KAKADU - PORT AUGUSTA

KAKADU
I was expecting this place to be one of the best national parks and maybe it is for others but it wasn’t anything special from the road which is a shame when you have kiddies and a caravan and most of the roads are dirt and not the best to travel on, or they are just not easily accessed. The Lakeview caravan park was really good we had a nice grassy site with a concrete slab and we even had an ensuite which was real handy as we had a lot of stuff in our shower and it meant we didnt need to get everything out. It was really warm so we had a water fight and played babmington. We just drove through Kakadu over the croc infested looking creeks (never spotted one though). Maybe later when the weather is nicer and the kids are bigger we can do the treks and tracks of Kakadu.


MATARANKA
I loved this place when I visited 20 years ago I loved the thermal pool. I had a lot of fun here it was great but now they have made the walk track to the pool a bit better to walk to and they have put walls in the pool around the edges which has made it more of a pool look. They did this because the side of the natural thermal pool had started to erode so they just built it up a little. Clint did not like the campsite much (actually he hated it) there wasn’t a designated caravan site. So when he asked the caretakers they said just park it anywhere where there is a power point? Ok, there’s only one moron.

I took the kids for a walk while Clint set the van up just to let him cool down a bit. He was keen to leave the next day so we woke early and went down to the pool for a swim about 7am, it was more of an early morning bath and oh so lovely. He was well impressed at the pool and the kids had a ball swimming. There was quite a few backpackers staying at the park and Shelby and Slade managed to wake them all up before we left. After the swim it was back on the road heading to Alice Springs.


We stopped at Hi way Inn Roadhouse for lunch, there was an old crashed plane, a retired tractor and some painted water tanks. While we ate our sandwiches we had the company of a few pesky birds waiting for you to drop a crumb. We refueled at Elliott which was a sleepy town with lots of darkies sitting around doing nothing…drinking. Clint had a lengthy conversation with the fuel station owner about the cruiser, he also had one that he was in love with and would drive up to Darwin shopping going flat out due to the speed limit being 130kms per hour!! He says he dragged an SS Commodore and clocked it at 240kms and the cruiser was still wanting to go faster. You meet some interesting folks.

Tennant Creek
WE arrived in Tennant Creek around 4.30pm the cops were setting up a RBT as you enter the little town, getting ready for the festive season so we heard. We stayed at the outback caravan park which was not busy just an overnight stay. We got up early the next morning to head to Alice Springs.
A really nice drive to Alice Springs the scenery was different with a lot of wide open spaces and then some plateaus.

Devils Marbles
We stopped at a place called Devils Marbles which were some really big boulders. We just drove past and took a couple of pics. Yeah they were big rocks but let’s just get to the really big rock. I couldn’t wait for Clint to see it, I had been 20 years ago so I knew how enormous it was.

Wycliffe Wells
Next stop for lunch was Wycliffe Wells, well what a place this is. They say that Wycliffe has been visited by aliens and they have all sorts of paraphernalia of aliens, newspaper clippings of sightings and weird happenings. Whatever happened it was really cool and the kids loved it. Out the back of the fuel station there was a caravan park and they had large lifelike superhero statues like Elvis, Incredible Hulk and the phantom. All the old vans were painted colourful. Here is where we met the Camel man and he had been travelling around Australia with his 2 camels.


Aileron
Next stop or drive through was Aileron which is a 3 house town and there are 2 statues of aboriginal’s one male and one female with a little girl they looked to be made out of iron or something about 50 feet high…good to see. Shelby had a giggle as the statues were NUDE!!!

Alice Springs
Finally arrived in Alice Springs at 5ish and booked straight into the big4 which was shady grassy with a concrete slab. Very neat parks the Big 4s, you pay a bit extra but they have all the facilities required. We had 2 nights here, we stocked up the food but didn’t do any sightseeing due to the kids being on house arrest for misbehaving…oh well next time.

Ayers Rock
It was a long drive to Ayers rock but a good one the scenery was pretty special. We saw a Japanese guy riding a bike to ayer’s rock about 130kms out. He didn’t get to the rock until late in the afternoon the next day. We arrived at the caravan park in the afternoon set up and then set off to see the rock at sunset we also had a look at the swimming pool. There was rather a large charge to go into the park to see the rock, $25 per person fortunately we did not have to pay for the kids. 20 years ago you used to be able to just drive on through. We met a nice couple who camped beside us Neil and Kate, Kate was Scottish and Neil was English they were travelling for 6 months and then heading to NZ. We met them out at the sunset and they took a beautiful picture of us all together which we don’t often have.

