It was an
early start this morning as we had a long drive ahead of us. We decided that we would overnight free camp
at a place called “Curtin Springs”. It
was only around 100kms from Yalara, and we thought it would be good, to arrive
at Alice by lunch time rather than late in the afternoon.
It was a
pretty uneventful drive. We really
didn’t have a list of places with things for us to see of explore, so it was
straight driving. We did stop at a place called Erldunda which is a roadhouse
on the corner of the Stuart Highway and the Lasseter’s Highway. Well I have to say that this roadhouse does
an absolute roaring trade as caravan and cars were lined up right through to
the highway. It took Ian about 40 minutes
to get through the queue to fuel up his car.
Absolutely everyone stops here for fuel.
We had a
break here for morning tea. No picnic
tables or anything. That is one thing we
notice about the Northern Territory,
they do not have a lot of rest areas with amenities to use for the traveler, eg. Picnic tables, toilets etc. Barb and Steve pulled out our trusty little
tables, and Barb got our her stools and we sat around and enjoyed a good cuppa
and the sultana loaf I had cooked the previous evening whist we were cooking
dinner. It tasted amazing.. The only draw back was the abundance of
flies that were swarming around out here.
Back to the cake, it is definitely
going back on the shopping list to get
another one when we go shopping.
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| We see our vans up in a semi cycle which gave us a common area inbetween.. |
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| Cuppa time... |
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| Checking out the restaurant for dinner that night. |
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| Curtin Springs |
It was just
after 11am when we left here heading to Curtin Springs, which was about
another 120 kms away. On this part of
the drive we came across the largest road train we have ever seen, it had 7 trailers attached to it. It turns out it was actually part of an
advertisement that was being filmed along the road. They had a Landrover Discovery pulling
it. We found all this out at Curtin
Springs when we got there, as the film crew and those participating in the
commercial were all staying at Curtain Springs.
We got to see the road train than at night all lit up. It was a pretty memorable thing to see…
One of the other highlights of the drive was seeing Mt. Connor in the distance. WE can see why those not so familiar with the centre of Australia could mistake Mt Connor for Uluru. It was very impressive in itself...
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| Mt. Connor near Curtin Springs. |
We arrived at Curtain Springs just after lunch
and set up in the free camping section.
We had a very quick lunch as the flies were pretty bad, in fact they were
so bad that both John and I retreated to our vans as we couldn’t stand
them.
A little
later in the afternoon, us girls went for a walk over to the reception area of
Curtain Springs to pay our $3 for a hot shower.
This is a brilliant camping area, as although it is free to camp here
there are hot showers and flushing toilets,
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| Free camping with hot showers... WE have struck the Jackpot.. |
When
wandering over to the service station reception area we noticed that they had a
bistro type of restaurant, so decided to check out their menu and prices. They seemed pretty reasonable so we decided
to go back and see the boys and suggest that we have dinner here rather than
cook something for ourselves. It was a
winner all round with the boys agreeing that it would be a great night to eat
out. The meals averaged between $22 and
$25 and were pretty reasonably priced.
The drinks were expensive thought with a can of coke zero costing around
$4.50 a can.
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| Ian Barb and John |
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| Steve, I and Kathy |
Before
heading to dinner, we decided to go have a shower. This was an experience in itself, whilst it was great to have a very HOT
shower, the shower heads were petty primitive
with the shower head being made out of PVC piping so you weren’t able to move
the nozzle at all, which means that you got soaking wet just trying to turn the
shower on. Too bad if you didn’t want to
wash your hair. Still we were very appreciate
of a nice hot shower again.
We all
enjoyed our meals and by the time we got home it was after 9pm.
We all ended up back in our own vans. At least we could have a bit of a sleep in
the following morning as we are only 110kms for Yalara, and we had already
booked into the caravan park and we couldn’t arrive before 10am.
We ended up leaving Curtain Springs around
9.30am and arrived at Ayres Rock Camping
Grounds at Yalara just after 11am.
