Good Morning Ingomar!
Low 12°c (54°F)
– High 19°c (66°F)
I woke around 4.30am to hear steady rain
on the roof and didn’t really go back to sleep properly after that time. We had a bit of a laugh about the fact that I
had asked Shane to put a bucket under the outlet of the van so we wouldn’t
leave a big puddle of water in the carpark.
Oddly – the rain had obviously been coming from one side all night as
when we looked out the door, the fence posts were only wet on one side.
The rain continued for the best part of
the day so we decided to continue to drive as far as we could to try to outrun
it. That may or may not have been a good idea – as
it turned into an almost 500km day.
Every place we looked at stopping was incredibly wet including Coober
Pedy where the street corners were under water and the petrol station almost required
waders just to fill up with fuel. The
caravan park here is usually a dust bowl so I can only imagine the mud – we passed
on that.
Somewhere just out of Coober Pedy we had
to pull off the road completely to allow a wide load to pass. These are generally referred to in our car as
a “Big A$$ something-or-other (fill in the blank here)”. A few years back we passed a BA Bucket and a
BA Wheel. They are generally mining
equipment but fascinating to see. No
idea what this was but definitely big enough to warrant a Big A$$ title!
Thankfully there was very little wind but
the rain was certainly character building with a large number of road trains
travelling south. The spray that hit
your windscreen every time rendered you completely blind for a couple of
seconds which was quite scary not knowing what was behind it. Thankfully we struck none heading north and
passing us which would have been worse.
We had also intended on staying at Cadney
Park but it was far too wet as well. A
wet dog in a caravan is not a pleasant holiday I can assure you having been to
many dog shows in the rain with a van to stay overnight. Bit by bit the rain cleared and the clouds
parted. After passing what was to be our
destination in 2 days time, and finally crossing the border into the Northern
Territory (after stopping for a customary coffee and piece of fruit cake – and checking
out the burnt out car, the irony of it being beside a sign saying “Please leave
rest area clean & tidy”), we decided to end the day’s travel at Kulgera
Roadhouse, just over the NT border. I
can tell you I was well and truly ready to stop. It was a very long day. The sites in the park are pretty cosy with
not much room to set up, but we have power for the night and the ground is dry
so we’re happy.
Kulgera is the most southerly town in the Northern Territory and close
to the geographical central point of Australia although we are not planning to
visit that either given the state of the roads at the moment. The roadhouse where we are camping does a
pretty good hamburger as we discovered tonight.
I mean who wants to cook dinner after 500kms on the road?
We
managed to book in to Alice Springs from tomorrow night and will be spending a
few days there for a bit of down time.
We’ve certainly skated over a lot of what the Port Pirie to Alice
section has to offer but we’ve already done most of this trip 3 times over the
past 6 years and there is a lot to see in Western Australia which will be our
focus soon.
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