Last I wrote, we were stuck in Broome. We finally made it out on Friday, 6 March after becoming experts on river flood levels in the Kimberly due to the utter lack of information provided by WA Main Roads other than “road’s closed folks”. Sigh. Before we left Broome, we enjoyed more time walking on the beach and relaxing by the pool. That was the life.
The (not so) Great Northern Highway officially opened on Thursday (our first attempt to leave was on Sunday so we ended up “stuck” for 5 extra days), but not until 11 am and only for part of the way we hoped to drive. The rest was open to high clearance 4wd vehicles only. Thus, we set out Friday morning when the whole road was back open with “only” 200mm (~8 inches) of water on the road in some spots. We drove ~11 hours to Kununurra, trying to get as far as possible toward Uluru. The scenery along the drive was unexpectedly beautiful. There weren’t many opportunities to stop and take it in, but it made the 11 hours go by faster.
Scenic drive in the KimberlyScenic drive in the KimberlyScenic drive in the Kimberly
We had two more long driving days to get from Kununurra to Larrimah (7.5 hrs + 1.5 hr time change) and then Larrimah to Alice Springs (10 hrs). Larrimah is home to a mysterious disappearance/murder? (see Lost in Larrimah) and the Pink Panther Hotel. What could go wrong? Well… the room was quite possibly the worst of our trip, but the hotel manager and bartender were lovely as were the other guests who stopped by for drinks. The hotel manager showed us the resident zoo animals up close and personal. We got to see feeding time for the albino crocodile and the big crocodile. We also got to pet a wallaby, so cute!!
Jon and the Pink Panther (officially two “big things” – Big Stubby and Big Pink Panther, but we didn’t realize that until later)Albino crocFeeding time!
Our hotel in Alice Springs was a significant upgrade over the place in Larrimah, but the drive there wasn’t super interesting. Oh well.
Devils Marbles point of interest on the way to Alice Springs, but guess what? Too. Many. Flies. to get out of the car and enjoyWelcome to Alice Springs!
We just needed to get through the night to head off on our journey to our actual destination for this super long portion of our drive – Uluru. We’d heard good things about Kings Canyon. It was a bit out of the way and we’d have to make it by 11 am to hike anything if the temperature was going to be higher than 36C (96.8F), but luckily the temp was only going up to 35C (95F) so we were free to hike when we arrived around 11:15 am. We did the Kings Canyon South Wall hike, a 4.8 km hike into the canyon that was gorgeous. It was a great way to break up the drive, and then we drove on to Yulara, a lodging specific town outside of Uluru where we setup camp for the last time.
First fly net selfieKings CanyonKings CanyonKings CanyonFakeout Uluru on the way to Uluru – actually Mount Conner
Yulara is a strange phenomena. It only exists to provide lodging for people visiting Uluru. The whole town is run by a single company so there is every type of lodging from camping to luxury all at a premium price. The cheapest hotel room far exceeded the most we’d paid for any room during our trip so we cheaped out and decided to camp. That was a mistake. We knew it was hot and we knew there would be flies, but did we? We did, but we didn’t know there would be other campers that were ruder than anywhere we’d stayed previously. They opened and closed car doors constantly, cooked dinner at 9:30 pm with pots clanging away, and the best was that one of the women enjoyed herself an awful lot in the middle of the night. Sheesh. We’d booked two nights of camping, but decided to bail on the second night and cough up the $260 to stay in the budgetest of motel options. It was the best decision ever. It was the most I’ve ever appreciated budget accommodation.
On our way to Kings Canyon/Uluru we finally invested in fly nets for our heads. The fly net proved to be worth its weight in gold in keeping the rampant flies a safe distance from our faces. I know I’ve rambled on trying to emphasize how bad the flies were in prior locations. If I had to rank the locations now that we’re (spoiler alert) back in Brisbane, I’d say Uluru, Blow Holes, Kalbari area. So you see, Uluru was. the. worse. Even with fly nets! Amazing. Jon and I are still seeing flies in our sleep.
