SA - Yorke Peninsula

On the map, the Yorke Peninsula looks very much like Italy except there is no heel on the boot. With ocean on three sides, it is only 2 1/2 hours drive from top to bottom and 25 minutes from coast to coast. Mike and I being the slow travelers that we are, spent two weeks in this beautiful area. When here, you feel that you have stepped back in time and life seems to move much slower. It is wonderful.
We started our travels on the western side of the peninsula, down to the southern tip and then up the east coast. We stayed at many beautiful little sea side villages on the way, each having a jetty as so many people come here to fish. Garfish is a popular local fish, so after watching the fishermen for a while Mike decided to give it a try. He visited the local store, purchased all the right “stuff” and found his spot on the jetty. His second cast produced a garfish and that was his one and only for the morning. What use is one garfish, especially when there are two of us, so Mike donated it to the people fishing next to him who were delighted.
Many of the beaches here have blue swimmer crab and we watched people walking up and down with their “rakes” digging the crabs out of the sand. Those with boats take crab nets out to sea.

Years ago the Peninsula supported limestone, copper and gypsum mining and with over 200 salt lakes in the area, salt mining was also popular. Now a days, you can visit some of the old mines and there are many museums to catch up on the local history.
Wheat and barley are now grown on almost every square inch of the land. While here, it was harvest time so there were golden fields everywhere and the farmers were working around the clock trying to beat the forecasted rain. There is also a windfarm which has 55 giant turbines spread amongst the wheat fields.
As there have never been big trees on the peninsula for building, the early settlers homes were made from limestone which is found everywhere. There are hundreds of these homes throughout the area, many were built in the mid 1800’s, and you never tire of their beauty. The owners take pride in their up keep and they certainly add a uniqueness to this part of the country.
The Yorke has something for everybody- fishing, snorkelling, surfing, scuba diving, sailing, walking and bike riding.

SA - South from Coober Pedy

When we left Coober Pedy we were heading south in search of cooler weather. Unfortunately, that was not to be, as the next place we stopped at was Roxby Downs where the temperature was 43 degrees. This town was purpose built by BHP Biliton for the massive Olympic Dam mining plant which produces copper, uranium, silver and gold. The town is very well planned, neat and tidy with some lovely new homes and good infa structure. A small shopping centre, great swimming pool and recreation centre, walking and riding paths all around and through town, make it very peasant out here in the middle of nowhere. Grass is rare so those few homes that have lawns make you look twice as “green” out here is rare. This small area uses 10% of South Australia’s electricity.
We also stopped at Woomera and walked around the museum and saw some of the rockets that Australia and Great Britain had used on the rocket range. The range is flat, barren and takes up 127,000 square miles. Long range missiles and rockets were tested here during the cold war and the launch and tracking of spacecraft in the early days of the space age.
We then drove straight through to Port Augusta which took us about five hours. Port Augusta is at the top of the Spencer Gulf, on the water and we were sure that finally we would find a break in the heat. No such luck. Our two days there were in the low 40’s.
Down town Port Augusta has some beautiful old brick and stone homes.
The area has a power station and a very busy rail yards and is known as “the crossroads” as this is where the major north/south and east/west highway meet.

NT - Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is 685klms south of Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway. About 40klms out of town we started seeing mounds of white dirt dotting the landscape. As we got closer to town these mounds were everywhere and looking very much like a lunar landscape.
After taking a tour in Tom’s Opal mine we learnt that these mounds are called mullock heaps. They are formed by the ground up rock being sucked out of the shaft and blown up to the surface. The rock is ground up underground by “tunneling machines” with revolving cutting heads. The shafts are left open so you need to tread carefully when walking out in the fields. Many people have died over the years by falling down a shaft.
We spent quite a bit of time “noodling”. This is where you search through the piles of mullock for pieces of opal that the miners have missed. We spent a few hours in the heat noodling and found lots of potch which is opal without the fiery colours and worth very little. About 90% of the opal found is potch, but it is the other illusive 10% that keeps the miners digging.
About 50% of the towns people live in “dugouts”. These are mostly excavated into the side of the hills and have a constant 23 - 25 degree year round temperature. Some of these homes are up to 450 square metres. We visited a church, motel and a home which were all underground and it was definitely more comfortable than the 35 - 40 degrees above ground.
About 30klms east of town is The Breakaway Reserve. These are a group of hills that change colour during the day as the sun hits them at different angles. We were wishing that it was cooler as there were some beautiful places to walk. Somehow the air conditioning in the car was more inviting than the 40 degrees outside.
Beside this set of hills runs the dog fence. This is 2 metre high wire barrier structure that runs for 5,600 klms across three states. This fence was built to protect the sheep country in the south from the dingo.
We were fascinated by the area and can understand the passion that the locals hold for this place, its almost spiritual, we would have loved cooler weather to do more noodling. it certainly hooks you in.

