Family holiday for 6 months around Australia. Switching off for a while to remind ourselves of why we are doing what we do. Enjoying time with our little family that we have created. Creating some great memories and taking some awesome photographs as well.
On one side of this huge sign, you stand in the Northern Territory
And on the other side you're in South Australia
We Stand Divided. One foot in Either State.
None of us has seen anything beyond this point in our lives so it's rather exciting for every little detail along the way. Curtin Springs is one of the last stop-overs for most travellers heading to the Rock. The distance is too far so everyone tends to stay here and leave in the morning for a fresh start.
The Boomerang Entrance sign
Funky Street Art
Main Street Sign Post
There was a guy who had ridden the entire Stuart highway on this posty bike. What a nutter!
Town Amenities were what you can expect here at Curtin. Very Dusty too. They did have internet here but WOW... i think we paid $5 (per 10 minutes) into some sort of vending machine and the screen looked 100 years old. but the speed was dial-up and took me 15 minutes to even check emails etc. obviously for desperate people only.
Thought I might walk the town with the girls to get a couple of photos in. feeling quite anxious about seeing Ularu and having the girls with us for this fantastic family adventure
Little Lily is always smiling
And Mia is the chatterbox.
So Its 'keep the van attached' and get a nights sleep here till the morning. Next stop. The ROCK!
We are definately not missing the work and running a business. As for real estate photos, i cant see anything worth taking in Curtin Springs. haha
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A day out today in Coober Pedy. We started at the feeding of the orphan kangaroos which was great fun for the girls (see video) and saw some aboriginal artwork at the gallery.
It was mothers day today and we sat for lunch in the underground hotel and enjoyed brunch.
Coober Pedy was a dusty hole of a place with no real comforts to speak of but a tone of character, a definate must see if travelling Australia... We stayed at the Riba's underground caravan and camping park which included a Mine tour in the evening it was very cool. We did some water divining and learnt about staking our own claim in the opal business. girls were terribly bored after 10 mins but it was their bed time and both were sleepy. This caravan park also caters for campers who want to camp underground in the hillside dugout tunnels..
Learning about how to blow the earth away with high explosives
Water divining is key to finding opal in the ground
The chicken man - strange travellers starting to appear
Coober Pedy from the Big winch Lookout area
Coober Pedy landscape
The Big Winch
We desperately wanted to find some opal and for people keen to try their luck there is a noodling area near the main street of town. It looks like a big pile of diggings from opal mines that you can noodle through and if your lucky and look hard you can find opal... we were lucky and found a few bits to bring home.
We bought the girls some opal earrings to remember their trip to Coober Pedy.
This is our final night at Coober Pedy tonight and since it was mothers day.. no cooking for mum so we bought one of their much talked about pizzas . Heading off in the morning leaving all the street drunk aboriginals behind. The only downfall to this town is the local aboriginals scattered through the streets drunk and sitting in the gutters... not a good site for tourists.
Noodling & The Breakaways
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We only stayed a couple of days in port Augusta. It was more a rest time for us and preparation time to head up the middle of Australia. While we stayed here we permanently fixed our solar panel to the roof of the van as it was becoming increasingly difficult being placed in our bathroom every day.. this way it can function all day as its supposed to. The batteries are of a super size and can easily last all day without a direct sun positioning. We went for a boat cruise up the inland water way. Watched dolphins playing and shot some photos through the uppermost part of the inland sea.
Outback River Cruise
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We headed off without the license (as it was left in Victor Harbour) after a quick stop at the outback information center.
Ice creams for the girls
The Old bridge ferry
This old ferry carried parts up and down the waterway for building supplies. After finishing the bridge they realised that is was on the wrong side of the bridge so could not be taken back to the open ocean. they just left it to decay.
The new Shopping village at sunset
The outback centre snake
Drove on to lunchtime stop for some red dirt pictures and a family shot...
arrived at heart lake to see the sunset and get a shot in. Camp fire night with Merrilyn and Brian.
At last a sunny morning to wake up to. Not much to pack away from the night before and off we go. a severe headwind has us held at 60-70kms on our journey and this is really bad for fuel consumption. Very frustrating driving indeed. We lock a town called Snowtown into our GPS and push forward. Every 5 kms or so the GPS wants us to take an unsealed road but we don't follow its advice and drive straight ahead on the bitumen surface hoping we will end up on the A1 main road, and slowly but surely we were right in our judgement. Snowtown is just around the corner for us. We pass a very tiny town called Lochiel which is located by the Bumbunga lake. At this present moment Bumbunga lake is a dries up salt flat for as far as the eye can see. Quite blinding the sun bouncing of it but awesome to see by the side of the road we are travelling on. I notice a loch Ness monster that someone has created for when the lake is wet and it would look cool if there was any water. It still looks pretty funky even in the sand so we stop to take a shot. The wind nearly blowing us of our feet all four of us wonder out in the middle of the salt bed. ( see photos and video)
Bumbunga Lake
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This will be printed when we get home
Mum & the girls fight the windy conditions
Fake Loch Ness Monster
There is one extra cool photo begging me to snap so i capture it and will be a print for sure. Old fence posts running off into the salt sand. Something from a postcard style of thing. Once back in the car we bypass Snowtown because our fuel is still holding and press on for Crystal Brook. I try to keep as little fuel in the tank at this stage because of the headwind and i am trying to minimise the weight of our rig. Crystal Brook is not what the name suggests. Most of these out of the way towns are only famous for some early explorers and hold very little unless you like early architecture or buildings, but when you've seen a couple of late 1800's building you feel like you've seen them all. Time for a little shopping in the local supermarket and its time to start thinking about where we will be spending the night.
Crystal Brook township
Crystal Brook pub
Port Pirie soon appears and we pull up right by the main inlet for some lunch. the girls feed some seagulls while Heather bakes an apple buy that we bought earlier at Hahndorf. Coffee and apple pie for lunch. mmmmm... We cannot seem to find a camp site that is for big rigs but one appears on the map search up another 25kms further ahead. Its called the Baroota Rodeo camping grounds. I call the phone number attached as it says "permit required" I chat with the previous owner of this site and he tells us that it has been closed for 6 months due to renovations, "but" he owns the land opposite and has just bulldozed it to make some space for travellers that keep turning up at the closed camping grounds. At $5 a night we take the plunge and drive there. he meets us at the gate and shows us around his new venture. Nothing but dust and dirt but off the main road which is always better than near it. we are the first van he has let in because he only pushed over the bush a day or so ago. Firewood everywhere and this place is as warm as toast compared with earlier grounds we've been staying at. The Flinders Ranges are just a couple of kms away and sit in the background for us. Beautiful to watch the sun set on these great Mountain ranges.
Flinders Rangers
Baroota Rodeo camping ground view
The setting sun behind the trees
I build a big fire and we settle down for a night stop. We soon see another van trying to get into the Rodeo camping ground and so i flag them down and offer the new dusty spot to them. they love the idea of $5 per night and in they come. Nice to have some company too. There names are John & Helen and they are on their maiden voyage in their new van as well. campfire chats went on most of the evening and it was a nice little town of our own created. Its funny how the most crappy looking things can soon become well remembered times for us all. Tomorrow we will land at Port Augusta to set up for the long dry dusty journey up through the middle of Australia. Cooper Pedy, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek will soon be in our sights.
The moon rises as we sit by the fire
Long exposure photo of the road trains passing in the night
In the morning we had a visitor. Can you spot him?
Morning Visitor if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
