Day 12

Day 12 Alice Springs

Maureen busy doing city walk

Had a lazy start and I got up around 8:00 as Maureen had heard that there were guided walk tours in town that started at 10 and you had to register by 9:30. So up and at’m we went into town and we were outside the Tourism office bright and early and right on time to be told they had cancelled the walks for the week as it is too hot!

Disappointed but not dismayed, we went for a walk by ourselves and

German Landing craft

found a café with comfy chairs and we became trapped in the café from morning tea until after lunch, a very nice way to chill out. After some shopping and wandering round we returned to camp for a swim and to set up for Halloween and the camp kids. Caught up with the big tour bus and in fact there are three of them and two are here. We caught up with most of them at the pool and I was very good and did not mention the war, although I did comment that there seemed to be a German invasion!

Me blogging

Halloween

Maureen setup my dragon noodle with glow sticks and we contributed to the diabetes risk of all the kids and sugar high rages.

Day 11

Day 11

Scene of the crime

Sorry about the delay again, we had a long day driving. After the crime spree was going on in Coober Pedy, we decided to leave before the turf wars started. We got up reasonably early and packed up. All up we lost my sandals and the water fitting for the caravan and that was all. We got the keys back so all now secure. Maureen’s latest theory was that maybe the policeman had apprehended the masterminds but was worried about the possible power struggle it might cause if he banged up the culprits and had retrieved the keys and he dropped them off on his way out.

Allans mate

We also met a friend for Allan the cat (the one who owns Lesley King). this cat is travelling around Australia. Jedda who owns Pat has done the circle at least once.

We topped up fuels and with a sound “turn right”, we did. Our plan was sketchy as we would drive towards Alice Springs until we got tired and pull over. We hit the NT Border and caught up with a tour bus full of Germans. Some of them were intrigued by Girt and were shown around by Maureen. After the guided tours

Sunrise

were done we drove on to the Uluru turn off where the same tour bus was. It is an intriguing unit as the front half is a tour bus and the rear was 3 story accommodation units. We have a few pictures of it. Other than that is was a fairly dull day. We still have not seen another Eagle which is very sad. We picked up another hour at the border so we kept driving and reached Alice springs in the late afternoon. We had done about 680 Kms.

We returned to the caravan park we used last time, the McDonnell Range

Maureen's tour group

Caravan Park as it looked the nicest of them all and got an ensuite site. The guy guiding us in had us almost millimetre straight which was not as good as what Maureen does, but was good enough for here.

After Maureen set us up we drove into town and got some Red Rooster. We got back to site and were sitting down to eat when we hear a hearty “that’s the way to do it, with a bit of takeaway chook!” the kids from behind came over to introduce themselves as they were using our tap to make

The road to Alice

mud pies. They have been on the road for three months. Maureen asked where they went to school and the said they were “doing a bit of home schooling.” Maureen asked if they liked it and they just shrugged the shoulders and said “its school, what’s to like?” Great kids and off they went.

We were pretty shattered but it was a still, hot night so we sat outside for a while before going to bed.

a river

On the border

Day 10

Day 10 Coober Pedy

underground

Local news flash – Police are on the lookout for individual or individuals wearing an old pair of Keens sandals and trying to get into disabled toilets. They were spotted earlier hooning around on a flash looking gopher but eluded police when they had to stop the chase when they crossed into the other lane of traffic making it too dangerous for police to follow. Well the last bit is a bit far, but the first bit is true, WE GOT ROBBED!

It ended off a not too flash night. I took Maureen out to dinner at the flashest

Happy Birthday

restaurant in town Umbertos and first we had to get into it as it is on the top floor and no lifts! So we had to drive round the corner to go up the hill and enter there. It is quite funny as the front of hotel is very flash but around the back is the dump area and you can see all the vents from the underground part. We went into the restaurant and settled down for a meal.

Me I went for the meat and potatoes and Maureen went for the healthy options, more fool her. Her entrée was a

Hotel roof

vegetarian wrap with quandong chutney. The chutney was delicious but the rest was fine. Her main was a Thai beef salad that was dry with no dressing at all and just dry lettuce leaves. My pork belly was fabulous.

