Uluru Trip Christmas 2010

[Old.Tony]

Yes, you read it right - we're heading to Uluru this Christmas.

We'll be doing a round trip passing through Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Uluru, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Mt Isa, Cloncurry, Winton, Longreach, Charleville, Bourke, Nyngan, Dubbo and back home.

I thought I'd post this up for a couple of reasons:

1) We're not afraid of Osama Bin Laden trying to bomb the garbage bins in the rest areas we'll be using.

2) We could meet up with a few fellow Navara forum members on the way through. We have already worked out rough times that we'll be in various places.

3) Some of you guys might want to join in for part or even all of the journey!

They're talking about closing the climb at Uluru. It's a shame. I've read that some people disrespect the grounds, and even toilet up on the Rock. Because of these people, the talk is that they will stop people from climbing the rock - and we'd like to do that before it closes.

If you're interested in meeting up or even joining in, send me a pm. I won't discuss exact dates and times in a public forum, because the last thing we need is for someone to organise an air strike. My Navara can't quite outrun an A-10.

If you want to cover the entire journey with us, you'll need to have or know the following:

* A caravan or some form of towable camper. We will frequently stop in rest areas rather than caravan parks or campgrounds, so tents are inadequate.

* We aim to move off at 7am (so breakfast is done and we're packed and rolling by 7am).

* We may drive until after 10pm on some nights

* We will stop at whatever places pique our interest in order to take photographs.

* Due to our timetable, we might not actually get to climb Uluru if they decide to close it on that day. We'll accept that as something beyond our control, but we'll still take as many photographs as we can and enjoy being there.

* Roo whistles should be fitted to the front of your vehicle

* You should carry at least 2 jerry cans (we will carry 4) of additional fuel

* You MUST carry fresh drinking water to last you at least 5 days. We will have 120 litres ourselves, with 60 of those litres dedicated purely to drinking.

* We have a good idea of where we want to stop and for how long - we could be persuaded to adjust this for other sites of interest.

* We have two days up our sleeves in case of emergency/breakdown.

* You should have a UHF radio. Hand-held will do. If you don't, I carry spares that you can borrow.

So there we have it. We should cover nearly 7,000km and consume somewhere around 1250 litres of diesel.

Anyone want to meet up along the way, join in on part of it, or come the whole distance?

 

[jayk]

giddy up tony.
i just got back from there last week. went up from adelaide, all on the blacktop. nav went realyl well. on the way back i was stopping to get some fuel at erldunda and a coouple with a triton towing a camper were giving me curry for the truck being so clean. they told me they were heading for the oodnadatta track, and i remembered back to boss hogs holiday!. i told em it was meant to be pretty boggy, and hoped they had a good winch lol! they didnt seam fased at all.
i carried 2 jerries of diesal, and one of water.
Hope you have a great trip. it was real pretty when i went through ...lots and lots of rain had made the landscape come even more alive.

 

[jayk]

n.b. the rock was closed for climbing when we where there due to high winds. apparantly it is only open about 60 days per year for climbing!

 

[Old.Tony]

That's something more to look forward to then - going to fill the hard drive with photos, I can see ... we'd better bring the terabyte drive with us!

 

[WoodyD40]

Sounds like an awesome trip Tony ... hope you have a great time of it.

 

[Bosshog]

What's the temp likely to be... Too hot I reckon?

 

[Old.Tony]

We're expecting it to be hot. Way hot. We came through the desert last year and had a night of high 30s making it difficult to sleep. We expect the same on this trip.

That's all part of the experience. We aren't going to get any younger, and have never been that way before. We might again, but in more milder conditions - but while we can, we'll try it the hard way.

 

[ljacko78]

now thats a drive. nice. Uluru has had signs up requesting people "not to climb out of respect" for the locals but there have been whispers about permenantly closing it for a while now. When i was there in May it was closed in the morning and open in the arvo. Hunderds of people climbing it. Personal choice if you do or don't. I stayed down. We took a little gas burner and cooked up bacon and eggs at 4:30am while watching the sun rise. Was awesome (and everyone was jealous as cause our tucker smelt tops).

But the Olgas is only 40km away and for me they we much more interesting, and with some good walking tracks as well. Make sure you see.

You going to loop past Kings Canyon and Finke Nat park while between Uluru and Alice? Devils marbles is only about 80km north of Alice and only 2km from the highway.

Enjoy mate!

 

[Old.Tony]

Now these are the things we needed to hear, so that we could add them to our itinerary.

