Road Trippin' - Take Two

I’ll begin this pose with an afterthought from our last road trip.  As I have already mentioned, it was realllllly hot in the campertruck those last few nights up north so our final night we went and took cold showers to cool down before going to sleep.  The bugs didn’t seem too bad so I didn’t bother with the liberal application of DEET that had become a ritual up to that point.  BIG mistake!  I woke up the next morning with more than 100 (literally, more than 100) bites all over me and I am so allergic to them that they swelled up and itched like crazy for DAYS – it was torture.  I took Benadryl, rubbed on itch ease cream and added Advil for good measure, all to no avail.  So finally, the day we left Darwin, I put vanity aside and covered myself in Calomine lotion, the only remedy I hadn’t tried yet, but one that, thankfully, seemed to work.  I looked like a walking polka dot and received ample comments on the street and train ride but it was totally worth it for the relief it provided.  Alex, being the wonderful boyfriend that he is, wanted to make sure my blog wasn’t just full of embarrassing photos of him so he took this one for you all to enjoy. 

We took The Ghan south from Darwin to Adelaide and it wasn’t quite the epic train adventure we expected.  Regularly rated one of the most luxurious train rides in the world, we were expecting our accommodation for the overnight journey (merely two day/night sleeper seats) to be pretty nice so you can imagine our surprise when we entered the train car and were transported back in time to 1972.  Haha, apparently the luxury rating was given for their platinum service.  Those passengers who could afford it had their own apartments that took up an entire train car with private chefs on call.  So there was indeed luxury but none for us – the train didn’t even have TVs or WIFI like those we’d taken up the coast.  Adding insult to injury (I totally regret not getting a photo of this), our seats had a view of the wall between the huge windows looking out over the rugged scenery we’d so looked forward to seeing.  We had to just laugh because the whole thing was so far off base with our expectations.  But we survived and arrived in Alice Springs a day later and no worse for the wear. 

In Alice Springs we secured our next campertruck for our adventure through the Outback on our way to Adelaide and had lunch at a cool bar called Bojangles.  The décor was straight out of Coyote Ugly, only more authentic. 

There we met Bo, the proprietor who also happens to run the local tow truck business, and inquired about whether or not it was safe to cut 170 km off our trip to Kings Canyon by taking an unsealed road on our map (which we needed to do in order to see everything we wanted to on our trip without going over our mileage limit).  He laughed and told us he’d just towed some people from there the day before (haha, yes, this should have been enough for us to know better) but he said the 100km road wasn’t too bad until the last 30kms and we’d be fine in our 4wd Land Cruiser. 

All I can say is Bo lied.  That 100km took us more than two and a half hours and there were times I’m pretty sure, no actually I’m positive, Alex wanted to kill me for even suggesting it (as he was the one driving the nightmare).  We expected a dirt road with some rough spots along the way but we couldn’t have been more wrong… again.  The entire road had little ridges, like the ones you hit when you go outside the lines on the interstate highways, which made the whole car rattle like it was going to fall apart unless you were going super slowly.  And those last 30kms were like a sand dune and we were slipping all over it until Alex locked the hubcaps and put it into 4wd (expressedly against the terms of our relocation rental I should add).  Fortunately we made it but not without a few stressful moments.  For those of you worried about our common sense and/or the choices we’re making over here, rest assured that there will be no more off-roading in Australia; we figure we pushed our luck twice and got lucky both times so there’s no need to tempt fate any further. 

 

I’m going to do a separate post on Uluru (aka Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (aka the Olgas) and Kings Canyon so please forgive me for grazing over them in this post.  You’ll get to see and read all about those in full detail soon enough, but I will share this funny story that should make you guys laugh.

We’d been told we’d see Uluru a long time before we got near it so I was excited, about 140km away, when I spotted it in the distance.  It didn’t look exactly as I’d expected from the photos I’d seen but I pointed it out to Alex and we excitedly stopped at the Mount Conner lookout to take pictures. 

 

While we were there, a guy on a motorcycle stopped me and told me that ‘Yeah, yeah the picture of the rock was great but the real view was across the road and not to miss it’.  I thought surely he was mistaken but we went to check it out anyway.  And he was right because when we walked over the red sand dune, before us stood a huge, white salt flat.  It was really cool, and so unexpected to see in the middle of the red desert. 

From there we kept driving towards Uluru but, as we were driving, the massive rock projection kept getting further and further behind us in the distance so we were pretty confused.  That is until we got about 50kms away from Uluru and saw it for the first time, then we realized that we’d just taken pictures of the wrong rock (we later found out it was Mount Conner, which made the name of the lookout make more sense).  We had a pretty good laugh, and both admitted that if they’d had a campground there we’d have stopped and forever thought we’d seen Uluru, the famous Australian landmark. 

Along the drive south through South Australia, we stopped at some pretty lonely little towns, but none more so than Glendambo.  I think this sign sums it up pretty well.

There we came across a road train with camels, which are pretty prevalent in the Outback though we hadn’t seen any until up to that point, and I thought it was worth a photo.

Another cool sight was the opal fields that we passed midway through our fourth day of the journey.  It was just pile after pile of dirt for miles but I had no idea that is what it would look like.

