Katherine to El Questro via Kununurra

Dear Porky,

We just made it in time again. It was 6:00pm when we arrived at a rest area called Attack Creek 600km south of Alice Springs. The sun sets later in the NT therefor we had an hour extended day light. On arrival we discovered there were heaps of grey nomads with the same idea, but we managed to squeeze in. At night the road trains thundered past. It is a spectacular sight seeing them passing lit up like a casino, every trailer studded with yellow lights top to bottom. In the morning we enjoyed a hearty breakfast till a neighbour removed the contents of his chemical toilet unfortunately without the chemicals. The smell made HER almost vomit. Well, that is life with the travelling grey nomads. The Stuart highway is framed with virtually millions of termite hills, some taller than Walter and look like giant stalagmites. 2:00pm we arrived in Katherine where the smiling face of Di welcomed us. THEY has a few refreshing Vodkas with cranberry juice and later dined out at 'The Fig', a lovely outdoor restaurant run by two women. The establishment looked like a resort in Bali. The next day after all clothes were washed THEY went for a stroll into the city leaving me behind to play with Di's three chooks. One of the fell in love with HIM. After a refreshing glass of beer in a very noisy pub THEY came back and us girls plunged in the gorgeous spa tub in Di's lush tropical garden. Tomorrow we will head off direction Kunanarra. All veggies are cooked and chilling in the fridge,WA does not allow any fruit, vegetables or honey crossing the border. We are reluctant to leave having had the privilege to stay with a Di, a fantastic host and friend. Thank you Di.

This is it for today, dear Porky. As soon as I can I will write again.

Your well travelled Petunia

 

Bonding with Dolores

Back yard bliss

 

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Alice Springs to Katherine

Dear Porky,

We just made it in time again. It was 6:00pm when we arrived at a rest area called Attack Creek 600km south of Alice Springs. The sun sets later in the NT therefor we had an hour extended day light. On arrival we discovered there were heaps of grey nomads with the same idea, but we managed to squeeze in. At night the road trains thundered past. It is a spectacular sight seeing them passing lit up like a casino, every trailer studded with yellow lights top to bottom. In the morning we enjoyed a hearty breakfast till a neighbour removed the contents of his chemical toilet unfortunately without the chemicals. The smell made HER almost vomit. Well, that is life with the travelling grey nomads. The Stuart highway is framed with virtually millions of termite hills, some taller than Walter and look like giant stalagmites. 2:00pm we arrived in Katherine where the smiling face of Di welcomed us. THEY has a few refreshing Vodkas with cranberry juice and later dined out at 'The Fig', a lovely outdoor restaurant run by two women. The establishment looked like a resort in Bali. The next day after all clothes were washed THEY went for a stroll into the city leaving me behind to play with Di's three chooks. One of the fell in love with HIM. After a refreshing glass of beer in a very noisy pub THEY came back and us girls plunged in the gorgeous spa tub in Di's lush tropical garden. Tomorrow we will head off direction Kunanarra. All veggies are cooked and chilling in the fridge,WA does not allow any fruit, vegetables or honey crossing the border. We are reluctant to leave having had the privilege to stay with a Di, a fantastic host and friend. Thank you Di.

This is it for today, dear Porky. As soon as I can I will write again.

Your well travelled Petunia

 

Bonding with Dolores

Back yard bliss

 

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Coober Pedy to Alice

Dear Porky,

We are on the road again heading toward Alice. We past thousands of little opal dig outs and increasing numbers of road trains coming from the north, like the Tanami desert with cattle going to slaughter houses. We refuelled in Alice and turned west to Hermansburg an old Lutheran mission station about 130 km away. The station which is now run entirely by the aboriginal community is situated in the Macdonnell Ranges, a magnificent area with endless change of colours, fantastic river gums, spinifex and other interesting shrubs. We stayed overnight at Muellers Creek,a rest area away from the road and watched the sun set with more than 1 bottle of wine, a wonderfully perfumed fire going and not a soul but us ( well maybe dingos who howled early next morning. With a chilly 4 degrees and 0 degrees in Alice we were glad to have our sleeping bags filled with downs. The next morning we approached Ntaria ( formerly Hermansburg) to get the permit to drive the loop track to go further north into the Macdonnell Ranges. We had to wait a while before the shop opened. While we were waiting the shopkeeper and the service attendant (same person) discovered that someone over night broke the lock at the bowser and nicked massive amount of fuel. So there was a bit of commotion for 10 minutes, however we got our permit for $10 and off we went onto the track. After approximately 15km of this dirt road we had to make a decision whether we wanted to carry on for the next 90km, because this road had not seen a grater for decades and the corrugation was so severe HE did not know whether the car would survive this stretch. HE tried different speeds: 60km, 80km and 20km, nothing worked. The rent a cars and Holden Sedans, driven by the locals,flew by with an enormous speed.We decided it was not worth to risk the car, besides HE could not enjoy the view and she thought she is loosing all her fillings in her teeth. After turning around we saw what damage it can do to a car, we saw car parts everywhere on the side of the track. It made us feel good about that decision to turn around. Alice hosted the following night the world biggest Beeny Festival with entries of over 6000 bee entries from all over the world. Unfortunately we missed that, because we decided to press on toward Katherine via Tenant Creek.