We will be towing the 1.8T van which likes bitumen or firm forest tracks - it won't go well in mud or sand, having 14" rims and not the widest of tyres. Anywhere that we choose to go will need to allow us to take that with us (except for very short, quick diversions).

We had thought about Kings Canyon but wasn't sure if there was decent road to there. Hadn't heard of Devil's Marbles - I'll add that one to the list.

Thanks!

 

[ljacko78]

the direct Alice to Uluru Rd is sealed the whole way.

There is a loop from Alice that goes west past the north of Finke, past Simpons Gap (really nice spot!!!) and then out to Kings Canyon. It then loops south and then east back towards alice, but meets the direct Alice to Uluru Rd. Prob adds about 400km to the trip and half was graded gravel, but in reasonable nick.

Camping available at Finke, Simpsons and Kings Canyon but look into booking it in. Also camp site at Devils Marbles as well and pretty sure no booking, but check as well. Some nice spots in Finke as well, but its a Nat park so there should be

lastly (and IMO).... Tennant Ck to Camoweal Rd is one of the most boring roads in OZ. There is a way to skip it, but you do skip Tennant Ck. Travel north from Alice 90km, then turn right up the Plenty Hwy. Travel 380km and you hit Urandangi and then str8 thru to the Diamentina Dev Rd and into Mt Isa. Some gravel along it but again for me when i went was fine (no caravan). There is a cattle station fuel stop about half way along. Saves you about 350km, but then the longer route is sealed and 130km zones. with a caravan you won't be traveling that quick tho.

Either way take lots of water. Will be a warm one.

 

[ljacko78]

also mate, wet season in late january in NW Qld can be a shocker. In 2009 the roads were cut for about a week (Nat Highways) and a lot of damage. Around Longreach also floods quite often. If there are road closed for flooding signs up, don't go thru them hey. The RACQ website was always pretty accurate for which roads were open and whcih ones weren't. If you can't get onto that, try to find a local council worker or call up a Shire Council office and ask them - they're always a good source of which roads ware open or not.

 

[Bosshog]

Chambers Pillar first thing in the morning is also fantastic. However not sure that a 'van can get there...

 

[Old.Tony]

I'm looking at the route on Google Earth at the moment. Looks like there's highway all the way through like you say, so I think I'll revisit that part of our trip. Even from the satellite pics the place looks super-interesting. 400km extra huh? 5 hours ... we can do that. We can add a bit more to give us time to appreciate the place, and take some photos too.

Google Earth shows the Stuart Hwy running straight through the marbles, and my Camps Australia book says there's a Bonney Well Rest Area around the Marbles somewhere. I'll add some extra time for this stop too.

As for the shortcut, I'm not sure I want to take the van on what could be a soft surface. Saving 350km - about 4 hours - could add considerably more unless it's all good gravel and even that would halve our speed. I'm not a big fan of speeding on a loose surface, especially when the whole show is weighing about 4.5 tonnes. Still, I'll take a close look at it and compare the estimated travel times. Boring is not wanted!

 

[Old.Tony]

I've had a look along the Sandover highway and I don't think we'll take that with the caravan behind us. It's not a small rig:

so we'll just head up through Tennant Creek and stay on the black stuff.

The extra time for these diversions has added a day to the journey. I will readjust our stops etc to see where we want to stay overnight, this might let me go slower in some places which wouldn't be a terrible thing.

To make it easier, I've made a spreadsheet that, if I put down the km between stops, it tells me how long it will take me and how much fuel I should expect to use, allowing me to determine when my next fuel stop should be. It also allows me to plan breaks and overnight stops.

I am counting on 18LPHK which is a little on the high side, but I'd rather have a bit more fuel in the tank when I refuel than not make it to the servo.

Chambers Pillar is out of the question because of the road. I was just reading some warnings about the soft sand, so it's one for when we decide to do a winter trip with a Kedron.

 

[Old.Tony]

I've had a good look at the route now, using Google Earth, Google Street Maps, Camps Australia and information from several other sources such as Fuel Watch - Consumer Affairs - Department of Justice.

I've determined that we're going to travel about 7,244km, using around 1,376 litres of diesel which should cost us about $1,947 if fuel prices remain roughly what they are today.

We're not sure which way we'll do the trip - clockwise through Broken Hill, into Port Augusta and up - or anticlockwise, through Bourke, Charleville, Mt Isa and across. We're definitely visiting Uluru, The Olgas, Kings Canyon, Hanbury Meteor Craters and Devils Marbles.