Back at camp I went and had a shower and when I got back to Girt I parked the Beast out side and chucked in my towel and clothes and left my sandals and the toilet key in the basket of the beast. When we got up this morning, I went outside and started grumbling about how far Maureen

View of the town

had shifted it and then when I got to it with my soft feet, saw that the basket had been cleaned out so I grumbled again the Maureen had been at work. Somehow her spidey sense kicked in and she said what you on about. I said she had moved my gopher and taken my shoes etc, she said she hadn’t touched it, a likely excuse! Then I noticed the Beast’s key had been swapped around and she was a lot dirtier. Sure enough we had been burgled. They had taken her from just outside our window and neither one of us heard a thing! They have broken my mirror off so I cannot look at myself driving down the road but other than that, the keens, a green exercise book, and the key, that was all, and they returned it.

Happy Birthday

The plan today is to go into town and get myself re-shod and do some opal shopping.

We went into town and Maureen filed a police report. They said if we had rung straight away they would have come out with fingerprint stuff and asked us if we had seen any footprints. If we had seen footprints in the rocks here I would have been able to track them down myself. It turn out that they also stole our spare set of keys, so one of us was getting paranoid about it so we drove back to Girt to check the master criminals had not returned. Maureen parked the beast in front of the door to slow them down. Anyhow off we went to get new shoes for me.

Happy..hang on I already said that

The Police suggested a couple of places to go to and we ended up at Jennies Warehouse. The lovely lady in the shop brought a selection of shoes out to the car for me to try on after Maureen told hr about me and we soon had a new set of sandals. First time I used a carpark as a fitting room.

From the shoe place, Maureen spied the opal shop we visited last time we were here and off she went prospecting. Naturally enough they had some really nice items and we resolved to go and have lunch down the road at John’s. It was a small café but lovely food and it was situated next to some opal shops, how convenient. Maureen went off prospecting again and I read the local paper. There was an ad in it for an underground house with 3 bedrooms, but ended with a “or dig some more” at the

Tia????

end. After lunch we drove down the road further and dropped into the opal cave and guess what, more really nice items. Maureen had narrowed it down to two and the lady brought them out to the car for me to look at. Both were lovely and we agreed we would have a think about them.

Back out to the van to check on Girt and then into another opal place we visited last time. They again a lovely selection of items but Maureen had it down to 2 shops so back we went and at the first one, she had the lady bring them out to the car to show me but I thought the other place looked better. Back to the opal cave and when we said we wanted both, we got a hefty discount and then we bought Tia a present as well. Many dollars later we left the shop and drove back to Girt.

Dig more rooms

As we are writing this up there was a knock on the door and who should it be but Officer ???? , have to keep it quiet for security reasons, I am sure you will understand, either that or we forgot to ask him is name. Anyhow, he had come out to update us on the crime (I am sure he said Major Crime). He had viewed the video footage here from the security ccamera, but no one suspicious had come through the front gate. He had also talked to the crime lords here (the group of kids who are most often in trouble) who denied any responsibility, as they would, the master criminals that they obviously are! He was sorry that he could not do more. I suggested a late night visit with rubber hoses to beat the truth out of them, but he just shook his head and wandered off. So the theft of the century will have to go

Police report

unsolved. The caravan park people said that they had had some army chaps visiting last night and maybe they might of done it, but my money is still on the local mafia.

Breaking news!!! This is like channel 9 but without all the exaggeration or dramatics! The keys have been found. Maureen was walking to the office to give them a briefing on the Police update, those bits permitted that were not covered by security reasons, and there in the middle of the road that we and police had just driven over looking for

Visit from the Po Po - crime spree update

them, were the keys! I would cross live to Maureen for more updates but she refused to take the camera or be filmed!

It is still a mystery as to who took the Beast MkII for a joy ride, who stole my 5 year old sandals (obviously knew quality when they saw it) and who returned. I suppose we will have to wait for the cold case people to solve or a Royal Inquest to look into the facts. At least Maureen will get a good nights sleep.