One of the
things we noticed on the drive this morning was the over abundance of these
lemon melons that were growing wildly on the sides of the road. They were everywhere. We figured that they couldn’t be too tasty as
neither the animals or the birds were getting into them.
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| Abundance of Desert Oaks growing along the side of the road between Curtin Springs and Yalara |
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| Not what I thought the desert would look like at all |
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| These melons were everywhere along the side of the road... |
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| The colours of the desert... we just loved it. |
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| Our first sighting of the Olgas coming into Yalara |
he camping
ground at Yalara is huge and once again we are all booked in together, side by
side… Unfortunately the amenities block
is a good walk away and it is all
through red sand dust to get there…
After having
a quick bite to eat, the block of us headed into Yalara to visit the grocery
store and also the Information Centre.
We were keen to price some of the
attractions around Yalara especially the night tour to the “Field of
Lights” We found a tour for $39, so
booked it for the following night….
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| Shopping in Yalara |
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| In the middle of town in Yalara |
The camping
ground at Yalara is huge and once again we are all booked in together, side by
side… Unfortunately the amenities block
is a good walk away and it is all
through red sand dust to get there…
After having
a quick bite to eat, the block of us headed into Yalara to visit the grocery
store and also the Information Centre.
We were keen to price some of the
attractions around Yalara especially the night tour to the “Field of
Lights” We found a tour for $39, so
booked it for the following night….
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| John cooks up a storm - a treat for afternoon tea... |
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| Fresh scones and jam.. |
John stayed
back at the caravan park as he wanted to cook up dinner that night, so that
when we got back from the sunset viewing of Uluru, we would have our meal all ready
for us, and it wouldn’t be really late
dinner when we got home. It was much
appreciated by us all. He spoilt us also by cooking a fresh batch of scones for us to enjoy for afternoon tea.
We took off
around 4.30pm to drive out to Uluru to see the sunset. We left a little earlier as we still had to
get our National Parks ticket at the gate.
It seemed that every one else had the same idea as when we got to the
sunset viewing area, it was already packed with people. We did find a good spot where we were able
to get some really good photos.
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| Steve at Uluru |
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| Just to show I have been there now.... |
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| What a dream to share it with special people |
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| Feeling very blessed indeed - our goal to see the centre of Australia together... |
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| Many different shades of sunset at Uluru |
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| Magical place at Sunset |
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| My good friend Barb.... pinching herself to believe we have made it. |
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| I can now cross this off my bucket list |
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| John and Barb - treasuring the moment |
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| Ian and Kathy at Uluru |
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| Steve and I at Uluru |
There
was one overseas tourist though that thought all the rules were there to be
broken and he jumped the fence and proceeded to set up his tripod and camera
in front of everyone elses view. Lots of people got quite upset with him and
asked him to come back to the right side of the fence but he would not listen,
even arguing with them, that he would not leave any footprints, and that rules
were meant to be broken. We dubbed him
the Harlequin Man, as he was dress in rather a loud outfit of yellow three
quarter pants, bright shirt and had his hair in a little bun at the top of his
head. I am sure his girlfriend was
quite embarrassed by all his antics…. We
were to continue running into the Harlequin Man where ever we went whilst we
were out in the Centre and Barb and I had fun trying to photograph him with his
compensator ( which is what we named his rather large camera)
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| Harlequin Man with his rather large compansator... |
The views of
the sunset at Uluru was absolutely stunning, and you really do have to be here
to experience it. It really is quite a
magical place. We took way too many
photos, but as the sun goes down, the
rock is constantly changing… I think we
all were feeling we needed to pinch ourselves to believe that we were really
out here experiencing this.
We arrived
home after dark and enjoyed a wonderful feed of Spaghetti Bolognaise together,
and enjoyed just chatting (what we all do best) before calling it a night
around 9pm. We have a very early start
in the morning as we want to head out again to Uluru and see the sunrise this
time… We are surprised at how warm it is
out here. It is no where near as cold
out here as what it was in Alice Springs.
