The Alice to The Flinders, the less boring way.

Ormiston Gorge

Instead of heading south-east back down the long and, let’s face it, pretty dull Stuart Highway for the 1200km’s from Alice Springs to Port Augusta, we decided to get  back on our ‘big lap’ after the detour into the red centre,  by a more meandering route. 

Lizard 1, Snake 0

First we headed west again into the West Macdonell Ranges.  We spent three days enjoying the stunning scenery, walking and swimming in the clear cool waters of the (yet again) gorgeous gorges. Ormiston Gorge and Ellery Creek Big Hole were our favourites for a dip.  On a hot and dusty walk to the less well known Redbank Gorge, we stumbled across a meter-long Perenti, Australia’s largest lizard, eating his lunch of what we think we identified as an Olive Python.  Now, there’s something you don’t see everyday...

For New Year’s eve we headed out of the far side of the MacDonnell ranges, around the Mereenie Loop road which is a dirt road ‘short cut’ to Kings Canyon.  We stayed at the only campsite there – in the Kings Canyon Resort – which did mean that we were able to celebrate the New Year with Dinner at the pub – a few cold beers and a pizza topped with crocodile, camel and kangaroo (and cheese and bbq sauce of course).  

Heading through the Lost City

One afternoon we walked to Kathleen Springs, which was something of a disappointment, but early the following morning we walked the 6km ‘Kings Canyon Rim’ Walk, which turned out to be one of the favourites of the trip, offering spectacular views of the Canyon, followed by the alien landscape of the ‘Lost City’ and a shady and revitalizing swimming hole in the ‘Garden of Eden’.  It was well appreciated as by this time, the temperature was touching the early forties Celsius...

Heading south east down the Stuart highway was pretty much unavoidable for the next few hundred kilometres, but we had hatched a plan to turn off the bitumen again at Marla, a roadhouse a few hundred kilometres north of Coober Pedy, to head down the 600km long Oodnadatta Track which traces close to the abandoned path of the “Old Ghan” railway. (As an aside, we spent a night at Marla Roadhouse, which is possible the worst roadhouse we have stayed at. Dirty and expensive.  Avoid it if you can.  Probably didn’t help that the temperature that night didn’t drop much below thirty degrees C and the muggy night of broken sleep made me even grumpier than usual!)

The first 200km’s of the Oodnadatta Track was in good condition and we had no real issues.  We stopped for lunch in the town of Oodnadatta (population approx 200) at the legendary Pink Roadhouse.  In stark contrast to the road house at Marla, this is probably the best we have ever been to.  Quirky and friendly.  We were asked if we were going to be ordering anything from the kitchen, and when we said; “ erm, no, we’ll probably just make ourselves a sandwich”, we were told to bring our lunch making stuff into the restaurant out of the heat.

After the storm

We camped that night in the bush at the end of a 4WD track  near the ruins of the Algebukina Bridge.  By now the temperature was above the mid forties and we were wondering how we were going to make it through the night without melting, when just as dark was closing in, it started to rain and within minutes the temperature dropped by about ten degrees.  The kids were whooping and dancing in the downpour like they had never seen rain before.  

That night it stopped raining, but we were treated to a spectacular lightening show, with flashes across the horizon every few seconds and the event continued for several hours!  When the storm changed direction again and headed our way we decided discretion was the better part of valour and retired to our lightening proof trailer...  All safe under the 15-ounce Dynaproof canvas, we slept well...

Out on the snow, sorry, salt

The track on the second day on the Oodnadatta was a bit rougher and a bit wetter, but still fun to drive.  We arrived in the second ‘town’ along the track – William Creek (population approx 12) and unhitched our trailer before making the bumpy 120km side trip out to the vast salt plains of Lake Eyre.  Lake Eyre has recently flooded, a once in a lifetime event, and when we were there we fancied that we could see water out in the distance...but it could equally have been a mirage. One effect of the recent flooding was obvious though. Instead of walking on hard, dry salt, we walked out through a few hundred metres of soggy white slush, mostly sinking past our ankles in the smelly black ooze that brewed below the surface.  It was like of walking through muddy, slushy snow. Hot muddy slushy snow.

Back at William Creek to retrieve our trailer, we couldn’t resist a beer in the famous William Creek Hotel, the walls of which are covered in all manner of paraphernalia; money, articles of clothing, drivers licences, business cards and scribbled notes all left by travellers along the track.  We camped that night at a great spot at a place called coward springs and cooled off in the artesian spa.  The following day we headed off the Oodnadatta track and into the Flinders Ranges. 

The Flinders Ranges

I’m not sure why, but we didn’t have particularly high expectations of the Flinders Ranges.  As it turns out, this national park has some of the most magnificent scenery we have seen so far.  We are already making plans to come back... in winter...