Poor old violated Beast MkII

Day 9

Day 9 Coober Pedy

Nothing says happy birthday like a bowl

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you (you have to put the Marilyn Monroe sound to it yourself) yarder, yarder… Maureen’s turned @^TY*^*^, whoops, seem to have lost control of the keyboard there for a moment. Tomorrow we will go into town and look for a little pressy for Tia as we lost the one we bought her last time we were here and I suppose if we see something in the bargain box, I might get something for Maureen.

going

Last night in Woomera was beautiful. There was no wind and the temperature was perfect, what was to be an early night turned into a very late one as we sat outside and watched the sun set, the moon rise and unfortunately because of the full moon, only some stars. Maureen got some nice shots of them all. We could hear jets flying over but could not see their lights, all a bit suspicious if you ask me.

gone

Whilst we were setting up, we were supervised by 2 magpies who would watch us do something then when we moved away, they would walk over and inspect. They were obviously very used to people and when Maureen was making tea, I had a slice of bread and one flew in and had a couple of pieces. Then it got fussy and left 3 big bits and just had the little bits, then, it gathered up the three big bits and flew off. A little

Hunter Gatherer

while later it did the same. Obviously it was out hunting and gathering taking it back to the misses with “I got this for you honey, there is not enough for two so you have it, I will just watch and wait for any left overs”

I got up and gave Maureen her birthday present I had got her, something she would see each day and remember me by, a collapsible bowl so she could wash up outside. Maureen must have had a bad nights sleep as she was a bit frosty after that and mumbled something about adding this bowl to my bowl or bowel, I was not sure

chef at work

which and thought better of asking her to repeat herself.

This morning was a little later than we planned but still under way by 10 after topping up water. On the way out we saw an Emu and Maureen saw that it had chicks, so we pulled up and Maureen was out and off into the bush with camera in hand. Old Man Emu was hustling his young’uns along as quick as could and Maureen was hot footing it as fast as she could given the ground was a bit soft after some recent rain and soon dad and the kids were away! We got going again and were just chatting about

Dinner

how exciting to see our first wild Emu when 20 of them walked across the road in a big pack. Screech of brakes, slamming of door and Maureen was off again! David Attenborough eat your heart out. Once again they were keeping a safe distance and were able to move away from her.

We got to the highway and with a curt “turn right” , we did. The drive here as fairly dull except we revisited a roadhouse that we saw last time and we saw our first Wedge Tailed Eagle. Very disappointing as we saw more last time, I hope this is not a bad sign. The

Emus on the run

views here are unusual as the road is on seemingly flat ground but every so often it would fall away to a huge valley or in some cases huge salt lakes. You could easily see why the early settlers thought there was an inland sea.

Coober Pedy is much as last time and we ended up at the same caravan park on the outskirts after driving through town looking at the alternatives. It is a Big4 and has a great little disabled toilet and shower (with free water!). Our plan is to go out to

Passing through the forrest

dinner for Maureen’s birthday then tomorrow do a bit of an Opal hunt and then take it from there as to whether we stay another day before setting out for Alice Springs.

Girt and Trude having a chat at Woomera

Day 8

Day 8 Woomera

The dust and Maureen's sandals

This is our anniversary – 1 week on the road and both still alive and still talking to each other! I am still happy we decided to do this trip, despite the little issues like the lack of convenient disabled facilities at some places and missing my big bed but the company is great and the views are stunning and of course this applies vice versa.

Maureen got up early today and started packing and even swept down the van! It was amazing how much dust we had accumulated! The other day I had purchased a tyre pump as the tyres on one side of the van were a little low and all along I had intended to pump them up at a roadhouse, only none had one available! This one clipped on to the battery terminals so I popped the bonnet and checked the oil and water and I am happy to say both were perfect and needed no topping up after a week of solid hard towing. I got my new pump out and went to clip it on only to have one of the clips fall apart, so much for quality Chinese workmanship!