The next day we went out to the rock early and Clint climbed it, I waited with the kids down at the base. I knew he wouldn’t take long and he wasn’t. The climbed up and down it in an hour and 10 mins the fit bugger. He kindly said that I would have trouble climbing it. I didn’t doubt him. I was mesmerized by the size of it, I had seen it before but it still is amazing to see. We sat at the bottom and met some tourists and I took some photos of them on the rock. Then we went to see the cultural centre near the rock and had a look at some aboriginal displays and then headed back to the resort for some lunch and a shopping spree on souvenirs. We took a drive to the Olga's and there were pretty special looking giants rocks as well. The kids were asleep and it was much too hot to drag them out, so Clint ventured out for a walk while I stopped and looked at the wildlife. Not the kids this time just birds.

Then back to the caravan to pack up to go to Kings Canyon.

Kings Canyon
We spent one night at Kings Canyon the sunset was beautiful to see. I was keen to spot a dingo for Gareth as he didn’t get a picture of one, so I was trying to get a picture for him. Didn’t think I would see one and just as I was going to head inside for the night after telling Clint we probably wouldn’t see one, a dingo ran behind the toilets. I jumped up and ran inside to get the camera while our neighbours, a young couple from Melbourne dived in their van to hide!! Funny funny…I went over to them and had a laugh with them. We went for a walk to Kings Canyon definitely no water there, dry as a bone.

Coober Pedy
The next day we had a long drive ahead of us all the way to Coober Pedy. We got up at 5.30am and set of on the long journey. We met Neil and Kate at the Erlunda Roadhouse had a coffee and a tasty and on the road we went. We stopped for lunch at a roadhouse just after the SA border and chopped up all our cucumber, celery, carrots which the kids ate in the car, all of it.

We knew we were getting close to Coober Pedy because you could see all the dug out mines. We arrived at the big 4 Oasis Caravan Park…no jumpy pillow or green grass, you needed a key for water to be connected to the van and it cost you $5 but it was peacefully enjoyable. They had 2 large cement water tanks that the park had converted into a video room and the other was dug out and turned into a below ground circle shaped swimming pool, icy cold too.

Clint took Slade and Shelby on a tour of the town while I stayed with Isla who needed to catch up on some naptime. They went to see an underground house, an old mine and the big winch and a crackpot with made up rubbish, selling moon rocks.


Port Augusta
WE left Coober Pedy to go to Port Augusta. This was a nice drive and we passed many salt lakes which were huge. We arrived in Port Augusta about 3pm set the van up and then headed to Tara and terry’s house for a bbq. Shona’s mum Tina met us at the caravan park and we followed her to their house. We had a nice dinner and met terry’s family and grandfather and met taras dad terry. Slade played with the wii and as usual played it like a champ. They had a beautiful old house which I really loved with the high ceilings. All was going good until Shelby’s ears started hurting, I think it was the start of an ear infection. So after comforting her on the outdoor swing chair Isla decided she would fall of the swing and land straight on her head. It was a quick visit but a good one.

The next day we made an appointment for Shelby and Isla to check their ears.

The flying mattress.
This story begins like…lazy boy slade wet the bed again!! So clint put his mattress out to dry and be aired on the table we found at Ayers Rock. The girls then wanted to play playdough and they wanted t o use the table so Clint put the mattress on the roof rack. We rushed off to the doctors and after the doctors we went to get lunch and we came home to eat it. The doctor gave us a script for antibiotics and advised us to take them so Shelby wouldn’t get any worse. Isla was ok. The xmas pageant was on in port Augusta but it was a bit too windy and we didn’t want to make Shelby’s ear any worse. At about 5ish I asked Clint to bring the mattress in so I could make the bed. Clint thought that I had already made the bed and I just wondered where he dried it. After a bit of a look around Clint realized that he didn’t take it off the roof racks and that it probably flew off when we went to the doctors. We went up and down the main road driving walking asking people looking into backyards, but came to the conclusion that some homeless person had scored a really nice bed for the night. Later in the night Tara and terry popped in for a drink and they stayed until 1am. Before we left in the morning we had one more scout around for the mattress just to ease our minds but no mattress in sight.

So its off to Adelaide to see Wendy and Scott and do some christmas shopping...Yippee.

See all the pictures here (copy the link and paste to a new browser window)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050362&id=1178196973&l=de1ba00ef3