Alex drove 900+ kms on that fourth day on the road and we’d reached the north end of the Flinders Range by the time we stopped for the night, about 200km north of Adelaide.  The next morning it was like we awoke in different country – the rugged desert of the Outback was behind us and the lush rolling hills of the English countryside had taken its place. 

We still had one more night in the campertruck so we headed to Clare Valley, a wine region known for its Riesling wines, for a day at the vineyards.  Our first stop was Annie’s Lane, a winery known to me from my days at Rattle’N’Hum. 

The tasting there was nice but we were hungry and hadn’t had lunch so we headed back in the direction of town and stopped at a delicious bakery for a quick bite.  Not wanting Alex to drink and drive, or worse, not get to drink, we rented bikes from our caravan park and headed out on, what else, the Riesling Trail to check out some nearby wineries. 

 

 

Seven Hills was first on our bike journey and it was our favorite.  The winery was the first in the area started by Monks more than a century ago and it is still owned by them today.  Their acreage includes this beautiful church and some other gorgeous old stone buildings.

The cellar door where they hold their tastings is rustic and you are greeted by a wood burning fireplace and the winery cat, Maisey, right as you walk in the door.  The wine was good and the man took us through our tasting was informative and lovely.  We also got to go down and see the original cellar, which was really neat. 

 

 

Along the Riesling Trail they also had a very old, historic cemetery that you could visit, though we only stopped to take this quick photo.

Next up was Jeannerat, which came highly recommended from everyone we spoke to.  It was a hilly ride there and I, admittedly, had to stop and walk my bike up a few hills but the ride was scenic and we had a lot of fun biking around.  The winery was small and down an offbeat path but it was worth the peddling to enjoy a private tasting in the small cellar door with just the owner and her granddaughter.

After that we called it quits and headed into town to buy some famous sausages for dinner (one of the most award winning butchers in Australia is located in Clare, a sleep little town in the heart of the Valley).  Alex bbq'd us a wonderful dinner that we ate by the outdoor fireplace in our campervan park before happily spending our last night in the campertruck. 

Now we are in Adelaide until Sunday when we leave for Perth.   The city is beautiful and easy to navigate with many quaint, out of the way pubs and restaurants.  We are enjoying our time here and will be in town for five days this trip and another day or two again in another week on our way back from Perth.  I’m going to try and get another post up about Uluru, Kata Tjuta & Kings Canyon up before we leave but I’m running out of time so it may have to wait a week.  Hope you guys are all doing well back home; look forward to talking with everyone soon!!

Diving the Yongala

We had heard so many great things about the Yongala shipwreck that we decided to take a detour on our way to Darwin to experience it for ourselves.  The boat left early so we cruised down there in our campertruck and spent the night in the dive shop parking lot, which we struggled to find in the dark the previous evening.

The wreck itself is just off of Ayr, six hours south of Cairns and 45 minutes past Townsville.  You can get there via short thirty minute ride from Ayr or a longer three hour ride from Townsville on an overnight boat.  Naturally we chose to go from Ayr but I had no idea what we had signed up for.  The boat that took us out to the wreck, 16 nautical miles from shore, was little more than an inflatable dingy and we had chosen to go out on a day with six foot swells.  Here we are, happy and excited, in front of the boat with our awesome dive group before any of us knew what lay ahead.

I wasn’t the only one who got sea sick and, fortunately for me, even though I felt terrible, I didn’t puke.  Our thirty minute cruise ended up being closer to an hour due to the rough seas and it didn’t take long before I was regretting the trip.  We were a green bunch by the time we tied up amidst the open ocean waves (though Alex and the dive team appeared no worse for the wear) so they got us quickly into the water.  We were literally out in the middle of the ocean, no reefs or anything to break the surge, so the water was quite forceful and we had to pull ourselves along the rope out to the buoy before descending.  The waves were crashing into us and one hit me so hard it knocked my mask off and took my breath away.  Alex got tangled up in one of the mooring lines that a wave washed over him, wrapping it around his neck, until one of the dive instructors was able to free him.  It was a rough start to say the least. 

Underwater wasn’t much better; the surge was tossing us around like rag dolls until we got within a few meters of the wreck.  But then the amazingness unfolded before our eyes and it was unlike anything Alex or I had ever seen.  The wreck lies at the edge of the continental shelf and is the only thing to be found on the sandy bottom for miles so everything, big and small, flocks to it and it is teeming with life.  As you can see from our dive map, the Yongala lies on its side; we began both our dives at the front of the ship, swam down the topside then came back to the line on the underside of the boat. 

I was first struck by the enormity of the wreck.  Lying on its side with coral growing everywhere and more fish than I could ever count; it was breathtaking. 

 

It was awesome; it is illegal (and a $5,000 fine) so swim inside the ship but you could see everything from the outside and these are the remnants of pistons in the ships enginge.

 

The fish were so used to divers that you could just swim amongst them.

 

 

Though some were content just lined up looking out to sea.

This one doesn’t look that big without anything for comparison but this grouper was as big as Alex or me.

There were also lots of other big fish.

And no shortage of little fish or coral either...

 

 

 

It was creepy but we were excited to see a few sea snakes, like this one, too!

And this huge sting ray which we saw immediately upon descending on our first dive.

 

At the end of the day it was worth the hellish boat ride and was, by far, the best diving I had ever done.