Range view lookout

After we had done the air bit, we topped up the water tank as you have to pay for water at Coober Peddy, dropped the lid and hooked up. We went back to the shop and swapped out the air pump and with a hearty “turn left from SWAMBO, we were away. Our plan is to get to Coober Peddy as our next layover but after doing some long runs we decided to just wander up the road to Woomera and overnight it. It was a bit of being polite that we did come to Woomera, Maureen thought I wanted to visit my rockets again and I was quite happy to pass on that we missed going to another spot up the road, we will have to work on that.

Say no more

I must admit that driving around here, it is a huge miss that I did not stay at school and start a rocket club and put the case up to come here and launch them. The town seems to be busier than last time and there seems to be work going on maintaining the barracks here, maybe something is up – hush hush, you did not hear it from me… Went past a scrap yard and there is a rocket sitting there, I kid you not! Mind you I got the – you are not going to get it, here we would we put it, talk from Maureen, much like the time we saw that cannon on the side of the road. But I think if we came here with the school I am sure we

Model plane club

could have grabbed it for the car park!!! We could have changed the school logo and saying with “John Tonkin College, students reaching for the stars”. Ah well next time round.

So we lobbed into Woomera at 1 o’clock and settled down in Girt for lunch and with the intention of getting the Beast and Maureen’s deadly treadly out and going for a ride into town and promptly both fell asleep. We got up and ended up driving round town, hence the rocket sighting!

Model plane club

We are now reviewing our plans. Tomorrow we are definitely going to Coober Peddy and we will be there for Maureen’s birthday, she might even get a little present there (don’t tell her) but Ayres Rock may get the push as we were both only going there because we thought the other did! And we will head into Queensland earlier. Still that is today and who knows what we will eventually do – living on the adrenalin rush!

The shady spot in town

Day 7

Day 7 Port Augusta

Down town Port Augusta

Today we were going to have a light day. We had amassed a list of things we needed to do and buy and when we looked at it, it seemed quite small, the problem is finding the places to do or get them in a town we don’t know. We needed to do things like get the Beast MkII re-shod. The last thing I must have done at home was drive over a nail and the Beast had thrown a shoe and was flat, jut on th bottom, but flat. We took her to the local tyre place and they fixed her up for us. We were also looking for a long handle winder for Girt’s legs and there is no caravan shop here so we were referred to a number of places but could not find it and then we had shopping to do.

Girt all tucked up tonight

By the time we had done all this the day had gone. We came back and Maureen unpacked and packed stuff away. We went down to the camp kitchen and Maureen put a rolled chook on to roast and I stayed there and guarded it with my life. Maureen then went on and chopped up all her vegies ready for the next few days, whilst I sweated over the oven.

There are a couple of families who have been camping together and they came in and I was highly amused to watch them interact and joke around. One family decided that they wanted to make scones as they had never done it before so they set to it, what they lacked in technique they made up for in enthusiasm. They produced their scones and they were great.

Tomorrow we head North and start towards Coober Peddy but I think we may over night it at Woomera and I can visit my rocket again.

Day 6

Day 6 Fowlers Bay

Sorry for the delay in posting this, but we covered just shy of 600 kms today and we were a bit done in by the end.

Farewell Jenny and Greg

Last night we went to a BBQ put on by the managers here and got to meet some of the other road users here. There is this HUGE 5^th wheeler here that has bits that pop out all over it and I am sure it has a mezzanine floor in it too. The truck that pulls it has a small car on it for touring. We all thought it was just too posh, but with a real green tinge to the eye there.

We started off from Fowlers bay and as we set off we said our farewells to Jenny and Greg and headed out of town. The road out was 100 times better than the

We are nowhere

road coming in. I would say it ha just recently been graded and hs a firm base to it that is not subject to corregations. The only problem was that whilst SWAMBO knew of the rickety one, this one she did not know and gave up trying to tells us to turn around and showed us in the middle of a blank screen, I kept waiting for her to just say whatever you want, but she didn’t, I think we were getting the cold shoulder!

We finally hit the Eyre Highway and got a quick, “Turn Right”, so we did. The

The Windmill

trip was great and the road was fine. I think we have brought the wind with us. At Fowlers Bay they had just had days of still weather and when we arrived it howled! On the way through we say towns like Penong, renowned for it’s windmills, Maureen got a shot of the one we saw, did not look all that impressive.

