Author Archives: markandness

A doubly ‘tyre some’ day…but more on that later. Up early to more cold drizzle and sleet … but packed up Bernie in a break in the weather and we were off by 9-ish. Weather worsened as we drove north on the Flinders Way to Blinman. Small moment of excitement when Ness saw the billboard for the old Blinman ‘underground mine tour’ and saw a ‘W’ instead of an ‘M’…

Alas, there was no underground wine 🥲, but more miserably cold sleet , wall to wall Boomers and reasonably good coffee.

We then proceeded west through Parachilna Gorge to the Leigh Creek Road. The gorge road was sloppy mud, we emerged at the other end with a ‘choc coated’ Amarok and Trailer.

The rain ceased and the cloud base lifted as we headed north. We went into Leigh Creek for no apparent reason, so it was easy to leave. Nice sandwiches for lunch at the Copley Bakery, then north past Lyndhurst to Maree.

Between Lyndhurst and Maree we stopped at the Ochre Cliffs. The ochre from these ancient mines has been traded across Australia by indigenous groups for millennia. Used for both art and ceremony, the ochre would be mixed with a variety of things ( animal fat etc)prior to application. It has been found in East Arnhem Land and as far south as Kaurna Lands around Adelaide.

Maree … iconic town and the start of the Birdsville and Oodnadatta Track. Quick tour of the sights . Pub . Tick. One of Krause’s trucks. Tick. Old Ghan train. Tick. Wall to wall new 4WD wagons clogging the servo . Tick.

Departed Maree around 3.30pm enroute for Coward Springs. These are ‘mound springs’ where warm artesian water bubbles up naturally. Plan was to see Kata Thandi South ( the salt pan temporarily known as Lake Eyre), get to the Coward Springs campground and have a warm natural spa bath …

16 Km out of Maree we hear an unfortunate change in tone from the road . Pulling over we discover the rear right tyre is flat with a cut in the outside wall. Bugger!

So we unhitch the trailer , get a spare off the roof and crack open the bottle jack from the VW… which comes with a requirement to weasel 2 m under the tray to place the jack on the axle 🤨😳🤔… and a three piece ( ! ) jack handle that is at best 2m long . Much swearing about d!Ckhead German engineers ensues . After cranking up 2.6 tonne of Amarok while essentially prone, changing tyre, placing busted tyre on the roof rack and hitching trailer again we are on our way . One hour lost , plan of ‘spa’ on arrival now looking dodgy. Note: 1/2 a dozen fellow travellers stopped to see if we needed assistance, thanks to all!

The upside of the delay was we experienced and amazing sunset as we headed west …it went in for about an hour, the photos cannot do it justice

We arrived at the Coward Springs Campground, in the dark, around 6.30 pm. Self check in , through the gate , then play ‘find the reserved campsite’ . Which we did , eventually 🤨. And to the sound of hissing . Tyre # 2. Something sharp had ruptured the rear driver side tyre as we drove around the campground ring road 😳😡.

We decided to worry about it in the morning. Set up Bernie, cheese and wine for dinner. Again. We may well die of scurvy, but we will be happy .

Friday 18 June began with Bogan Dust coffee, a dingo’s breakfast and our new favourite past time – tyre changing. The trip to Coober Pedy involved keeping fingers crossed as both our spares were now in use. Followed the Oodnadatta track for another 60 km or so to William Creek, then west onto the accurately ( but unimaginatively) named William Creek to Coober Pedy Road. Through Anna Creek Station ( the largest cattle run / pastoral lease in the world) and on into Coober Pedy by mid-afternoon.

The term ‘unique’ is a term most often misused. Not so in Coober Pedy’s case. Mark had lived there as a child when his father was the Town Copper. In the 40 odd years since it has progressed… into the 1980s. While some changes are evident, it remains idiosyncratically the same.

Coober Pedy is in the traditional lands of the indigenous language group the anthropologist Twidale classified as ‘Arabana’. The locals refer to themselves as being predominantly of the Antakirijina Matuntjata Yankunytjattjara language people , so we will stick with that. We acknowledge their traditional custodianship of the land and pay our respects to their elders, past , present and emerging.

First task was to restore our spare rubber for the Amarok after Thursday’s misadventures. We had rang ahead and Maria at the Bridgestone agency had two Cooper AT’s ready to fit. An hour later and considerably lighter in the pocket we were done . Maria did great work fitting us in and being timely.

The annual ‘Opal Festival’ occurred during our time in Town . Amongst other things, highlights included a ‘grand parade’ around the town oval , a weird ‘celebrity’ visit by some very ordinary drag queens 🤔 (why??) and some pretty good fireworks in the evening that we watched from the top of Hospital Hill. In a somewhat typical Coober Pedy moment the Drag Queens ‘jumped the start’ of the grand parade. This lead to a weird juxtaposition of the welcome to country and several tonne of large sequinned drag queens in a jeep competing for attention from the crowd…

A highlight was our visit to an area North West of town along the Dog Fence. Known as the ‘Breakaways’ when Mark was a kid, the preferred name today is the Kanku-Breakaways. These are stunning geological formations facing off north to Gibber Plains stretching towards Oodnadatta.

