The Ultimate Outback Trip 23rd September - 2nd October

In mid-semester break (they have half terms here at uni!) myself, 2 other Brits, 3 Swedes, 4 Germans, 3 Dutchmen, 2 Aussies, 1 Aruban, 2 Bulgarians, 1 Canadian, 1 American, 1 Dane and 1 Chilean headed to Alice Springs from Adelaide. It was a fantastic trip, and here's a day-by-day account.

Day 1: Adelaide to Angorichina

This was the first of many days where we had to get up way too early. We arrived at the central bus station at 6.45am and waited for our bus and tour guide to pick us up. Brook arrived; loaded our things and we were on our way. It wasn't long before we realised just how insane our guide was; crazily driving around picking other people up before we left Adelaide.

The scenery changed (:P) to rolling green hills and farmland, and after a few hours we arrived at Port Augusta, the second largest town in South Australia. We saw the amazing sights, like Subway, KFC and McDonalds (seriously that was all there was to see). Brook was too lazy to make lunch, so we all had Subway before heading to the Flinders Ranges.

The Flinders Ranges is the 2nd oldest mountain range in the world: 1.5 billion years old, and they have the oldest animal fossils in the world; so old they had to rewrite the history books! They were beautiful, as we drove down Brachina Gorge, Brook not having his hands on the steering wheel for most of the time. We were lucky in seeing some wallabees! We also saw an abandoned sheep station, with some amusing warning signs! Wilpena Pound was impressive, formed out of two snakes turned to stone as punishment for killing some initiates (as the Aboriginal story goes). We spent the night at Angorichina Village, in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, eating a "Fleischfest" and singing songs around the campfire.

Day 2: Angorichina to William Creek

Leaving Angorichina, we headed out on the Oodanata Track, a dirt road, and into real nothingness. We stopped at the top of a dip and could see absolutely nothing to the horizon. We also met Alf, a crazy hermit with an interesting way of describing names and letters. P is for people, and J is decision making , so the name James means "deciding to travel in the sun" and stuff like that. Basically he was making it up as he went along! We stopped at a huge open cast coal mine, which is so huge they had to move the nearby town of Leigh Creek 5kms down the road to get at more coal! Stopping at an ochre mine, Brook explained how it's basically Aboriginal gold. Aborigines travelled for hundreds of miles to get this stuff used in ceremonies, etc. And the government was serious: don't take any ochre or you'll have to pay $10,000 (about £4,000) or spend 6 months in prison!

We stopped at Marree for lunch; a town with 25 people, and Australia's oldest mosque! The town was founded by Afghan camel herders, hence why there's a mosque, but no church! As with all of these tiny settlements, they all had a pub, regardless of size! On the way to William creek, suddenly evidence of human life appeared, in the form of some unusual sculptures, left from a camp which protested against the dumping of American nuclear waste in the Outback. We also saw Lake Eyre, a large salt lake that's been dry for 14 years, and had a swim in a "swimming pool", a tiny pool at this campsite.

Our destination for the day was William Creek, the most remote white settlement in South Australia, with about 8 permanent residents! But of course they had a pub, which was full of momentos people left behind, like business and ID cards, kind of like an "I was here" type thing. Today was the first night in swags (giant sleeping bags) sleeping under the stars.

Day 3: William Creek to Coober Pedy
Some of us started today with a Cessna flight to the Painted Hills. These beautiful hills were only discovered about 20 years ago, and are so fragile that no one can walk/drive in them. As they're made out of iron, over the years it has rusted, and the iron ore has bled out of the rock, giving them the impression that they've been painted. We also flew over the Anna Creek Cattle Station, which is the size of Belgium!

We reached our destination for the day by mid-afternoon: Coober Pedy. This is the site of the largest opal field in the world, and 80% of the world’s opals are mined from here. It’s named by the local Aborigines, who described the white man living underground (kind of what Coober Pedy means in English). And people do just that, most live in houses carved into the rocks. They have some strange traditions there, for example, Bomb Sunday. As pretty much all the town’s 3,500 inhabitants are involved in the mining industry, families and friends get together on Sundays to make bombs. The kids make the cases, whilst the adults mix the chemicals! This is a place where small acts of terrorism happen all the time, hence they have a bomb-proof police station and news agency (which was recently bombed when it advertised a film that was never actually shown!). We had a tour of one of the old opal mINES with a guide who pronounced the end of every phrASE like it was a questION! Seriously if you hate opals, never go to Coober Pedy, you can’t escape them! We had dinner at a pizza place and slept as the locals do: underground.

Day 4: Coober Pedy to Yulara

A mammoth drive today to one of our primary destinations: Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park! On the way out of Coober Pedy, we saw the mining areas. It felt like we were on Mars, because of all the piles of dug up rock. We stopped briefly at the South Australia/Northern Territory border before heading west to the park. We stopped for a quick view of Mount Conner, which is often mistaken for Uluru, before reaching the tourist town of Yulara just outside the national park. After thousands of miles of nothing, suddenly there were shopping centres, 4* hotels, and lots of people. We made it to the Groovy Grapes campsite with enough time to see the sunset over Uluru. Words cannot describe how amazing this huge rock is. 3.6km across, 350m high, millions of years old, sacred site to the Anangu Aborigines, Uluru was spectacular! From our vantage point we could also see Kata Tjuta darkening with the sun behind it. After about an hour of mad photo taking, it was dinner time, before swagging it again.

