Suzanne & Nic Outback Caravan Trip 2025

 30th April: our attempt to get into the arts scene in Hermannsburg was a total failure! Hermannsburg pottery had been closed for 8 months, awaiting a $200,000 government grant to get a plumber to repair the toilet! Pottery workers were working in an Aged care facility, and they had no pottery for sale. We could have bought T-shirt's apparently! The Historical Precinct was closed indefinitely too- no reason given. We visited Albert Namatjira’s house that he built for his wife and 7 children. It consisted on 2 adjoining rooms. The most shocking thing we learnt was that he and his wife Rubina were awarded Australian citizenship in 1957! We also visited the John Flynn memorial stone and reacquainted ourselves with his story! Amazingly, the first stone used in his memorial was actually a stone of sacred indigenous significance and had to be relaxed so that the original stone could be returned to his rightful owners! We settled into the Alice Springs G’day caravan park and then started ...

 29th April: another leisurely start chatting with delightful fellow campers Matilda & Glyn, before we hit the dirt again, following the Mereenie Loop road heading for Hermannsburg for which we required a permit from reception at the campground costing $6.50. Getting a permit for Papunya was a lot more difficult so we didn’t pursue this further. The road was very corrugated and rocky, more so than anything we have travelled on so far, so we let down the tyres and drove slowly or rather Nic did, as it was challenging driving! When we arrived in Hermannsburg we discovered that the caravan outer door was in fact open despite it being locked, allowing a large incursion of dust! Nic attempted to make the door fit better and I embarked on the cleaning! It could have worse! We set up camp as the only caravan in a locked area, the key obtainable at the supermarket opposite. Later another joined us. We then strolled around Hermannsburg seeing the historic whitewashed buildings, now pre...

 28th April: We retraced yesterday late afternoon’s footsteps up to the canyon rim of the King’s Canyon and had a wonderful walk on the well marked trail over the rocks, with some spectacular views of the sandstone cliffs, with the highlight being a side walk to the “Garden of Eden” on the valley floor. We heard and saw the flute-like  call of the grey shrike-thrush, and at the water level saw the numerous fairy martins flying around from their nests under the overhanging cliffs. We saw the verdant green cycads, and we just contemplated the peace and tranquility beside the water. Along the way we saw chameleons change quickly in colour as the background rock colour change. We came down the far wall of the canyon to complete the circuit! We saw zebra finches and then walked the Kings creek walk in the valley floor. For dinner we had pasta with onions, peas, corn, salmon and chilli jam, with a bottle of Penfolds 389 Nic had been saving. Tomorrow we head for Hermannsberg, followe...

 April 27th: left Yulara for Kings Canyon travelling via Lassiter Highway and Luritja Roads after passing thru Curtin Springs again. The countryside was really covered with olive grey trees - several different shaped casuarinas and many acacias to name only a few. We arrived about 3pm and set up in our unpowered site. We drove to Kings Canyon itself hoping to have a good sunset view. We actually walked the beginning of the canyon rim walk which we hope to do tomorrow, undertaking the most difficult part of the climb up a series of stone steps to reach almost the canyon rim. The golden hour on the red cliffs with contrasting white barked gums was spectacular.  We had pesto with broccolini and green beans for dinner, preceded of course by a G&T.

 26th April: we visited Kata Tjuṯa this morning to do the Waḻga gorge walk- only 2.6km return up a well maintained somewhat rocky track, ending in a gorge. We then visited the Valley of the Winds and we only walked as far as Kari lookout along a similarly rocky path to the Waḻga gorge walk- only 2.2km. We then called back into the Cultural centre for one last look and then home to the van to get ready for our Wintjiri Wiru sunset dinner overlooking Uluru with drone and laser light show! We were picked up at the campground and taken to a sunset viewing platform where we were wined and dined on an indigenous gin and elderflower cocktail followed by canapés and then we sat on tiered seating and were provided with amazing dinner boxes and free flowing wine and a polar fleece blanket as we watched the sun set over Uluru in one direction and Kaṯa Tjuṯa in the other. Then followed the most amazing light show telling the story of the bad spirit attacking the Mala people told with laser lig...

 April 25th: started the day with a sunrise view of the Rock from the nearby viewing platform accompanied by a rainbow and the lightest of rain. We ventured to the magnificent truely awe-inspiring Uluru and started at the Cultural centre -very professionally set out with a great deal of indigenous myth about the rock explained in detail. We were notified the the weather would probably be too windy for drones tonight at our Wintjiri Wiru event so we rescheduled for tomorrow night instead. We then went to the Mala car park and initially planned to do the Mala and the KantjuGorge walks, which were wonderful with the same spiritual feeling we had 39years ago when being so close to the rock. At 2pm we then decided to do the Uluru Base walk around the rock and set off in a clockwise direction. Disappointingly, the walking path was quite a way away from the rock, compared to what it was when we did the walk previously! We didn’t see many walkers, just a few on unicycles and bicycles! Neve...

