Wednesday 30 July 2008
We left our friends at the Giles weather station at 8.00 am and drove to the Giles airport. It is a long dirt strip and had a single Piper parked. It appears that the aircraft was owned by an ophthalmologist who visits the communities in the Western Australian desert area.
We drove about 11 kilometres back along the road towards Leonora, then turned off on the old Gunbarrel Highway. Wow, that is a rough road. We drove along the Gunbarrel just to get an idea of what it would have been like if we had come that way. It was no problem at all for the Earthroamer, just very slow – probably 15 or 20 kph at times because of the bad corrugations.
After some video taping and photographs, we then headed back and stopped at the Roadhouse at Giles, which is called Warakurna. At the Roadhouse we met Brian Power, who was originally the Deputy Town Clerk at Wiluna when Dick landed there in the helicopter in 1986.
We filled with fuel, which cost AUD $545 for the 217 litres of diesel. As we had done 1,010 kilometres since the last fill up at Leonora, it meant that fuel was costing about 50 cents per kilometre. We are fortunate that we can afford such a high amount. As a typical Toyota Landcruiser with a caravan would use about the same amount of fuel, it is obvious why there are going to be fewer “grey nomads.” For our friends overseas, “grey nomads” are retired Aussies travelling long distances around Australia. For 1,010 kilometres for the 217 litres, it meant that we were using 21.5 litres per 100 kilometres, or 11 miles to the gallon.
We then moved further to the east, on undoubtedly one of the worst dirt roads in Australia. It is not as bad as Mongolia or Siberia, but getting close. The corrugations in some areas were so bad that it was hardly possible to move at more than 30 kph. In other areas the sand was so deep (with underlying corrugations) that the vehicle was changing down into 2nd gear just to move at 30 kph along the flat.
On our right were the famous Petermann Ranges. This is the area Harold Bell Lasseter searched for his fabled gold reef in 1931.
At 11.15 am we crossed into the Northern Territory. We didn’t turn off into the Docker River settlement as we did not need fuel, and Dick had seen the settlement from the air on the previous helicopter trip from Steep Point to Byron Bay.
At 12 noon we turned off at Lasseter’s Cave. Lasseter sheltered in the cave for 25 days in January 1931. The temperatures would have been staggering. Lasseter then walked over the arid desert area towards the Olgas, and died a few weeks later on Irving Creek.
At 2.15 pm we stopped to jam some old maps in the microwave oven, as it was vibrating itself out of its mounting. In Alice Springs Dick will remove the refrigerator and re-mount the microwave. We are convinced that any form of campervan is not designed to be continuously bashed around on some of these roads.
A little after 2.40 pm we saw a second-hand Landcruiser parked beside the road, with its sole occupant – a lady, Kiri Marquent. She is a New Zealander who has been driving around Australia solo – including the Canning Stock Route. Her vehicle was totally full of dust and her face was covered with dust. Her radiator was leaking and she had put some Bar’s Leaks in at Docker River. She was waiting for it to cool down before moving on, and seemed to be quite happy being stranded in a remote area of Australia. She had plenty of water, so we went on and suggested that she wait until the cool of the afternoon before driving through to the Olgas. Fortunately, there seemed to be a vehicle once every hour or so along the road, so she wouldn’t be stranded for too long.
We came across one of the longest road trains we had ever seen. It was well over 50 metres, with a prime mover and four trailers. The driver was checking the load. Bob, the driver of the second truck, said that this was all part of the Federal Government’s intervention project, and they were taking out equipment to Docker River for a new Police station. The amount of money that is being spent on the intervention must be staggering – obviously tens of millions of dollars.
Just before we got to Kata Tjuta, the Aboriginal name for The Olgas, we reached the bitumen – taking photographs of these magnificent formations.
At 4.25 pm we reached Uluru (Ayers Rock). It is spectacular – one of the greatest sights in the world. Extraordinarily enough, we parked beside an RV registered in Montana in the USA. Dick put on an American accent to talk to the couple, but it soon turned out that they were a French family travelling around the world. They had bought the RV for $120,000 in the USA, shipped it to New Zealand, and then to Australia. In September they plan to ship it back to the USA and drive south to Panama, and possibly into South America.
As we pulled up at Ayers Rock, there was a bus full of tourists – and rather than taking photos of Ayers Rock, they took photographs of Dick. They insisted on posing with him so they could go back to their families and say they had met a famous person.
Shortly afterwards, when we parked at the sunset viewing area, we met our own famous person. Dick walked back to the Earthroamer to find a lone, handsome looking Englishman reading the explanation panel (in Russian, Japanese and English) on the side of the Earthroamer. Dick immediately recognised the Englishman as Charley Boorman, the co-star in “The Long Way Round” and “The Long Way Down” expeditions and documentaries with Ewan McGregor.
It was interesting because Dick had shown Pip “The Long Way Round” documentary – especially the part where Charley and Ewan had driven through Mongolia – to enthuse Pip about this trip.
Charley climbed into the back of the Earthroamer to meet Pip, and soon his wife Olivia and their two girls arrived. We talked adventure. Charley had already taken some helicopter lessons and was planning to get his helicopter licence. He had just completed a mammoth, 3½ month documentary expedition from his home town in Ireland to Sydney. We decided we would meet at the Sails in the Desert Hotel for further adventure discussion.
After nine nights camping we decided to have a bit of luxury and booked into a $318 (AUD) room at the Sails in the Desert Hotel. It is good to have a bit of luxury – even if the bed isn’t as good as the one in our Earthroamer.
Total today 406 kms 36,382 kms since Anchorage, Alaska.
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