2 road trips between 2 walks

I had about 2 weeks between finishing the Larapinta Trail and starting on the Jatbula Trail. This time was spent on two road trips, as well as hanging out in Alice Springs. If you took a bingo card and populated it with some of the most classic central Australian and top end things you could think of, I think I would have come pretty close to filling it up in these two weeks. Things include: 

• Road tripping across straight roads through impossibly flat desert
• Having a look at the rock 
• Dirt bike race 
• Fishing shirts 
• Drinking in an extremely remote outback pub
• Mingling with grey nomads

I could go on. 

First Road Trip: Uluru, Kata Tjuṯa, Watarrka 

With Hugh flying back in Sydney and Georgia heading back to work, I was on my own for this one. I picked up a van in Alice, loaded it up with a few days worth of groceries and hit the road south, with the destination for the first couple of nights Uluru.

It is a cliche to say that nothing can prepare you for when you see the rock for the first time. As well as a cliche it would be wrong, because about 4 hours into the 5 hour drive from Alice Springs to Uluru, way out on the horizon a big big rock comes into view. The rock is huge and rectangular, although appears to be a little more squared off on the sides than I recall seeing in the hundreds of photos of Uluru I would have seen over the years. If this is your first time driving to Uluru, it is impossible to not get excited looking at the rock as you drive along, particularly after hours of straight road and flat desert in every direction. Unfortunately this rock is not the rock. It is just Mount Conner, also known as Fool-uru, a lookalike to Uluru you see about 45 minutes before the real thing, it is a trap for young players visiting the rock. Fortunately for me there was no fool-uru happening, I was given a heads up ahead of time and had my wits about me as I approached. 

Driving up to and having a look at Uluru (the real one) is spectacular. It is just so big. At sunset the light hits it at golden hour, causing it to light up a bright red colour. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that is so affecting about being there. It is almost the feeling that so many others have stood in similar positions with the shared feeling of amazement for thousands of years. Similarly it is that feeling of seeing something that I have seen probably hundreds, of photos of over the years. The rock is big and the rock is very cool. Elsewhere in the Park is Kata Tjuṯa, another large rock formation. The 7km Valley of the Winds walk through Kata Tjuṯa was great. 

After a couple of nights at Uluru, I went North-west three hours to Watarrka National Park. I really enjoyed the driving, the roads are so straight, everything is flat. It feels like there’s a risk your license will be revoked if you don’t one finger wave every car coming in the opposite direction to you. 

On the drive to Watarrka I passed a couple of camels. I have learnt they are relic of pre-motorised mode of transport and goods carrying through the desert, which have now become a pest, creating various ecological, agricultural and social problems. 

In Watarrka National Park I walked the Kings Canyon Rim Walk, which follows the edge around for 6km, with great views across and down the Canyon. 

Alice Time 

The rev-head gods were looking down favourably upon me, for the few days that I spent in Alice Springs coincided with annually held Finke Desert Race. 

Monaco, Le Mans, Bathurst - all of the above, and all other races can eat their hearts out. Finke is the best race there is. It is very simple, out and back race where dirt bikes leave Alice Springs on Sunday, race about 230km out to the Finke River before turning around and racing back to Alice Springs on Monday. Like all famous parts of culture, the activities taking place adjacent to the event are often as exciting, if not more exciting to the punters than the main attraction itself. Think strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, pimento cheese sandwiches at The Masters, Mint Juleps at the Kentucky Derby. Finke is no different, with bulk XXXX and RTD tins consumed on the side of the dirt bike track as the racers were eagerly anticipated. 

We went out on Monday afternoon and cheered the brave dirt bike riders home into Alice. Our crew had a cheese board assembled on the tray of Georgia’s ute. It did feel a little bit out of place laying out a wheel of brie, some mersey valley cheddar, kalamata olives and crackers. I couldn’t help but think this probably isn’t how the Finke ultras do it, not to mention we were drinking Coopers greens. 

A couple of other highlights of my short time in Alice: 

• Seeing Sturt Desert Peas! Iconic bush flower was all over town!

• Alice nightlife: Went out with Georgia, her housemates and friends on a Friday night. My favourite stop on the circuit was at a pub called Uncles where they do karaoke on Friday night (readers close to me would know I have a certain affection for karaoke). Like most open mic pub karaoke, it attracts a total melting pot cross section of society and Uncles was no different. We were there for a few hours and had a great time, I think my track selection probably left a little bit to be desired, with the crowd politely sitting through my Ronan Keating rendition, before about 3 songs later a guy did DJ Otzi’s Hey Baby and had literally the entire pub on their feet singing and dancing. You live and you learn.

Second Road Trip: Alice Springs to Katherine 

The Jatbula Trail starts in Katherine so we had to get 1200km north of Alice. Georgia and I did this across three days, and got a good mix of cultural experiences along the way, stopping the first night at a Cattle Station campground (Banks Bank), the second night at an outback pub (Daly Waters) and the final night at a national park campground (Leliyn).

As we made our way north a faint shift in sartorial tendencies began to reveal itself. Georgia and I decided to integrate by picking up a couple of fishing shirts from a service station in Elliott. When in Rome. 

The Daly Waters Pub was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and had no business being as fun and busy as it was. It was a crazy place, horses and donkeys roamed the street out the front of the pub, and odd statues and memorabilia decorating the walls and roof out the front.

There was the promise of live music every night, and a dinner service that commenced promptly at 6pm. A 4-6 happy hour meant that the large beer garden had reached capacity easily by 5pm, and pub owner Tim took full advantage of his captive audience by delivering a 40 minute speech (no joke) where he worked largely unrelated topics together expertly, moving seamlessly from a history of the pub and the surrounding area, to the nightly specials, to old stories of missing people and the ensuing search and rescue efforts, to the rules of the campground. Truly fascinating stuff! 

The highlights of the final two days of this road trip were the two swimming spots we stopped at - firstly we had an afternoon at Bitter Springs (near, and better than Mataranka) in water that was almost too hot, but was amazingly clear and blue. 

The next day we were at Leliyn, about half an hour north of Katherine. 200mm of rain in early May (typically the second month of the top end dry season) caused flooding and meant that the large Edith Falls plunge pool was no longer certified free from saltwater crocodiles, and was closed as a result. The upper pool was still open, and that huge rain event meant that the waterfalls and cascades were running extra strong, making for a great swim spot with little sections of rapids between rocks to float between.

The second road trip was a fun mix of top end culture and time in nature. The last night was in a caravan park just outside of Katherine to do the final packing of packs and prep for the Jatbula Trail that was starting at 8am the next day. Will get a wrap up of that walk put together and out the door shortly.

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