We don't send postcards usually, we post them here.

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Innamincka



One of our number was expecting more from Innamincka. I'm not sure just how much more one can wring out of a town with a population hovering around fifteen, and riding the rich oil and gas boom.


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Monday 29 June 2009

The Cooper



Even though there was plenty of water in the river, the flats give some sort of indication that the floods bring plenty more.

The view from the back of our tent at Cullymurra.


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Sunday 28 June 2009

Cullymurra Waterhole



Just another one of those tiresome views from our tent.

Cullymurra Waterhole is on the Cooper, about 15 kilometres from Innamincka, and within a stone's throw of the place where explorer's Burke and Wills shuffled off their respective mortal coils. To be more accurate, it's a stone's throw from Burke's final resting spot, Wills made it another twenty or so kilometres.


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Saturday 27 June 2009

Colours



The desert colours provide an endless fascination for us, with the flat bits sometimes contrasting with the dunes, sometimes blending perfectly in different shades.

Who thought this stuff up?


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Friday 26 June 2009

Moomba



Gas is just one reason why it's not that easy to find solitude in the desert any more. Oil is another. Gold exploration teams, and Japanese cyclists vie for third.

The Moomba gas structures loom like some sort of alien machine in the middle of the Strzelecki Desert, which is exactly what they are when you think about it.


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Thursday 25 June 2009

Montecollina


The water from the bore arrives at around fifty degrees celcius which is just about perfect for filling a billy to do the washing up in.

Not bad for a shower either, but a bit sulphorous to make a nice cup of tea with.


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Wednesday 24 June 2009

Breakfast at Montecollina Bore



Once again the sight of waterbirds in the middle of the desert fascinated us, and for that matter everyone else we met. It's not as though it's one lost soul with a defective satnav either.

I've taken a photo similar to this one from our back steps, so I'm not sure why we needed to drive 10,000 k's just to get another!


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Tuesday 23 June 2009

Alone


We were completely alone and isolated at the bore, except of course for the crew of mineral exploration blokes, their drilling team, their generator and their flood lights.

Sunset was nice though.


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Monday 22 June 2009

Camping on the North Shore



It was a very bizarre experience, finding Montecollina Bore half way up the Strzelecki Track amid the dunes. It felt so much like camping on Fraser Island that it was uncanny.

Although the dingoes weren't quite so silent.


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Sunday 21 June 2009

Back in the red



Back in the desert our Suzuki starts to look quite small, but there again so do road trains.

It's hard to imagine how comfortable one can feel when enveloped in nothingness, but in reality one can feel very comfortable indeed.


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Saturday 20 June 2009

Guard of honour



Leaving Arkaroola, three of the ten identified pairs of Wedgetail eagles in the Flinders Ranges, watch to make sure we aren't taking anything that doesn't belong to us.

This bloke was completely unfazed as I drove slowly to within eight or ten metres of him (OK, well you tip toe towards a wedgetail and tell me how you get on), although his mates were a little more conservative.


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Friday 19 June 2009

Re-leaving Arkaroola


Definitely too miserable for walking, and with the prospect of rain on the southern part of the Strzelecki Track we sadly decide to move on once more. It's not long before the desert flat land returns and we look over our shoulder and bid the mountains farewell.


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Thursday 18 June 2009

This isn't Kansas anymore, Toto



Of course it's still in the Flinders, but the mind numbing changes in topography and vegetation leave one wondering if one isn't in the centre of some vast landscaped garden. One moment we are walking happily in a sandy creek bed among three hundred year old red gums, then we look up and there's nothing but native pine. The slate grey sky didn't help orient us either.


A few minutes later, we'll be in a lunarscape, devoid of all but what at first glance appears to be lawn, but turns out to be a peculiar green gravel.


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Wednesday 17 June 2009

Carrying On Regardless



It was cold, damp, and there wasn't a mountain in sight above the clouds, so we did the only thing we could.

We carried on along the ridgetops, stopping only for the odd gasp.

The Flinders Ranges are expecting us to return.


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Tuesday 16 June 2009

Back to the Flinders


We figured that surely after a week, the rain would have left Wilpena, and we'd have a week of clear sunny skies.

We didn't figure correctly, but we also couldn't believe how much the landscape reminded us of a certain school of naive painters. Perhaps they were realists after all?