We stopped at Wirrulla and had lunch. We parked outside the local pub and there was a grassed area there with a mob of people on it having a picnic. Whilst I was eating and stretching (one at a time, not both together) Maureen went for a wander and had

Say no more

a chat. It turns out that the local bar manager was leaving town and the picnic was celebrating him. I assume it was with him there and not thank god he has gone! It looked like the whole town was there, all seven families and their dogs.

Back on the road we headed off. The time difference here is still new to us, so to us we left Fowlers Bay at – get ready for this folks – 6:30!! So we had quite a few hours up our sleeve. The plan lat night was to drive towards Port Augusta but stop a couple of hundred Kms short and then drive in the following day. Well once we started and

Farewell Barman

with a bit of encouragement from She Who Absolutely Must Be Obeyed, “continue on route”, we drove on. I was back in the driving mode and with a bottle of Pepsi Max to swig on, soldiered on.

We ended up in Port Gregory just after 5:30 local time and 590 kms. We were first allocated a bay, way down the back of the place a long way from toilets etc, it is the big 4 park here and low and behold there was our pigeon on the site going no no no. we heeded his sage advice and we asked if we could shift closer as I am disabled and they were good enough to put us on the bay behind where we were in 2013, right near the front. I think they wanted to keep the trouble makers close to where they can keep an eye on us!

Wirrulla

We set up camp, I use the royal We as in fact I just sit there and watch Maureen disconnect the van, level it out and then set up chairs and tables and everything else, then when she has finished I give the final once over and give it seal of approval that she can then proceed on to things like cooking tea. Speaking of which, she did and we went for a quick wander down the road to stretch her legs. We are right at the intersection where you turn north to go up the middle to Darwin or South to go to Adelaide, could not be handier.

No no no not a good sight

We got back to Girt and settled in for the night. At Fowlers Bay our electric kettle sprung a leak and we tossed it out. So tonight we got out Margaret the steam kettle, thanks Margaret.

Cruising the streets of Port Augusta

Miss Margaret the steam kettle

Day 5

Day 5 Fowlers Bay

old court house

Just a quick post today. we spent a far bit of time doing nothing but it has recharged the batteries and we are off tomorrow. We had a good nights rest but were woken about 2 am when a really strong wind storm hit the camp. There were those who ended up damaging awnings or having to tie them down, but we were well protected in our camp site so I went back to sleep.

Fowlers Bay was discovered by Flinders around 1804 and named it after his First Officer. It is a small town and I

old telegraph station

don’t think it ever was anything more. They shipped wool and wheat from here as well as whales and that was it. It is a lovely place to stop over and rest for a day before moving on.

We went out on the jetty today whilst Jenny and Greg went fishing. Greg ended up with a small cod and I could not help think that Rob would have had it all sorted. There are obviously squid here but no one seemed all that organised and there is a whole lot of small bait fish under the

fishing on the jetty

jetty that would surely mean bigger fish!

The town has spent a lot of effort with information boards everywhere telling about how it came into being. It is funny when you look at how desolate the land is around her that it ws once seen as the future for sheep due to all the miles of grasslands here. The farmers came and within 10 years stations were closing. Over grassing the land soon finished them off and it has never been the same since.

us on the jetty

The town has a huge sand dune area off to one side and as we walked near them there was this limestone road there that we followed and low and behold, it was the original main road and the sand hill we were looking at had covered the town so they shifted it!

Maureen was very proud of herself, and rightly so, when she ran up the sand hill not once, but twice! She forgot the camera the first time.

Maureen on her sandhill

Tonight I gave Maureen the night off cooking and we went to the camp kitchen for dinner. The park people do a big cook up and feed us, for a small price, $12. We sat and talked to other campers and had a ball. Right now I am sitting having a cup of tea and a biscuit whilst I do the blog and then we are going to have a quick look at the map to see where we are off to tomorrow. We are now getting very settled into our home on wheels and Girt is making us feel very comfortable.

at the tippy top

The view back to town

information board