Coober Pedy and Home

RB -- Have just about caught up now, so this will be our last blog entry,  we are actually back home now, and missing the sunshine already.  But good to be back with the family.  Have included the last lot of pics to complete the journey.  Our last real stop was Coober Pedy as keen  to see the place as heard so much about it.  We really enjoyed our brief stop over, but can't say we will be moving there in a hurry.  Its an interesting place but really depressed at the moment as the cost of living and operating has sky rocketed for them to the point many have moved out.  From a town of about 7000 it  has about 2500.  Some large mining companies have/are moving in and the small operators are moving out.

 Caught this little guy  (thorny devil) on the road to CP, but unfortunately about 10 secs after this pic the idiot behind us moved out of his way to run over him, really sad, just wished I had kicked him off the road before they shot past.

Open cut mine

The Breakaways, approx 20 km out of CP  (at least a section of them)

The Dog fence  East of the Breakaways

Under ground house we visited

The mine under the house showing the old hand dug mine and blow a machine made hole

inside the Greek Orthodox  church, it was amazing

Sturt Desert Pea in full bloom on the side of the road

We paid a quick visit to Woomera, which is still a department of defence town.  These are some of the rockets etc  that were tested at Woomera now a part of the outdoor exhibition, interesting

After CP these is km after km of nothing like the pic above but then you get to Port Augusta where we stayed the night before heading towards Vic  South of Port Augusta was beautiful, lots of cropping and very productive land

We motored through Adelaide, but had to stop at Handorf for some genuine Beesting, very yum.   We put in a big day and got to Stawell , 800+ km from Port Augusta.     We have been away almost 8 weeks and experienced our first rain in Stawell.

Its all over,  15000 km later, It has been fantastic, seen so much, done so much, all new territory for us and so much we didn't see, better start planning for the next trip!

Kings Canyon

RB -- Its quite a bit further to KC from Uluru than I thought, but a good drive and road pretty good.  I'm still amazed at how much scrub exists, not the barren desert I was expecting.  The Desert Oak  scrub is really beautiful.

Kings Canyon resort was Ok but the Caravan Park expensive and Diesel was the most expensive we have had to pay, $2.19 per litre.  We were quite tired after our hiking so  got a pizza for tea,  Small size cost $19.  Not sure we will be moving here in a hurry!

KC was really good,  Its quite a steep walk up the  to the top, but something you have to do.  At least they have put rock steps into place.  We did the rim walk first which is a 6 km walk around the top of the Canyon.  We were told by some we met at the beginning that it would take up to 5 hours to do, and as we didn't have 5 hours we moved along steadily, but didn't rush, and did it in 2.5 hours. It was amazing, see pics below, we then did the creek walk into the Gorge which was an easy 2 km?

Got a new bird for us as well, in the caravan park behind the reception area we saw a Painted Finch, just the one and only for about 20 secs.

Around the top the area is covered in weathered dome shaped rock, similar to the rock in the Bungle Bungle NP.

 Almost stepped on this one, didn't want to move from his sunny spot, but I guess they are pretty used to tourists walking through their living room?

Uluru day 2

RB --- Up bright and early today to tackle the walk around Uluru.  Its a 10.7? km walk around the base of the rock. A beautiful morning again, a bit fresh, great for a walk.  It took us all of 3 hours with a stop or two on the way to take some pics and chase some birds in the trees. Caught a flock of Zebra finch which were great. Lots of people doing the walk.  Wasn't tempted to try and climb it again, happy with what we had done, really lovely spot, and wanted to get to the Olgas as well

The Olgas are about 40? km from the rock in the same National Park, access to them isn't as good but there are a couple of nice walks,  They are completely different.  Ayres Rock is sand stone, but the Olgas are made up of boulders compressed into rock .  On our 2nd walk here I caught another 2 beautiful Variegated fairy wrens.  By the time we had done this we were about had it for the day,  back to the resort for some shopping, food restock and a coffee, a great day.

Uluru

RB  --  It was quite exciting to see the rock for the first time, pictures just don't do it justice.  We arrived mid arvo  and they reckoned I should head to it straight away if I wanted to climb it as it was likely to close and could be closed the next day.  So off we went,  It is a very large rock!   Jeanette chose not to climb as it is quite intimidating and steep.  I gave it a shot but didn't get to the top.  I got about 3/4 the way up the chain, but it got really windy, to the point the Rangers came and closed the climb down.  To be honest it felt really unsafe with the wind and I had the wrong shoes on, slipped twice which was quite unnerving especially when the wind picked up.  I was a little disappointed but didn't really feel the need to actually get all the way to the top, happy with where I stopped.  Below a few pics, 1st real sighting.
A couple of views from that 3/4 mark and the sunset over the rock which was really beautiful.  The weather  still great I think about 28, but the nights pretty fresh.

from Jeanette - as Ross said the Rock was awesome.  When I first saw it I couldn't believe just how BIG it really is.  I couldn't stop looking at it.  I did start to climb it but my legs started to go jelly and I thought Nah this is not going to be easy so I decided to sit and watch Ross climb it.  I did think that climbing it was a silly thing to do seeing that there have been 35 people die from climbing it already.  We were very impressed with the Rock at sunset, really beautiful.  Thanks for reading.

Ormiston Gorge

from Jeanette - We headed off early to explore Ormiston Gorge.  Ormiston Gorge did not disappoint us.  We started walking up this very steep ascent to then walk around the top of it.  We got to the lookout and it looked down on the waterholes below and the cliffs that make up the gorge itself.  This place was truly magical.  Ross and I had a lovely time exploring this Gorge but also noticing some birds we hadn't seen before.  I spotted a Misletoe Bird straight away and he seemed to follow us a bit on the walk.  He was beautiful.  After that when we were on the way back we noticed a little blue bird flitting around the ground and discovered it to be another  Variegated Fairy Wren.  He was a very pretty little boy.  After Orimiston Gorge we ventured on back to Glen Helen Resort.  We had time to kill.  Glen Helen offers helicopter rides so we thought that it would be a good idea to view Glen Helen Gorge and the Ormiston Gorge by air.  This trip was fantastic.  It didn't go very long but we enjoyed it just the same.  We have really enjoyed our stay in the West MacDonnell Ranges.  I'll let Ross put up some photos for you to view.

RB--Yes Ormiston was great, it was very smelly though, lots of dead fish!   Apparently its a normal thing when the rains stop and the waters warm up.  lots of birds feeding on the fish and a dingo walking along the edge eating fish he could get, much to the delight of many overseas tourists.  We didn't find Breaden creek as its a fair up up ormiston creek and not really accessible.

 The chopper ride takes us through Glen Helen gorge into Hidden Valley beyond, really nice.  Got a good look over the finke river.  Its said to be one of the oldest river systems in the world that hasn't changed its course since its begining.  I think its about 800 km long and also unique in that it does not run in to either the ocean or a lake but empties into the Simpson Desert and in to the Great Artesian Basin

The elevation of the chopper shows the wonderful formation of the Ranges

Glen Helen in the foreground and the gorge behind it with the finke winding through it.  We have really enjoyed our time in the West (and E) MacDonnell Ranges, definitely worth a visit.  Now time to re-fuel, re-stock and head south.