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Monday 15 June 2009

Interpreting Road Signs in the Northern Territory - 2


"Congratulations, you've successfully negotiated the dangerous bit."


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Sunday 14 June 2009

Interpreting Road Signs in the Northern Territory - 1


"We strongly advise you take care, as there is a corner approaching over this blind crest."


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Saturday 13 June 2009

Winery


Not all wine is produced romantically in large vats hidden in dark cellars, but there is always a rolling hill in the background.


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Friday 12 June 2009

Grapes


Do they really come in all those colours Mum?


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Thursday 11 June 2009

The Clare Valley



Then we stayed for a few days in the Clare Valley, one of South Australia's noted wine making regions, famous for its Rieslings but awfully chillly.

Grape vines can look quite splendid too.

Apparently.


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Wednesday 10 June 2009

It can't be real!


We headed south into the rain and cold, relieved to be free of the beauty we had been immersed in, comforted by the site of the odd man made structure, we'd even seen a cake behind a counter at the petrol stop, then we came on this.

It wasn't enough to have bright red soil, the freshly shooting grass crop was fluorescing in the drizzle, and the autumn leaves were not a sight to which we have been accustomed.

Aaaarrgh, find me something that doesn't look like a chocolate box top... please!!


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Tuesday 9 June 2009

The View Deteriorates



By the time we made it to the southern Flinders, the weather had started to close in, the views were merely breathtaking and we were really starting to lose our voices from proclaiming the "wowness" of it all at every new turn.

So we rolled further south, to return in a week or two when with just a little luck, the visibility will have improved, and we will have had time to recover from the shock of weeks of endless natural beauty.


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Monday 8 June 2009

Arthur was right


Arthur said the Arkaroola ridgetop tour was worth doing from a number of perspectives.

He was right.


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Sunday 7 June 2009

Postcard from Arkaroola



The colours are impossibly fake, the composition like a cheap oil painting, the only trouble is, I haven't adjusted the colour and I didn't compose anything, I just held the camera at my waist and clicked.

There is some artistic genius in those cheap oil paintings after all.

Arkaroola is in the northern end of the Flinders Ranges, laden with uranium, and slack jawed tourists!


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Saturday 6 June 2009

Our first mountain sunrise



The day after leaving the desert, desperate for a break from endless beauty, it begins again. The first rays of the rising sun illuminate the peak beyond our camp as though it is translucent, and someone has just switched on the light within.

We had long since run out of superlatives, now we just mumble "wow".


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Friday 5 June 2009

Desert's Edge



We always feel a little sorry as the road starts to improve and first hint of the end of the desert appears on the horizon. It's a wonderful place, full of contrast and subtlety, and we console ourselves with the thought that our senses will have time to recover, but we are never right in that regard either.

Towards the southern end of the Oodnadatta Track, a mountain appears on the horizon.


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Thursday 4 June 2009

Alberry Creek


The desert is full of mysteries, the Alberry Creek siding on the old Ghan line provides one of them.


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Wednesday 3 June 2009

Breakfast


One of the good things about travelling light is that everything is where we need it to be when we need it.

Breakfast after sunrise at Uluru.


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Tuesday 2 June 2009

Lake Eyre South



If Lake Eyre was eerie, its Southern sister didn't do a bad job in the strange department either. A lot easier to access as there is a viewing platform on the side of the Oodnadatta Track, the dunes and black tufty grass make for a fair impression of some sort of alien beach scene. All the birds are roosting on an island in the middle, some thirty kilometres from here, well over the horizon.


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Monday 1 June 2009

Lake Eyre


just as one begins to think one's senses have had enough stimulation for one journey, one turns a corner in a sea of black desert, crests a dune, a few kilometres past the cairn erected to the memory of an Austrian tourist who perished after being bogged there just a few years ago, and there it is.

Halligan's Bay, a vast expanse of nothing, or that's what it seems.

It would normally be a mirage, but it's not, it's water in the lake, but it's very eerie. There is a breeze blowing, maybe five knots or more, yet as far as the horizon the water is so still that the sky reflects perfectly, there is no distinction between sky and water.

The horizon one presumes lies somewhere between the clouds and their mirrored twins.

There are seagulls. Seagulls for crying out loud, and the lake is so shallow they seem to be walking for kilometres.

I'm glad we saw it.

I'm really glad we didn't perish in the attempt.


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