The needle points north

We have come a long way since Broken Hill! At the moment, we're in Alice Springs and we've been to Uluru and Kata Tjuta and to Kings Canyon; all very spectacular places!

Broken Hill is a long way from Uluru and we have done a lot of driving over the past few days. The Silver City Highway took us north from Broken Hill, to a town called Tibooburra (pop. 90). The highway was partly unsealed and not very good. But five hours later we did arrive in Tibooburra. We went to the pub to meet some locals. It did not have many customers as it was around 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, but there was one odd one. After many minutes of listening to him talking, we finished our beers and politely left the pub. By that stage it was getting close to 3pm and this particular pub customer wanted to head back to Broken Hill. We thought it was a little late for that, considering it would take a while and the sun would set about two hours later (and then there's a large change of hitting an emu or a kangaroo). "No worries," according to this person, "I've got a roo bar." So that's why there were so many dead kangaroos on the side of the road!

Tibooburra is the 'gateway to the Sturt National park'. The park showed the same barren landscape we had seen from the highway for a number of hours. However, the large population of red kangaroos did impress us, and we set up a nice camp for the night. The next day we pushed on to get into South Australia. To get into SA from NSW we had to pass through the dingo fence, a 5400 km fence to keep the dingoes out of NSW, parts of QLD and parts of SA. We made sure to close the gate, since failing to close it would cost us a fair bit in fines. At Cameron Corner (at the three state border) we filled up for $2 per liter (our most expensive fill-up so far) and left for the Strzelecki Track in SA. This track was in good condition and quite wide. It was also rather boring. White sand dunes would slowly change into red sand dunes. So when we saw a turn-off after 150kms we decided to take this road. Only to land on another dirt road for 200kms! But in the end it was worth it, because it led to the North Flinders Ranges National Park (also known as something else, but can't reminder this at the moment). This park was quite beautiful with its rocks and mountains. The end of the track led to Lyndhurst, a small town in SA which is the start/finish point for the Strzelecki and Oodnadatta tracks (our next track). At Lyndhurst we had another beer and chatted with another local who was not so local after all. It was a German girl dying to stay in Lyndhurst, but because of the economical crisis not allowed a permanent visa or something. Believe us; not many people would want to stay in such a small town, so that was quite remarkable!

From Lyndhurst we started the Oodnadatta Track. While this track was quite boring like the Strzelecki Track, we did like seeing the slow change in landscape. The sand dunes because flat, and little shrubs started to show, and sometimes even trees. Desert landscapes are quite diverse. And quite full of eagles (especially when there's a dead kangaroo around).

After a top up of diesel in Marree we drove further on the Oodnadatta Track. We drove past Lake Eyre South, but heard that, despite a bit of rain fall, the lake was not worth stopping at. We stopped there anyway, but the people were right. Lake Eyre apparently has only been filled three times in the last 100 years! From there, we went to William Creek, with the idea of spending the night there. But we found the little village (pop. 12) very strange! The pub there is full of people's (old) identity cards, money, bras, hats, undies, business cards, students cards, etc. So we can only assume that lots of people must have had a ball at this pub. But we found it strange, with very strange people in it, so we decided to move on, even though the sun had already set.

Coober Pedy was our next stop, but we weren't that interested. It was interesting to see the dug-outs, but we didn't hang around too much. From Coober Pedy, it's only around 400kms to the Northern Territory, so we were existed to push through! Once on the Stuart Highway, people didn't wave as much as they had done previously, but that didn't matter. We had sealed road again after at least 1500kms of unsealed road!! Our poor man's cruise control (pulling out the choke far enough so it'll stick to about 85kms) wasn't good enough anymore and we 'floored it' to 110km p/h. Roughly 700kms later we arrived at Uluru, just in time for sunset. The views were amazing and the rock itself it breathtaking.

The next morning, we saw Uluru changing colours at sunrise from grey to orange to bright red. It was amazing! Later that day, we went into the park, had a great Aboriginal history lesson in the cultural centre and walked around Uluru. The detail in the rock is amazing and so beautiful, it is hard to describe. It is very understandable why a lot of Australians don’t get to see Uluru; yes, it is a very long way to get there, yes, it is very expensive to get there, but it is worth going there! A quick, distant few, does not do justice to this huge bit of nature. Walking around it made us really appreciate its size and its age. It is just gorgeous to see how this massive rock has eroded over time and it is really hard to explain. We were just really happy to have come here and see it for ourselves.

The Kata Tjuta (the Olga's), that we visited the next day, were not as impressive as this solid rock called Uluru, but still very magnificent. We did quite a difficult valley rock at Kata Tjuta and just felt like ants. Kata Tjuta stands nearly 600 meters above the ground and is very impressive, especially when you walk around it.

We have also been to Kings Canyon, which was the most spectacular site so far! You just have to see it for yourselves! We'll post some more photos of this later.

We're in Alice Springs because we have some car trouble. But since coming here, the weird noise doesn't come up anymore, so the mechanic doesn't know what's wrong with the car! We'll have to stick around for a bit to see if the noise comes up again and get it fixed.

By the way, it's nice and warm now and not so cold at night anymore!