Our Coddiwomple takes a PAUSE

Following a busy afternoon cleaning dust out of the caravan, replacing lost screws and tightening the loose ones we hit the sack thoroughly tired hoping that a good nights sleep would make for a relaxed day of driving to our planned destination of Lorella Springs.

Unfortunately, the next morning prior to setting off, we received news from family in Canada that resulted in us suspending our Coddiwomple around Australia while we make a visit to Canada.  With that decision made we now needed to get back to our base in Adelaide to secure the car and caravan at home so instead of turning right we turned left at the next intersection and began the journey south through the Red Centre of Australia.

We didn’t do much en-route other than stop for fuel, to sleep and, in Alice Springs, to book some plane tickets.

First night we stayed at the Daly Waters Pub.  As it happens, This bush pub is featured in our book so we also made sure we got a signature from the publican.

Inside the Daly Waters Pub the walls are covered in
all sorts of things including bank notes, coins, hats, bras, undies
and footwear.
I don't know why - it just is!

We spent the next night camped near the Devil's Marbles and just a little down the highway the next morning we had an alien encounter at Wycliffe Well - the self-proclaimed 'UFO Capital of Australia'.

Apparently Wycliffe Well is used as a landing pad for UFOs!

Another bush pub in the book is the Barrow Creek Hotel.  We duly pulled off of the highway and had the publican sign his page.  Les was terrific and very obliging with his time - thanks Les!

Les Picton has been the publican of the Barrow Creek Hotel for over 30 years!

We needed a couple of days in Alice Springs in the Red Centre to arrange our travel tickets and once these were in hand we continued southward into South Australia and on towards Adelaide.

We made a brief stop in Alice Springs on our way south

Overnight in Marla and then we were in Coober Pedy - the largest Opal field in Australia.

Our ute parked in front of the Welcome to Coober Pedy sign

It gets mighty hot in Coober Pedy in the summer (routinely above 40C and even 45C is not unusual).  As a result of the heat, many people live in homes dug into the ground where the temperature is a very comfortable 25C all year round.  They even have underground churches!

Each vent chimney indicates an underground room.
The vents allow the moisture from the occupants' breath to escape.
We don't want the walls to get muddy do we?

Inside the Serbian Orthodox Church in (under?) Coober Pedy

The country side immediately around Coober Pedy is covered in mullock (waste) heaps from diggings for as far as the eye can see, however, about 35km from town the waste heaps give way to 'The Breakaways' which are a natural feature of the landscape.  These should not be missed if you have cause to visit the area.  You may have seen these ochre coloured hills without knowing it as they have been featured in a number of movies including Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Just a sample of The Breakaway hills near Coober Pedy

The next day we made it to Port Augusta for the night.  A short 300km jaunt the following morning had us back home and the caravan on our own driveway for the first time in a little over 3 months.

I apologise if this blog appears a bit rushed but I just wanted to tie-up the loose ends and wrap things up before we depart for Canada.  I hope you have enjoyed the ride as much as we did!

You never know but WTF? - Where are The Farrows? may post something from Canada.  If not, you will next hear from us when we resume our Coddiwomple upon our return to Australia.

Karumba to Borroloola (& the end of our Savannah Way journey - for now)

Stage 2 of our Savannah Way journey took us from Karumba in Queensland (QLD) to Borroloola in the Northern Territory (NT).

Just a short drive from Karumba is the town of Normanton.  Normanton is famous for being the location in which the world's largest crocodile, named ‘Krys The Savannah King’, used to live (it was shot in 1957).  To provide some perspective, today, a saltwater crocodile is considered large when it is 4m in length, and HUGE if it is 5m long.  Krys, was 8.6m long (28ft 4in) and weighed 2 tonnes!  A scale replica is one of the key attractions on Normanton’s main street along with ‘The Purple Pub’.

Heather beside a life-size replica of 'Krys The Savannah King'

'The Purple Pub' in Normanton.  I wonder why they call it that?

After Normanton we stopped for a night at Leichhardt Falls before continuing on to Burketown for fuel then to our next overnight stop at the Hells Gate Roadhouse.

Interesting name and quite apt given the road we were about to drive!

With over 300km until the next available fuel we topped up the tank once again - this time at $1.95/litre! and then hit the dirt road that joined Hell’s Gate in QLD and Borroloola in the NT.

The road from Burketown was great.  The road in the NT...not so good!

After 3 months on the road we had finally made it into the Northern Territory!

Well, to say the road was rough would be an understatement!  Corrugations kept us company the entire way with the last 30km being particularly tough!  By the time we got to Borroloola five & a half hours after we had set-off we climbed into the caravan to set-up for the night.  It was then that we discovered the following list of issues had developed during the trip:

• Numerous internal screws had come loose and / or fallen out of window and door frames;
• The metal frame holding the microwave oven in place had cracked in 4 places with the microwave now sitting loose within its housing;
• Caravan battery ‘hold-down’ brackets (4 long bolts with ‘nyloc (won’t vibrate loose) nuts’) had vibrated loose and the two batteries (35kg each) had shifted within their frames;
• A cooling fan at the rear of the fridge no longer functioned;
• A grey water plumbing line had cracked;
• Front window cover strut had broken off;
• Two of four shock absorbers were weeping oil after having been given a rigorous workout

It wasn’t just the caravan that had been shaken up.  The ute had a few loose nuts and bolts too.  It was time to stop for a while and clean out the caravan, to tighten what was loose and to try to repair any of the damage where possible so that we could continue towards Darwin.

In the next post, WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, get some news that sees us changing our direction of travel.