NT-WA Road Trip Blog 6
This trip has been planned, bookmarked and placed on the back burner from early 2020. It was March last year, upon our return from Cairns, that the first wave of Covid 19 swept through the country. As had been our travel routine since 2017, we had our 2020 O/S trip fully planned and booked for mid year then the barrier was erected around our international borders, entry and exit. Still have a British Airways flight credit up our sleeve!
Plan B, NT & WA, was activated to replace the O/S plans. Some initial accommodation bookings were made but all to no avail as the pandemic took control and we were now unable to leave South Australia, hence navigating the Covid maze blogs 2,3 & 4.
Now to the present and in many respects things are getting diabolical but we have been able, thus far, to keep ahead of the curve. The day after we arrived in the NT on July 19 South Australia went into lock down. The WA leg was contingent on WA opening the NT border which had been closed since the previous NT clusters, some 3 weeks earlier, which saw Darwin and Alice Springs have short,sharp lock downs. Fortunately it was only a week or so after entering the NT that WA downgraded the NT to 'very low risk' which meant so long as we had spent a minimum of 14 days in the NT we could enter WA once having been issued a G2G border pass. The 14 day minimum stay in the NT was required as WA had not relaxed the quarantine requirements for SA residents who could not enter from SA or only enter from a 'very low risk' declared state or territory only if 14 days had been spent in that state or territory. Hence my description of these blogs: 'Navigating the Covid Maze'.
As far as this blog is concerned, it certainly will not be the case of producing a single blog from SA back to SA via Darwin, Broome, Perth and places in between, some 10,000 + Km's later. The outcome of that approach would be a blog to end all blogs. I am commencing this blog in Broome and due to network and wifi deficencies I will have completed this blog in Coral Bay 4 days and 1000+ Km's later . So to kick it off, here is a summary from the start of our journey, which practically begins at Pt Augusta which is the gateway to the north of South Australia, to our arrival at Yalara, home to Uluru and Kata Tjuta.
Saturday July 17th Pt Augusta
Short 270 Km leg to Pt Augusta having left home at Kapunda late morning after all the necessary final checks in and around the house and the vehicle which was at capacity with a fully loaded roof rack. The trip was to be a mix of tenting (6 person), with all necessary gear for camp sleeping and cooking along with car fridge and portable solar panel, and resort and tourist park cabins, hence the loaded car.
We had a couple of breaks, one for coffee at Melrose in the Southern Flinders Rangers, a favourite spot of ours, in a quaint and rustic cafe targeting the'niche' bicycle riding cohort who frequent the area regularly.
A New Attraction at Yulara is 'The Field of Lights' display
The exhibition, aptly named Tili Wiru Tjuta Nyakutjaku or ‘looking at lots of beautiful lights’ in local Pitjantjatjara is Munro’s largest work to date. Overwhelming in size, covering more than seven football fields, it invites immersion in its fantasy garden of 50,000 spindles of light, the stems breathing and swaying through a sympathetic desert spectrum of ochre, deep violet, blue and gentle white.
Sounds of Silence Desert Dinner
We finished off this visit the same way we did on our final night in 2013. The Sounds of Silence Dinner was a most memorable experience that was well worth a repeat. The dinner is complimented with a sunset platform pre dinner drinks and canapes accompanied with a Didgeridoo. Between courses an astronomer describes the desert night sky with emphasis on indigenous interpretation. A great way to end a visit to Uluru.
