Capital of the world! 

So on our way back we booked a Desert Tour at the Opal Inn. We spend the rest of the day soaking up the warmth of the winter desert sun. Just lovely.

Downtown Coober Pedy

We continued the next morning doing exactly the same thing, soaking up that lovely sun, since our tour started at 2pm, in order for the midday arrivals to join. No tourist stays voluntarily in Coober Pedy for more than one night, except for us of course, so tours cater for that. We were in a tour with mostly grey nomads ("Adventure before dementia"), but had fun.

 

Not claustrophobic at all

We started our tour with 30minutes at the opal shop, 100m from our campsite, where we became absolutely sure that we do not like opals. Then we drove another 20m to the opal mine and museum, where we saw some of the fossils, an underground (dugout) house, and then descended into a former mine that had been set up for tourism. Luckily that wasn't too claustrophobic, and certainly interesting.

Here the greens are blacks, and that hill is the first tee

We than drove via the golf course and one of the mining fields. Basically all the heaps are the contents of a shaft about 30m deep. Most shafts are about 50cm diameter, hence all the warning signs. The shafts are tests to see if that bit of land has opal. 

We then headed for the Breakaways. These are tabletop mountains, in the middle of endless plains, that used to be an inland sea in prehistoric times. The mountains look like the broke away from the rest. The colours are just amazing. You'd never imagine how many shades of yellow and red can be visible in rock formations. They reminded us a bit of the landscape at the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi.

Breakaways

After we got cake and hot chocolate, we drove off to see the Dog Fence. This is one of the longest constructions on earth, built to keep dingos on the northern site of it, so sheep are safe south of it. It's incredibly more than 5.500km long, so pretty immense. And each section of the fence has its own custodian, and must be patrolled, and maintained if needed, every fortnight. But as fences go... It's not that impressive.

To get back to town we drove across the Moonplain. This was the ocean floor of that prehistoric sea. A barren landscape, apparently used in quite a few movies. I think it's time that I watched Mad Max 3? 

Barren Moonplain

Our final stop was the underground Serbian Orthodox Church. Because of the desert heat, many of the dwellings are underground. Or more exact, dugouts. Half of a hill is removed, and in the remainder a cave is made, usually with multiple rooms. The cave is decorated and equipped with amenities as electricity and running water, a facade is put in front of it, and there you have it: a classic Cooper Pedy dwelling. 

Living room of a dugout

These dugouts have a very constant temperature of 19-23'C, and thus far more comfortable than a traditional building. Walking through town you see chimneys and ventilation shafts sticking out of most of the hills. The churches are made much the same way, and the Serbian apparently is most impressive. And it was pretty special. 

Serbian Orthodox Church

The next morning we made sure we had enough water, and hit the road again, heading north!