On to the good parts… Uluru was gorgeous. It really is an amazing rock and it is totally worth going to see in the middle of nowhere. I just recommend going in the winter when it is cooler and there is supposedly a chance of fewer flies. In addition to Uluru, there is Kata Tjuta (aka “The Olgas”) which is also gorgeous. We loved hiking around both rock features and seeing the sunrise and sunset.
First sunset we watched at Uluru
Full moon rise too!Hike around Kata TjutaHike around Kata TjutaHike around Kata TjutaKata TjutaInteresting textures on UluruSuch a cool rock to walk around!
Water hole next to UluruFliesSo many fliesSunrise and a rainbow at Uluru
Uluru with Kata Tjuta in the background at sunrise
After Uluru we headed to Coober Pedy, a place known for being so hot and full of flies that most of the town is built into hills/underground. How could we not stop? It’s also considered by some to be the “opal capital of the world”. We were told 80% of the world’s opals come from mines in the area, but I couldn’t find an official reference for that fact in my one second google search. We enjoyed checking out the local museum and shopping for opals. The highlight though was staying underground, definitely worth a one night stop.
Coober Pedy, not much to see here because a lot of it’s undergroundOur underground motelOur underground roomCloseup of our cave/dugout ceiling
We were back to more long days of driving as our plan from Coober Pedy was to get to Melbourne to visit friends. We decided to get to Mildura, an 11 hr drive and into the same time zone as Melbourne so we’d have a short-ish drive the following day. We got up early to get going and managed to catch a lovely sunrise after a stop at our last “big thing”, the Big Winch.
The Big WinchSunrise after seeing the Big Winch
We stopped to make sandwiches at a rest stop past Port Augusta and were so excited by the lack of flies we decided to eat outside. But, Australia got us again, this time with ants. Zillions of them started biting my feet before I even spread any peanut butter. Back to the car for lunch.
We got to Mildura with time to grab food from Coles to make dinner and had our first experience with empty shelves due to COVID-19. It was Thursday, 12 March and they were only out of toilet paper as far as we could tell. Prior to that we’d heard a lot on the news about panic buying, but it hadn’t made it to the bush yet so seeing that ramped up the nerves a bit.
The next day we drove to Melbourne after sleeping in for the first time in a while. We actually got to enjoy a lovely outdoor lunch in a park in a small town along the drive. The janitor was restocking toilet paper in the public bathroom and told me that he’d had to do it every day because people kept stealing it. Ugh.
We made a quick stop at Chadstone shopping mall to get a free replacement pair of Havaianas (flip flops) for Jon since his broke after only 5 months. I also looked for some cheap pants as we had packed for summer and it’s almost never summer weather in Melbourne, but I couldn’t find anything. We stopped by an caught up with friends before heading to our other friends house to stay the weekend.
It was a wonderful weekend and our hosts were amazing as usual. We were lucky to catch up with lots of people and enjoyed tons of fabulous food and good beer for the first time in a while. Unfortunately, the pall of COVID-19 hung over the weekend as the government concern level and measures kept changing each day. When we were heading to Coober Pedy we were debating if we should take some more time and drive up the south coast of New South Wales, taking the long way back to Brisbane. This was an area we were keen to visit, but couldn’t on the way out due to the fires. Well… by the time we’d been in Melbourne for a day, it seemed the best thing to do would be to get back to Brisbane as quickly as possible.
Catching up with friends in MelbourneCool place to go for good beers in MelbouneMe and my mate Remi
We left early on Monday, 16 March, and drove to Dubbo. We stopped at a couple of grocery stores along the way to see if smaller towns had more stock. We were lucky to stock up on some canned goods, but no stores had toilet paper. Given that we’d been away for 7 weeks, we weren’t exactly sure what we had left at home so that was a bit concerning.
The next day we got out of Dubbo early and made it back to Brisbane in time to hit Costco and Coles to stock up on fresh and frozen goods. No toilet paper at either place, but plenty of food to allow us to hunker down and we found we had 7 rolls of tp to buy us some time.
We’ve been back in Brisbane since Tuesday, 17 March (Happy St. Patrick’s Day!) and we’re laying low, staying inside except for walks and runs when the least people are out on the trail. I hope everyone out there is staying healthy and sane. If you need anyone to talk to let me know. I’ve got lots of free time 🙂
