wurley's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member wurley on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/wurley en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:57:55 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Ah, a bed, clean floors, home cooked dinner...... — Minlaton, South Australia, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243734727/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243734727/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243734727/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:57:55 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Minlaton, South Australia, Australia

From Port A Gutter we went south with a couple of days spare to visit Andy's family on the Yorke Peninsula.
Seafood, seafood and hospitality plus.
]]> Maryvale Station and Titjakala — Titjakala, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243433340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243433340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243433340/tpod.html Sat, 30 May 2009 10:23:33 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Titjakala, Northern Territory, Australia

The plan was to head out to Titjakala and visit one of the Aboriginal communities I visited last year, and then travel another 50k's or so to see Chambers Pillar.

Arrived at Titjakala to find the community centre closed, the art gallery closed and the rear left tyre flat!!
Changed that and asked around about getting the puncture fixed.

Back down the road to Maryvale station where a great NZ guy opened up the workshops and started to pull the tyre apart........ this is where it all went pear shaped.

Oh, it's tubeless, I can't do those, go back to Titjakala and find the workshop they should be able to do it.

Found the community workshop and we stared again, ooops, we havne;t got any short stem 16" tubes, oh well well just patch it and get you going.
After some hour and a half or so we decided we couldn't do anything, tried to buy a tube at the local store, tried patching nope, we're not going to Chambers Pillar.

Noah and Fin had a ball playing footy and cricket with the local kids, and we were pretty popular when we left them with 6 Auskick footys and some football boots.

\Headed back to Alice Springs to get the tyre fixed and with lots of good wishes and UHF channels to contact people if wegt in to strfe on our way.

They suggested that a night in the desert might sound like fun, but when it gets to minus 3 or 4 the novelty soon wears off.......

One thing we've found out here is that people will help, we stopped one day in the middle of nowhere for the obligatory wee stop and a tour bus pulled up to see if we were OK.
Even stopped on the side of the road people will slow down and give you the thumbs up, so long as you reply with a thumbs up they take off again. Trouble is there can be hours between passing cars.
]]> Stuarts Well to see Dinky the singing Dingo — Stuarts Well, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243519200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243519200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243519200/tpod.html Sat, 30 May 2009 10:06:59 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Stuarts Well, Northern Territory, Australia

This was our 2nd visit to Stuarts well to see Dinky the singng Dingo..... ummmm maybe he doesn't exist, he was in Alice Springs doing a show this time, and the first time he was to tired....... well we watched the video instead and stayed in the "camping ground" behind the pub.

Now camping ground and resort and 5 star facilities seems to mean anything up here in the NT.

This camping ground was a red dirt paddock with tents in it, but the boys had fun antagonising Andy by playng in the red sand. I think we'll just throw those clothes away when we get back.
]]> The true centre of Orstralia — Lambert Centre, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243604580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243604580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243604580/tpod.html Sat, 30 May 2009 09:57:23 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Lambert Centre, Northern Territory, Australia

Arrived in Kulgara at around midday and checked the maps, asked the locals and adjusted the tyre pressures again (ask me about tyre pressures, I know all about them now)

Headed of Nth East to the Lambert Centre, this is the reak centre of Australia, pick up mainland Aus at this point and it will balance..

180 k's along a nice dirt road at 110k's per hour, (it's all to do with tyre pressures remember) then 18K's of real 4WD track to get to a dinky little replica of the flag pole that sits above Parliment house and the exact centre of Aust.
And for the record: Latitude 25.61011º S 25º 36' 36.4" S Longitude 134.3548º E 134º 21' 17.33" E Altitude 314m
This is the planimetric centre of gravity of Australia not the geographical centre...... (probably got something to do with tyre pressures)
]]> Oodnadatta here we come OMG! — Oodnadatta, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243689600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243689600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243689600/tpod.html Sat, 30 May 2009 09:40:44 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Oodnadatta, Northern Territory, Australia

Oh my god.......... what an experience.

We left Marla on the safe Stuart Highway and headed of along the Oodnadatta track after checkng with the Police and locals that the track was OK.

Little did we know it was closed to traffic soon after we ventured out.
202 kilometres took us some 3 hours of sliding, slipping and splashing to arrive at Australias hottest and driest place...... well most days it is.
It poured rain for our entire journey and the Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta had buckets all over the place under the drips in the roof...... yes it was raining, in fact it was pouring!

The poor little Wurley camper is now a solid mass of mud. No longer is there a well in the middle of the spare tyre, it's a little mountain of mud and stone! and it weighs 500 kilos more!

We'd been advised against staying in Oodnadatta, and checking out the local aravan park confirmed this!
So we had 2 choices, stay in the dodgy park or take our chances getting to Coober Pedy along a raley used but OK road. "The road should be OK, we haven't had much rain out there" but of course it was moving with us.... so off we headed along the Oodnadatta track to the little side road, turned right and we were off.