Day 5: Uluru (Ayers Rock)

In order to get to Uluru for sunrise we left camp at 5.30am, and arrived to find the place swarming with tourists. It kind of took away some of the atmosphere with hundreds of people madly taking photos and gulping down coffee, but we soon lost most of them as we headed on the walk around the base of Uluru. A few of us decided to climb, but as the Anangu would rather you didn’t, I decided not to. The walk took about 4 hours to complete. Sunrise/set is amazing, as the colours of the Rock change from purple to brown and bright orange. There is quite a lot to see, such as waterholes and cave paintings.

After the walk and lunch Brook, armed with his extensive knowledge about the Anangu (he lived with them for a while) showed us some of the significant areas, such as the cave on one side, where the mischevious lizard spirit stole some hunters’ food. In retaliation, they attacked his cave with fireballs, and his burning body rolled down the slope, and his flesh burnt to the rock, which explains the random grey band of rock on one side. This is how Anangu and other tribes use their environment to tell stories and teach lessons, such as the consequences of stealing someone’s food! We also saw the cultural centre, which told more of the Anangu’s stories. The most fascinating thing was the ‘Sorry Book’: a collection of letters sent to the park along with fragments of Uluru people had taken home with them as a souvenir. Most apologised for going against the Anangu’s wishes, but some stated that they’d been cursed because of taking some of the rock! A fantastic day had by all, finishing off with nibbles and alcohol at a viewing point for another spectacular sunset.

Day 6: Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)

Off to Kata Tjuta, about 30 km away from Uluru. Meaning “Many Heads” in Anangu, this collection of 36 rocks is of immense spiritual signifance to Anangu men, so much so that Anangu women are forbidden from going there. We went on the 8km Valley of the Winds hike, which only showed a small amount of this stunning area, which was better than Uluru in my opinion. Brook showed us how Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed; they’re the remnants of a mountain range that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. Words again cannot sufficiently describe how amazing these rocks were. It was HOT! Ever since we had entered the Outback, the temperature was rising, up to the high 30s! And this wasn’t even summer! I could have stayed there all day if it wasn’t for the heat!

But the tour moved on, and we headed to Kings Creek station, where we set up camp for the night. Brook taught us some interesting games, such as ‘I can see the moon in the spoon’ which was agonising for those of us who couldn’t work out how to win!

Day 7: Kings Canyon (Watarrka) and Alice Springs

Leaving Kings Creek, we went to Kings Canyon, a spectacular area. We walked the sometimes exhausting walk to the top and soaked up the awesome views over the area, including the best lookout in central Australia. It felt like we were in Jurassic park, with the orange rock formations and ferns. Brook was full of stories and information about some of the plants used in Aboriginal medicine and other interesting things. This was one of the best bits of the trip for me, and many of the rest of us too.

It was then back into the bus for the last stretch of our journey, to Alice Springs. We were dropped off at our relevant hostels, where we would be spending the next two nights. Annie’s place was a studenty place that strongly reminded me of Leeds, with a pool and loads of artwork on the walls. We joined up with everyone for a meal and had a bit of a boogie at another pub.

Day 8: Alice Springs

Well there really isn’t much to say about Alice Springs. The town itself is rather dead during the day. 5000 Aussies, 6000 Americans (some kind of spy base nearby) and 18,000 Aborigines make up the town’s population. Today was a relax day, but some of us rented bikes and headed to the Desert Park, to see some of the animals that chose one of the most inhospitable places on Earth for their home. The ride back was awful, especially because it was in the middle of the day, when the temperatures soared, but a relaxing afternoon by the pool soon fixed my exhaustion! We met up with Brook and some of the others for dinner before going to bed in preparation for the mammoth journey tomorrow.

Day 9 and 10: The journey home

Two days followed where we spent the majority of the time in Brook’s bus on the Stuart Highway back to Adelaide. There were some notable stops though. We stopped at Stuart’s Creek and met Dinky the Singing Dingo, how howls and plays the piano whenever someone starts to play it. He’s so well known he appears in a Trivial Pursuit question. We also saw the Breakaways, similar to the Painted Hills, the dingo fence; the longest man-made structure on Earth, which keeps the dingoes out of sheep country, and another salt lake which we could walk on. Some mishaps were had along the way: Brook burst a tyre just outside Coober Pedy where we stayed the night, and the bus got stuck by the lake, but Brook managed to get it out. We stayed in an actual house this time. Then it was more and more driving, stopping at Port Augusta for more Subway, and then back to Adelaide.

A big thanks to Ste, Jay, Thomas, Marco, Lina, Sianne, Ed, Laura, Desiree, Maria, Shanti, Anders, Maja, Sofia, Hanna, Kat, Christina, Sophie, Ewa, Kalina, and especially to Brook, for putting up with such a “bunch of f***ing slackers”, his stories, his crazy music (the people in the back row!) and being a nice guy. A fantastic trip I’ll never forget!

See my Facebook photo albums which go with this entry:

The Outback 1: Adelaide to William Creek, The Outback 2: William Creek to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, The Outback 3: Kata Tjuta to Alice Springs and back to Adelaide