I will write soon again, till then

Ciao Petunia

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lake Eyre to Coober Pedy

Dear Porky,

Oondadatta track is wonderful even though the road is challenging

 

 

By late afternoon we arrived at Coober Pedy and stayed at Mt. Stuart Randell caravan park with all the facilities like washing machine, hot showers etc. we wandered along the akin drag, but to HER the town was tacky, nothing what she expected. HER expectations where sweaty outback blokes with hairy armpits, tattoos and worn in felt hats, slightly insane people muttering to themselves living in holes or dug out caves. Instead there was a classy hotel, a lot of mining museums, backpacker accommodation in 'real' caves, opal shops r( the best and cheapest fire opals ever!) and tours to mines and surroundings from$5 to $230 . Well THEY did have a mixed grill at the local diner called John's Pizza Bar which was the size of a 'mates plate' SHE had with Pia in Perth. So THEY shared one. We called it a early night, because it was rather frigid at night again and snuggled up in our feather down sleeping bags. Early in the morning we left for Alice springs. Dear porky that is it for now.

Love Petunia

 

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Sunrise over Lake Eyre

 

 

 

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Adelaide to South Lake Eyre

 

Dear Porky,

as you can see THEY are comfortably travelling. We left for Port Augusta at dawn and arrived in Port Augusta in the afternoon, did some shopping and went on the Stuart Highway towards Roxby Downs. After delivering a cheese board to 'Egg' in Roxby Downs we turned into Borefield Road to connect with the Oondadatta Track. The road was just opened again after the flooding they has recently there. There was a lot of Dips and Grids and partly bumpy, but we made to the track and arrived again shortly before sunset, had a quick meal and went to bed because the outside life at 6 degrees was not appealing at all. Early in the morning we watched the sun rising over Lake Eyre, what an incredible sight.

Loved it a lot.

Petunia

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Melbourne to Adelaide

Dear Porky,

We had a lovely journey along the highway and arrived in Adelaide in the afternoon, the weather was great for travelling, overcast sky with a little sunshine in between. After loading up with wine at Dan Murphy's and a little shopping at Coles we posted Pia's Tassie drivers licence which she forgot to take out of our glove box and we were on the road again. SHE was a bit worried about Kangaroos crossing the road, because the sun was setting real fast. Thank goodness we arrived at Parham just before darkness. Parham is 60km north of Adelaide and has a rest area with overnight camping. 8m away from us was a tent which had 2 male occupants, we never saw them, but my word we heard them loud and clear. Their communication was restricted to 3 sentences: you f.... dog, no you can't have the f..... cordial, you can get f..... This went on for about 1 hour, till HE got his iPod out, so that the music over played this interesting conversation. We slept well and got up real early to have breakfast (well deserved after yesterday's fast day), even though the temperature was about 7degrees, a little fresh for HER liking. Soon we were on the road again and headed for Roxby Downs via Port Augusta.

Will write to you soon.

Cheers

Petunia

 

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Tassie to Mainland

Dear Porky,

We are finally on the road and had a cruisy trip on the midland highway. At 4:30pm we arrived at the boat to be ready for boarding. Unfortunately THEY left me in the car on deck 5 which has a split level to house larger cars like our camper van on the left side and sedans on the right then they lower on the right side a 2. level to accommodate another lot of vehicles. In one of those cars was a dog left behind and it was barking the whole night, so I got hardly any sleep, while THEY were wining and dining and smoking, with other words: THEY had fun! We arrived at 6am and navigated through Melbourne and met the girls in Bezzell Street to have champagne breakfast followed by a little handy work of HIM to install curtain rails in the house. Later THEY met up with the girls again and of course their partners and had terrific Nepalese food on Sydney Road, which was authentic Gurkha. The following morning we left Bezzell Street and drove off to Sunshine West and were welcomed by Steve and JO only to leave me behind again, because THEY went off to have Yum Cha, but managed to get back by dusk. The evening was lovely, more wining and dining again. The following morning we quietly left at 8:15 to begin our trip to the Kimberley's. Well, that's all for now. I will write again soon.

Love Petunia

 

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