189 kilometers of.......... you guessed it sliding, slipping and splashing, only this time it was on a rougher, narrower track, and half way....... it started to get dark!!!

Noahs comment of "stupid cows" wasn't exactly what I was thinking as we slid (all wheels locked up) straight towards a half dozen buffalos that walked out in front of us. #%$*&%$!

There was also panic at one stage when we could smell gas, I feared the worst and pulled up thinking one of the rocks the tyres were throwing up may have hit the gas bottle valve and broken it............ but after checking, no leaks! then we remembered being told about a tree ??? can't recall it's name but it smells just like LP Gas.

Eventually made it in to the sanity and bustle of Coober Pedy.
Decided we'd treat our selves to a motel room under ground..........
]]> Dunmarra, tyres and road trains. — Dunmarra, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243084200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243084200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243084200/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 09:20:31 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Dunmarra, Northern Territory, Australia

Located 314 km south of Katherine and only 8 km south of the junction of the Buchanan Highway and the Stuart Highway, Dunmarra is basically a roadhouse which combines a caravan park with motel accommodation, petrol, and a bar, and that is it.

We discovered our first tyre problem here, rather than wing it and try to make Alice we decided to stay overnight.

Little did we know it was a refuelling stop for roadtrains..... don't know howmany pulled in and out overnigh, but the boys had a ball chatting to all the drivers and looking over the trucks.

Did you know?
A road train with three trailers is over 55mtrs long, weighs in excess of 130 ton, can hold 200 cows, carries 5000+ litrs of fuel, each trailer has a belly tank that holds 800 litres and they get..... wait for it...... 800mtrs per litre!!!! that the economical ones, the not so fuel efficient trucks only get 500 mtrs to the litre, the petrol bowsers here have space for 4 digits, yep $XXXX.XX

We saw one guy filling up and he was already up to $2,730.00 and still had the trailer tanks to fill!!
]]> Barrow Creek — Barrow Creek, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243168380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243168380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243168380/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 09:09:14 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Barrow Creek, Northern Territory, Australia

Barrow Creek is no more than a pub and a service station on the road between Alice Springs and Darwin.
Located on the Stuart Highway 284 km north of Alice Springs and 1198 km south of Darwin, Barrow Creek has a history which belies its rather unimpressive appearance. Although the 'town' has only a nominal population (11)and is now little more than a stopover point on the Stuart Highway between The Alice and Darwin it was once one of the more important outposts in the Northern Territory, apparently.......

It's a bizarre place, the pubs one of the strangest places we've ever stayed at.
There was Les the owner with a cackle of a laugh, Q Ball the shaved headed barman, Helen that cook who walked around the pub in her dressing gown and a very weird chap sitting in the bar drinking (Fin asked why does he wear ladies shorts?) the new motel rooms out back were built in 2001, but have never been used, there's more junk around the place than you can imagine and Paul Falconio has left $5 pinned to the wall of the pub for Peter to get a drink if he ever shows up there....... does that give you an idea of the place?
]]> $90 for a 2nd hand tyre!!!! #$&*&$%@ — Elliot, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243428900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243428900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243428900/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 09:08:23 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Elliot, Northern Territory, Australia

No other option on the Stuart Highway on a Sunday, so I had to fork out $90 (cash only) for a 2nd hand tyre at this dodgy place.

He did throw in a NT number plate for our fence though........
]]> Tnorala, Gosse Bluff — Palm Valley, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243340160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243340160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243340160/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 08:29:51 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Palm Valley, Northern Territory, Australia

Tnorala, (Gosse Bluff) is a conservation reserve which preserves an ancient meteor crater.
Around about 140 million years ago a meteor hit the earth and created a 20 kilometer crater, what's left is a 6 kilometer diameter crater (because it's been eroded)
A very rough 4WD track about 7 or 8 K's long gets you in to the centre of the crater.
The Landrover was fine and the little camper (with it's new tyres) followed along.......just.
Loose scaley rock in places and then sand drifts and river crossings..... but well worth it to sit in the middle of this place and have lunch by ourselves, not another soul around for miles......
]]> Glen Helen Gorge — Glen Helen Gorge, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243252980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243252980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wurley/1/1243252980/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 08:12:51 -0400 Are we there yet? No and we're going to be longer than we planned!!!
Glen Helen Gorge, Northern Territory, Australia

A late arrival at the Glen Helen Gorge National Park camping ground, left us setting up in the dark after seaching for two new tyres for the camper in Alice Springs......

Yep needed 2 new tyres after both original ones self destructed somewhere between Dunmarra and Tenant Creek..... bits of the story in earlier postings....

We didn't appreciate the Glen Helen Gorge until morning...... a magnificent 65 meter highcliff right behind where we were camped, a really beautiful spot with a walk from the camping ground along the Finke river to a large water hole.
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