 April 24th: Yulara was only 80 km from Curtin Springs on the bitumen continuation of Lasseter Highway. Yulara has totally changed since 1986 when we stayed at the only resort quite near Ayers Rock as it was known then. Now all development - and there has been a huge amount- had taken place outside the park a long way away from the rock. We arrived around lunchtime and settled in, washing our clothes including sheets and towels and I washed the dusty windows of the van. We visited the IGA supermarket with a reasonable range of foodstuffs to stock up with, including previously unobtainable eggs and fresh vegetables .We strolled up to the lookout for a late afternoon vantage point of Uluru, followed by our ritual G & T!  I cooked pasta and Vegie sauce for dinner, with some extra for a couple more meals. We set up Starlink thru our open skylight in the van and this worked very well. We remade our bed, put away washed clothes, & generally put the van in order. Tomorrow we ...

 April 23rd: left the not really very special Marla Roadhouse, with nothing food wise n the supermarket to take my fancy! We hit the bitumen after reinflating our tyres after 5 days on the gravelly/ dusty somewhat corrugated  Oodnadatta track! Such easy driving as we slipped back into Cruise, but still not travelling at >90km/hour - a comfortable speed with the van behind without totally blow out the fuel consumption! We drove 415km today and that is about our limit with 2 drivers, to free camp at Curtin Springs, about 108 km short of Uluru, passing impressive Mt Connor on the way. Now I have been alerted by my loyal reader Paul that I haven’t been mentioning the G& T’s! This has been seriously misleading on my part, as in reality we have one( and only one) most nights and are now onto our 2nd bottle of gin, Bombay Sapphire from Leigh Creek where Nic had to show his drivers licence in order to to purchase it! A more serious problem has been obtaining the tonic! We have ...

 April 22nd: left the Pink Roadhouse around 10am after a hot shower and a chat with Frances and Julia in San Francisco. We remained the only overnight caravan guests.An iridescent beetle caught my fancy outside the van. Many buildings in Oodnadatta are brightly painted with indigenous motifs. There is really only the roadhouse, the pub and the general store to the town, plus a few services. We had been lead to believe that the road to Marla would be worse than it actually was. It was gravel with corrugations worse as we neared Marla. Nic had deflated the tyres to about 30psi all around.  We passed coolabah  trees near floodways and gidgee  bush in between. Not many birds- just several little eagles. Diesel here was only $2.22 /litre so we filled up. We found a flat unpowered site for our van behind the Marla roadhouse.we had a cup of tea and some fried haloumi to settle in, with an omlette for dinner. Campsite at Marla

 April 21st: left William Creek for Oodnadatta- the road wasn’t too bad- a bit more corrugated than between Coward Springs and William Creek. There was one river crossing about 20cm deep and all others were dry. We ran along side the old Ghan railway route for most of the way. I found the ExplorOz app very useful with its satellite mapping to let us know exactly where we were and the names of various geographical features. We reached the famous Pink Roadhouse in here we were the only caravan booked in for the night. The Transcontinental Hotel was only open Thursday to Saturdays so I cooked Portabello mushrooms with Vegie sauce and chilli jam for dinner.

 April 20th: Left Coward Springs for William Creek- road not too bad! There is really only the Hotel at William Creek, plus an office of Wright’s Air where we could have had a  day flight to Birdsville and Innamincka for a mere $1800 each, to see flood waters there! We declined! We stayed in the van park at the hotel and were able to fill our water tanks. Fortunately we didn’t need diesel at $2.99.9 a litre!! We ate at the pub- a hamburger for Nic and generic fish ( what type of fish? I asked- “fried fish”was the reply) for me! 

 A quiet day at Coward Springs, starting with a cold shower after breakfast followed by date scones as we are on a date palm plantation. Nic managed to work out our mechanical tyre deflator for the road ahead, reducing tyre pressures to 30psi all around and we attached our additional 200 watt solar panels to charge up the van. I glued on beading to our bathroom shelving to stop contents moving forwards and locking the sliding doors when we are on the road. We went for a walk to wetlands- still no birds- and around the date plantation. I repurposed our Vegie sauce with some more mushrooms, 4 eggs and cheese to create a shakshouka, which worked! Off to William Creek tomorrow! 

 April 18th: got up early to look at the birds! Galahs, a Willie Wagtail, a number of black faced cuckoo shrikes, Australian ravens, a common bronze wing, some type of bush wren to name a few. The morning light was delightful. We went in search of the cemetery and finally found it greatly restored by the volunteers. We saw a black kite perched then taking off. We headed along the Oodnadatta track firstly stopping for diesel at Marree@$2.90 a litre, but no choice. We made slow progress because the road had lots of corrugations which Nic handled well. One stop was for Emus crossing the road! We stopped to view the dry but mirage-laden south Lake Eyre! We took 5 hours to reach Coward Springs due to the difficult terrain. We set up camp then went for a walk into the wetland area and saw no birds at all. We resorted to our net head coverings due to the flies! No phone reception or internet so thank heavens for Starlink! Flathead and salad for dinner.

 17th April: left Arkaroola for Farina, stopping at Leigh Creek to pick up some provisions. The Foodland had a huge variety of bric-a-brac, and not much of the type of food I was looking for, but very surprisingly some vacuum-packed Flathead and King George Whiting which I bought. We reached Farina, a town in its heyday in the late nineteenth century when it was a rail stop and wheat growing area. However, despite the name Farina, the wheat crops failed, being well north of the Goyder line. We set up camp then walked around some of the ruins of the town bathing in the light of the golden hour. There is a very active local historical preservation society which has provided the names and information about each building ruin and set up a delightful camp ground run on an honour system of paying, empty except for one other vehicle. In the tourist season they even make bread in the original underground bakery. We enjoyed our King George Whiting for dinner.