The Wet Centre

I am writing in Kings Canyon, where we are at the end of about 24 hours of non-stop (unseasonal) rain, and the continuing rain has passed well beyond a joke for all of us. In the time between Coober Pedy and here was mostly at Yulara (Uluru/Kata Tjuta), and we set a new record of 7 days without rain, which was great, but disappointing at the same time since we are staying in some of the driest places on earth, in dry season, and should be able to manage more than a week without rain.

After a few weeks of reasonably spartan bush camping, we arrived in Coober Pedy to a long anticipated few nights under a solid roof. It was in fact a solid rock roof, booked months ago by Sarah as a treat to us, from us, to help celebrate our wedding anniversary in style. It was a great break from the tent living, and reinvigorated us for continuing our travel, after rain and general crappy weather have been making our lifestyle hard to take at times.

The studio cave dwelling was really different, and seemed completely luxurious to all of us. Somehow the convenience of being able to get out of bed to go to the loo, without having to dress for the cold and wet outside world, seemed like a huge luxury. We didn’t go out too much while we were staying in our cave.

We moved down town to the caravan park after a few nights and, once back in our tent, got into a bit of sight-seeing and outside world activities (old mine tour, underground cave house tour, looking at all of the many, many opal shops, drive-in movie, underground church).

Coober Pedy turned on the unseasonal rain on our last Sunday there, when we went out of town to take part with the locals and visitors in their annual fun run. It never rains in June in Coober Pedy, and it certainly never rains all day in June in Coober Pedy, but that is what happened. We had driven out to Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park, along a fair bit of dirt road, to where the marathon and other races were being held. They apparently normally get hundreds of participants in all the races, but I signed up for the 5km run and was one of five “runners” – the other four being an eight-year-old (who came in second) and another kid and two older people who walked the five kilometres together. It was nice to stretch the legs, despite the chilly rain and running in mud.

We also had to eat as much as we could of hamburgers, sausages, salads and chocolate cake, since the catering was for many more people than were there. The fun run that the kids were going to do was called off, since everyone needed to get out along the dirt road before the rain made it impassable. It was pretty slippery by the time we left.

On towards Yulara, but the long drive necessitated a layover in Curtain Springs (where the quite interesting Mt Connor is the main view of interest).

We’re now starting to get into expensive fuel territory (expensive everything territory really), so we have to plan carefully where we will buy fuel, since it might be 20c/L different between towns. We’re also paying a lot more than usual for our camping, mainly due to monopolies in each of the places that we are visiting in The Red Centre.

Sarah has written a good account of our walks at Uluru and Kata Tjuta, so there is not much to add to her stories. My overall feeling about visiting these fantastic places was one of being quite privileged to have been able to go there. It is hard to describe the majesty of Uluru and Kata Tjuta through photos or in words – both rise above the surrounds in quite spectacular and different ways, but being there in person is the only way to really experience the awesome natural wonder of these huge rocks.

There were many, many people out there doing what we were doing, most for short stints before moving on. I couldn’t help but be a bit wistful for lost opportunities to get out there in the seventies or eighties when it was far more remote and less regulated. We would have camped near the base of the rock, and had dark skies at night to view the stars rather than the town skies which I can get at home. There is now also the Yulara generator which powers the whole town and is pretty close to the caravan park, featuring prominently in the sounds of the night. How about the serenity?

But why should I complain? Everybody else is overworked and underpaid. Just telling it as I saw it.

I really quite enjoyed the town, and the resort nature of the whole place, and the main attractions of Uluru and Kata Tjuta did not disappoint someone who has had them on the list for a long time. Next time we’ll go sans kids and dog, fly out and do the resort thing in style).

Note to those interested in beer, a take away six pack of XXXX Gold was $42. We will be without beer for a while yet…