Good Morning Woomera!
Low 9°c (48°F) – High 20°c (68°F)
The sunrise pretty much set the tone for the day - dramatic! It was a very overcast morning and no real sunrise to speak of. We set off around 9.30am with our original trip plan to stop at the Bon Bon Rest Area – albeit only 204km up the road. This took us through Glendambo where recent flooding blocked 250km of the highway in January/February this year. There were reports of some Northern-Territory bound road trains having to take a 3000-kilometre detour to reach their destination. It was evident there was still a lot of water yet to subside even now and significant repairs to be done to roads once this is gone. We had never seen this area so wet on any of our previous trips.
The Stuart Highway has many rest areas, situated approximately 70km apart and usually bearing the name of the local farming station in that area. The highway itself, approximately 2,720km running between Port Augusta and Darwin, is named in honour of John McDouall Stuart who was the first man to cross Australia from south to north and back, on foot without a permanent source of running water, notably making it back alive. Given it was 2,415km between Port Augusta and the Katherine River, this remains one of the most incredible achievements in the history of exploration, taking nine months to go north and another five months to get back to Adelaide in 1862.
The day was completely overcast and the light simply got worse as the morning wore on. We had almost reached Bon Bon when we decided it was far too early to stop just for the sake of a freecamp. There wouldn’t be much to see, no internet or phone connectivity and we would just be sitting in the van reading for something to do for several hours. We pushed on and eventually pulled into the Ingomar Rest Area, another 77kms further, around 2.30pm. Along the way we passed the Royal Flying Doctor Service’s emergency landing strip, a two km section of the highway that has been cleared on either side and widened to form a runway for RFDS planes. We also came across one of our large feathered friends who was keen to keep his find of some roadkill and dragged it across the road to safety away from oncoming traffic.
There were a number of other cars and vans at Ingomar, but they had obviously only stopped for a break as they soon left. Some time later another van pulled in up the other end and stayed the night, a few others came and went but eventually it was just the two vans.
In hindsight we probably should have kept driving because we still had the same issue, low light, nothing much to take photos of and no phone reception. Not that the latter was particularly a problem, but given the weather deteriorated hour by hour we may as well have been driving as we couldn’t get outside to enjoy any sunshine. Add to this the fact that after lighting the fridge on gas, I could smell gas in the van. Rather than die a nasty death we opted to just keep the fridge cold with a freezer block which worked just fine. And just to add insult to injury – the issue we thought had been fixed with our 12 volt lights (half of which would only intermittently work) decided to stop working again. Great timing as we experienced the darkest night we’ve seen in a long while. There was literally no moonlight, stars or even a distant glow in the sky. It was pitch black outside. Thank heaven for torches. Then down came the rain. Time for bed even though it was barely 9.00pm.
Low 9°c (48°F) – High 20°c (68°F)
The sunrise pretty much set the tone for the day - dramatic! It was a very overcast morning and no real sunrise to speak of. We set off around 9.30am with our original trip plan to stop at the Bon Bon Rest Area – albeit only 204km up the road. This took us through Glendambo where recent flooding blocked 250km of the highway in January/February this year. There were reports of some Northern-Territory bound road trains having to take a 3000-kilometre detour to reach their destination. It was evident there was still a lot of water yet to subside even now and significant repairs to be done to roads once this is gone. We had never seen this area so wet on any of our previous trips.
The Stuart Highway has many rest areas, situated approximately 70km apart and usually bearing the name of the local farming station in that area. The highway itself, approximately 2,720km running between Port Augusta and Darwin, is named in honour of John McDouall Stuart who was the first man to cross Australia from south to north and back, on foot without a permanent source of running water, notably making it back alive. Given it was 2,415km between Port Augusta and the Katherine River, this remains one of the most incredible achievements in the history of exploration, taking nine months to go north and another five months to get back to Adelaide in 1862.
The day was completely overcast and the light simply got worse as the morning wore on. We had almost reached Bon Bon when we decided it was far too early to stop just for the sake of a freecamp. There wouldn’t be much to see, no internet or phone connectivity and we would just be sitting in the van reading for something to do for several hours. We pushed on and eventually pulled into the Ingomar Rest Area, another 77kms further, around 2.30pm. Along the way we passed the Royal Flying Doctor Service’s emergency landing strip, a two km section of the highway that has been cleared on either side and widened to form a runway for RFDS planes. We also came across one of our large feathered friends who was keen to keep his find of some roadkill and dragged it across the road to safety away from oncoming traffic.
There were a number of other cars and vans at Ingomar, but they had obviously only stopped for a break as they soon left. Some time later another van pulled in up the other end and stayed the night, a few others came and went but eventually it was just the two vans.
In hindsight we probably should have kept driving because we still had the same issue, low light, nothing much to take photos of and no phone reception. Not that the latter was particularly a problem, but given the weather deteriorated hour by hour we may as well have been driving as we couldn’t get outside to enjoy any sunshine. Add to this the fact that after lighting the fridge on gas, I could smell gas in the van. Rather than die a nasty death we opted to just keep the fridge cold with a freezer block which worked just fine. And just to add insult to injury – the issue we thought had been fixed with our 12 volt lights (half of which would only intermittently work) decided to stop working again. Great timing as we experienced the darkest night we’ve seen in a long while. There was literally no moonlight, stars or even a distant glow in the sky. It was pitch black outside. Thank heaven for torches. Then down came the rain. Time for bed even though it was barely 9.00pm.
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