Log in every Friday for the next five
weeks for updates to this Australian Road trip.
Join Jo and Mark as they travel from Brisbane to
Adelaide then up through central Australia and to
the northern tip of Western Australia.
After weeks of planning, debating how to pack
the car, what food to take, whether we had
enough or too much stuff and what day we should
actually leave... we bit the bullet. We packed
up and left Brisbane on a Saturday morning.
We filled the car up with 80 litres of the
cheapest fuel we could find, at AUD 84 centres
per litre and took off towards Warwick at
11am. It was warm and sunny, autumn had not
set in yet, and the skies were blue. Farming
areas with sheep and cows followed us all
the way to Warwick. On the other side we entered
cotton picking regions. The roads were lined
with white balls of cotton, that huge road
trains dropped as they swept past driving
us off into the dirt. Roadkill littered the
tarmac, huge wedge tail eagles picking at
the freshest kill and flying off as we approached.
We camped just shy of Morree the first night
by a small billabong. Plagues of mosquitoes
surrounded us so we escaped into the tent.
We were hoping to make it to Broken Hill today
via what we we thought was a short cut between
Bourke and Wilcannia on the River Road. It
was a dirt road of 300 kilometres and when
we were 100km into it there was a brief rain
shower. The road immediately turned to slush
and we skidded and slipped along in 4wd all
afternoon at a slow pace, not used to the
conditions and worried as water slushed all
over the windscreen. At times we could hardly
see. Eventually we pulled in and as flies
hoarded in on us we prepared dinner off the
deserted road.
Day 3 Monday April 16th
The rest of the road into Wilcannia was sludgy
but driveable 4wd material. We slushed and
slithered along, sighting emus, kangaroos,
sheep, cows, horses, galahs, wedgetail eagles
and a few remote stations. Wilcannia has a
high Aboriginal population. An aboriginal
man in a suit kept wandering around near where
we had lunch, peeing in the bushes and squatting
in the litter. Most of the houses were either
smashed up or completely boarded up. One had
an eight foot high barbed wire fence around
it. The Darling River here is where they used
to ship goods by the waterways.
ART CAR
We made it to Broken Hill early in the afternoon
and explored the huge minelooming over the
town (the town grew up around the mine and
not the other way around) and Pro Harts gallery.
Pro Hart once painted ants running over the
front of my parents Volkswagon. So it was
fun to spot the same designs on some of his
own cars, Rolls Royces with Australian bush
scenes, and old vintage cars. At sunset we
drove to the lookout with all the sculptures
and camped nearby. The earth was deep red
and sky husky pink.
Day 4 Tuesday
April 17th
At sunrise a kangaroo hopped past followed
closely by a man on horseback. He looked startled
to see us camped in the sandy dunes. We almost
got bogged as we drove back onto the road.
We went to Silverton, a ghost mining town
where Mad Max was filmed. The countryside
is perfect for a film about a post nuclear
world. And the town is great. Only ten people
live here but there are red dusty streets,
art galleries, a pub, museums, old gaol and
so on. When we first arrived there was a huge
ford hot rodded up with four exhausts on each
side and an engine protruding from the bonnet
sitting outside the Silverton Hotel and owned
by the pubs manager. It even had MAX as a
number plate. There is a Mad Max reunion here
in July and apparently Mel Gibson is coming.
Adelaide was 600km from here but we were visitng
friends and sped through the old mining towns
and farming areas to get there for an Indian
curry. I had not seen the O'Rafferty's for
two years and stayed up talking til 2am with
Chimene and Dave reminiscing about our times
in India. Chimene had to be at work at 6am
the next morning.
Day 5 Wednesday
April 18th
The car spent the morning at the garage getting
a tune up. We spent the morning entertaining
5 year old Madelene and drinking coffee with
Dave. In the afternoon we wandered into Adelaide
briefly and then returned to pick up the car.
As we hosed of the red dust and muck into
the O'Rafferty's garden Chimene drew us a
map to get out of the city and we headed off.
It was late when we stopped in the Clare Valley
- baked
beans for dinner at 9pm and no bed again to
sleep on.
Day 6 Thursday
April 19th
It was harvest season in the Clare Valley
and pickers were out in the fields. Local
farmer Martin Smith spotted us and offered
us work, then free accomodation and drove
us around his farm. By the time we left for
Clare we had bags full of grapes. In Clare
there was a Spanish festival and people in
traditional dress were parading the streets.
We followed them for awhile then headed to
a Jesuit church and winery to do some wine
tasting. There were lovely old wine cellars
(left) which reminded us of places in Europe
and old wine producing equipment. The Jesuits
started the tradition of wine making but it's
now a more commercial enterprise. The church
has an old crypt with places for two more
priests inside.
Day
7 Friday April 20th
Wilpena Pound is a huge geographical formation
that looks like a bowl or cupped hand and
means exactly that in the Aboriginal name.
The campsite was AUD $10 per car but there
were hot showers, lighting and barbecues.
We walked up Olssens Bagge in the morning,
a beautiful 3 hour hike through rock of changing
colours, past lizards and wonderful views
of the countryside to a high point above the
Pound.
LIZARD
LOOKING OVER WILPENA POUND
STREZLEKI TRACK
Brachina Gorge is another great place to
camp with many creek crossings, huge gums
and amazing cliffs. We drove through here
on our way to Parachilna where we stopped
at the Prarie Hotel for a drink and our first
sighting of the Old Ghan railway line that
was once used when the railway ran up to Oodnadatta.
It was deserted when we first arrived but
a huge family group arrived and asked Mark
to take pics of them outside the pub and then
shouted him a drink. The bar staff were friendly,
two girls working there way around outback
places in pubs and resorts. In the afternoon
we headed past Beltana which has one of the
three original telegraph repeater stations
that Charles Todd established back in the
1870s when the telegraph was the means of
communication between England and the colonies.
It's pretty much a ghost town and kind of
eerie. A few lived in houses with farmers
wandering around. We were hoping to make it
to Maree for the night at the start of the
Oodnadatta track but made it to Lyndhurst
instead where the bitumen ran out. The lady
in the roadhouse told us we should camp down
along the Strezlecki track that goes up to
Birdsville but to pull far off as the road
trains rumble on this track and the dust spreads
everywhere. We watched the most glorious sunset
over the flat red sunbaked land.
