Christmas in The Red Centre

After our stay in Lincoln NP, we pointed the car north and started the big drive to the centre of Australia. The first day we only did 300km’s or so and, on the advice of a fellow traveller, stayed at a picturesque free camp at Fitzgerald Bay.  We spent the afternoon trying, unsuccessfully, to catch Blue Swimmer Crabs.  

Another hole in the ground

The following day we did one of the biggest drives of the trip, over 600km’s to the eccentric opal mining town of Coober Pedy. Knowing what a hot, dusty and desolate place Coober Pedy is, I warned the kids in advance and prepared for a short stay and a lot of complaining.  As it turned out, our visit here was unexpectedly fun.  We went on a tour of an old opal mine and one of the underground houses that many ‘towns folk’ favour.  Then we went ‘noodling’ (digging through piles of rock discarded from the mines) for tiny pieces of opal.  Most of what we found was plain white opal – known as potch, and is worthless, but the boys had to be dragged away and spent the next day’s drive discussing what they would buy with their new-found riches.

As If...

We bush camped that night about half way between Coober Pedy and Uluru.  The big skies and the quality of the light make bush camps in the NT outback beautiful, and, unbelievably, much less fly infested than WA or SA. Perhaps because the temperature is often a fair bit over 27.5 degrees?

One more drive and we reached the township of Yulara, where we planned to spend two days admiring yet more big red rocks.  It’s beautiful to watch the sun set on Uluru. It is also predicably busy, even though we were there in the off-season. We waited until the sun had completely set and the bus loads had vanished and enjoyed Uluru by a full moon (and for a short time as it rose a red full moon due to that evenings lunar eclipse) We also got to watch sunrise against the rock in peace as we were the only ones who walked up to the campground lookout at 5.30am - I’m not sure what was more surprising; that nobody else was there, or that we were up and out at that time of the morning.

Valley of the Winds

Later we walked the 7.5km Valley of the Winds trail through Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). The stunning scenery made the hot, three hour trek well worth the effort (unless you are 6 years old, apparently).  It is also slightly less famous than Uluru and marginally less busy. 

SunRISE over Yulara

Despite the crowds and the long distance we travelled to do this last minute ‘detour’, we were really glad we came.  It is still holds a strange fascination. 

Just in time for Christmas, we made the five hour drive from Yulara to Alice Springs. We were amazed quite how green the red centre is at the moment thanks to the last few months’ unseasonable rain. 

We’ve been wondering what made us decide on Alice Springs for Christmas.  It may seem like a bit of an odd choice of destination, but I think that that was a big part of the appeal. We’ve been to ‘The Alice’ before and knew that the people are friendly and easy going, the weather is warm and the place has a generally good feel to it.  Also, according to a tourist brochure I read, one of Alice Springs' notable attributes is that it is the town nearest to every beach in Australia J  It was a rare marketing genius who thought that one up...

Ultimately though, our Christmas day was filled with plenty that was comfortably familiar; being woken long before we wanted to be by kids too excited to sleep for another second, hurried unwrapping of too many plastic toys and over indulging on food and drink sufficiently that a bit of a mid-afternoon siesta was necessary.  

One cool car...

Daniel's new radio-controlled car got plenty of use around the caravan park, and not just by the children... No TV though, so no Queen’s speech or ‘blockbuster’ movie.  Oh Dear.  Instead, the afternoon and evening were spent lazing around the pool and having the odd ‘sun-downer’ or two with our fellow travellers (until well after the sun had gone down).  Boxing day started slowly for some...