The entire trip will be on sealed roads except for the stretch between Luritja Hwy and Hanbury Meteors (Ernest Giles Rd). We expect this to be 99km of reasonably easy-going and by the looks of things, we should be able to keep up about 50km/h or so on it.

We don't have any intention of unhooking the caravan for the entire trip. Does anyone know if they don't let you haul a caravan around the base of Uluru? There seems to be parking in numerous places for long vehicles, but I've only spotted buses and motor homes inside the boom gates on the Lasseter Highway.

 

[user 4231]

Hey Tony, I've done a similar trip myself but sticking to as much dirt tracks as we could find and it was amazing. I went around sept so the heat was high and there was a still bit of water kicking around. Be sure to check road conditions.

. Does anyone know if they don't let you haul a caravan around the base of Uluru? There seems to be parking in numerous places for long vehicles, but I've only spotted buses and motor homes inside the boom gates on the Lasseter Highway.

There is a lot of parking at the "base" of the rock, whether you get a park is up to how many people are there on the day. You should be able to leave the van in the car park or even at the caravan park (if you decided to stay there).

Try and pop into Kings Creek station and get a Camel Burger - Good tucker! Its only about 38k from Kings Canyon. I've stayed at both Kings Creek Station and Kings Canyon and there as good - There was a lot of green pasture and better sites at Kings Canyon tho

Enjoy the trip matey!

 

[Old.Tony]

Well, the trip is over and I've gotta say it was a BLAST!

We went up through Cobar ...

and arrived in Broken Hill ...

Next morning we arrived in Port Augusta ...

We were amazed at the salt lakes we saw along the Stuart Highway, boring as that road was there were some interesting bits ...

... continued ...

 

[Old.Tony]

... continued ...
We dropped in on Woomera (turn off at Pimba) ...

Woomera was like a military base and not very inviting, but had some interesting displays ...

A bit further on we saw Lake Hart - huge, is all I can say ...

We arrived at Coober Pedy - not a big fan of the town, it's very dusty ...

... continued ...

 

[Old.Tony]

... continued ...
Anyway, we finally made it to the rock ...

And the Olgas - Kata Tjuta (pronounced "Carta Jewta") ...

We even went on the Ernest Giles Road ...

Fuel prices can be scary ... yes that's me in the reflection ...

... continued ...

 

[Old.Tony]

On our way to Jindabyne (long story) we discovered this at Holbrook ...

Okay, so we had a blast and we're going to do it AGAIN! We learned some things and raised a couple of questions while we were at it.

Twice during the journey the Navara overheated. Once was climbing a hill just out of Holbrook - we were heading towards Jindabyne and in 38C heat we were climbing this really steep hill and the temperature skyrocketed. It did the same thing climbing the Alpine Way early in the morning (not recommended for caravans, but we did it with no problems at all apart from the engine heat).

My question is - what do other people that tow (heavy stuff, 2T or more) do to alleviate the heat problem? I thought it'd climb hills pulling 1.8T without too much drama. Could I have a radiator problem? The cores look good. It's only just had a service prior to the trip.

All in all, a great trip. We left on the evening of 24th December and returned this afternoon (1st January), covering 7,079.8km and using 1,175.42 litres of diesel for an average of 16.6LPHK and a cost of $1,684.85. We saw sunrise and sunset at the rock, went around to Kings Canyon, stopped at Curtin Springs and Mt Ebenezer (nice gallery there, worth a visit).

Oh, the didgeridoos in the T-Shirt shop in Ayers Rock Resort are fakes. So are the ones in the newsagent. But the ones in Craftworks and in the Gallery are REAL, so if you're after authentic, get one from there.

Did I mention the heat? My wife and I walked the base of the rock in the middle of the day - 38C, a 10.6km walk. We took plenty of water, we were buggered at the end but it was well worth doing. Experiencing the rock at its worst will make our next trip much nicer!

The roads in SA aren't bad, but we were almost stopped by a couple of cars (with bonnets up) on the road just north of Marla - I slowed, but powered onwards past them. At the servo at Marla I informed the attendant who told me that I should not have stopped, and a repair guy was on his way out. Seems there's a little suspicion about the activities of "broken down" cars on the highway in the afternoon, and I'll leave it at that.

Oh, one more thing for anyone traveling from state to state (and in particular through the Sunraysia Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone) - don't bother taking fruit or veg with you. You just have to throw most of it out at the checkpoints, and they WILL inspect a caravan, even inside the fridge. Yulara (the resort town at Uluru) has an IGA supermarket anyway - so travel light and stock up after you get there!