Night before was actually the first ever night sleeping in the Camper (‘Bernie’ … because it’s a Cub ‘Brumby’ model … Canberrans will get it ). Manufacture was slow and delayed so we only picked it up 14 days before our departure. That did not leave time for a ‘shake out’ trip😳. Turns out all is well , didn’t take too long to set up , stayed warm and dry all night and the queen sized bed with feather doona is going to make it hard to go back to our 3 season hiking tent and lightweight sleeping mats on the next tramp! Thanks to Jon and Kristen for the chance to season the canvas on their property down in the Snowy Mountains the week before departure (see image below).

Initially, today’s plan was to hike up Ohlsen Bagge. We had considered St Mary’s peak ( higher / better views) but the traditional owners hold it sacred and ask that people don’t go up.

Ness had some work to clear up back in Canberra, so we weren’t free until 2.30pm. Mark spent the time poodling around with the Amarok and trying various re-packing plans in the Ute tray.

The day itself was abysmal weather wise…9 degrees C actual and a few degrees lower apparent, 20 knot winds from the west and constant sleet. The Ohlsen Bagge climb is advised as 4 hours return . Considering the conditions and certain return after dark we opted for a drive through the Bunyeroo and Brachina Gorges instead .

A brilliant loop showcasing the ancient landscape of the region. Light wasn’t the best so these photos do not do the terrain justice .

Long weekend in Adelaide was great and passed too quickly. Great lunch at Aurora in Light Square with the Raz man and V on Sunday; lunch with family and old friend / mentor on Monday, and off at 8:45 on Tuesday morning, departing Kaurna country. Thanks to R and V for (typically) awesome hospitality ( yet again)!

All outback trips essentially start on Port Wakefield road for South Australians , then get real when you sight Tent Hill on the horizon beyond Port Augusta. And so it was for us. Except we turned right and headed up through Pitchi Richi pass – Quorn – Willochra Plains – Hawker to Wilpena Pound .

The area of the plains between Quorn and Hawker is dotted with old colonial era ruins . The story of why they are there has an interesting echo in today’s climate debate.

Within 30 years of the white colonial settlement of South Australia (1836) the colony had expanded some 300 km north into the Southern Flinders Ranges. Those years were unseasonably good , so the land north of Quorn was untypically wet and lush . European settlers moved in and started cropping, against the advice of the Surveyor General of the Colony , George Goyder. He had worked out that the rainfall in the region in the long term might support light pastoralism, but not cropping. He was right. Within a decade the rains returned to normal and the farms failed .

Today, ‘Goyder’s Line’ is charted across the Mid-North of South Australia and consistently marks the boundary between cropping and pastoral pursuits. Not satisfied with that claim to history, George Goyder went on to plan the initial layout and Settlement design of Darwin , the Northern Territory’s capital.

We arrived at Wilpena as the sun was setting . Just setup and a storm hit from the west . Dinner of champions was cheese, crackers and South Australian Chardonnay as the storm raged outside.

Sleeping tonight in Adnyanathanha Country . ‘Adnya’ meaning ‘rock’ and ‘Manthanha’ meaning ‘people ‘ in the language of the traditional owners . We acknowledge them and pay our respect to their elders, past , present and emerging.

The plan for 2021 was simple – a three month long lap of Southern Africa. The global pandemic delayed that plan. Option Two was something warm, interesting and remote from winter in Canberra. And so the plan for a half-continental loop to the North and West was born . Leave arranged, camper trailer purchased. Check. Six months wangling to get kit for the Amarok and Camper fought through as every other Australian seemed to have the same idea. Check. Mail diverted, friends and family farewelled. Check. Bright and early start for the long first stage drive to western New South Wales? Nope.

Saturday, 12 June 21. After days of packing while clearing up at work, clambering on the roof of the Ute fixing stuff on in absurdly cold sleet , we are ready to head off. At 2pm. The grey clouds cleared at Wagga Wagga in time to see us chasing into a brilliant sunset. A long , but uneventful, drive saw us arrive in Wentworth NSW in time to go to bed on Sunday.

Lesson #1. No matter how fatigued you are , always check the size of the carpark, turning circle size available and the height of the obstructions over the only easy exit when you are driving a set up over 8 m long and 2.4 m high. 🤔 We went to bed a bit later than hoped for…

Sunday 13 June. Up early and into South Australia. Efficient and friendly covid check / quarantine check border crossing , albeit with more coppers on it than in Bay 13 on the Boxing Day test . South Australia perhaps expecting a cross border Victorian lockdown escapee crime wave? Smooth run down through the SA Riverland and into Radelaide for two days with friends and family.