NT - Alice Springs

Alice Springs is a very modern city in the heart of Central Australia and sits between the East and West Macdonnell ranges. We enjoyed our stay here and one of my favourite pastimes was visiting the art galleries full of wonderful Aboriginal paintings. The main mall in town, Todd Mall, has many galleries and you will often see Aboriginals sitting on the grass selling their own art work.
The city has fantastic bike tracks and the roads are on a grid pattern so it is easy to find your way around.
We spent a day at the Desert Park which is a huge park on the outskirts of town and has a self guided audio walking tour through the various desert habitats: desert rivers, sand country and woodland. They have the type of animals, plants and birds that live in each of these areas. During the day there are presentations about finding water in creek beds, Aboriginal tools and artifacts and the most amazing show of free - flying birds of prey coming in to feed. It was a very educational day and we would highly recommend the Park to anybody coming to Alice.
I spent an afternoon at the Araluen Cultural Precinct where they were having an art exhibition of Aboriginal artists from the surrounding areas. Some of the paintings were stunning and so were the price tags. I wonder how much the artists get for their work?
We spent two evenings at Aboriginal concerts. One was children singing, dancing and playing their instruments and the second was bush bands from as far away as Darwin. It was wonderful sitting amongst them gaining more of an appreciation for their music.
We spent a month in and around Alice Springs and love the area a great deal. There is so much to see, so much history and we furthered our appreciation of how the Aboriginals had lived so well in this harsh environment for centuries.

NT-West Macdonnell Ranges

Another glorious sight seeing adventure was awaiting us west of Alice Springs in the West Macdonnell Ranges.
We camped at Glen Helen Gorge with our caravan and used that as our base to visit the many gorges and watering holes in the area.
Only a few kilometres out of Alice is Stanley Chasm. This is a magnificent gorge which when you visit it around noon you get the sun streaming down both sides and lighting up the red cliffs. There were many of our favourite birds, the rainbow bee eater flying around. These birds are so stunning in colour that I have spent hours trying to photograph them but can never seem to get that perfect shot.
Further west is the Ocre Pits. For generations the aborigine people used this place as a mine for the ocre which they use for painting and body decoration. Ocre is still collected from here today for special occasions only to be used for body painting.
Ormiston Gorge is another great walking opportunity. We climbed one of the cliffs and then walked into the bottom of the Gorge and cooled of in one of the watering holes. As usual in this area the view from the top was spectacular.
We then spent a day at Palm Valley and Hermannsberg. Hermannsberg was one of the early towns in Central Australia and was the home of the famous Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira. The original whitewashed buildings are still standing and their is now an art gallery, museum and tea house. There is still a large Aboriginal community living there today.
The final place we visited in our four days in this area was Redbank Gorge. They said that it is a 20 minute walk from the car park to the entrance of the gorge but after 20 minutes we had barely reached half way. For the first part, the path was well defined but we lost the path and ended up walking over and around boulders as we made our own way to the head of the gorge. It was a hard slog but so worth while. The large watering hole opens in to a series of caverns with cathedral like walls. The water is freezing and we were so glad that we had brought our blow up mattresses. Unfortunately Mikes’ sprung a leak not far into our paddle and he had to swim in the “ice water”. The sides of the walls have been worn smooth over the centuries from the flood waters. As you swim along there areas where you cannot see the sky and it feels rather eerie.