Kata Tjuta, back into WA

How's this for up-to-date, Lynsey?!

Wednesday 9^th July 2008

I had Katie as a hot water bottle for half the night. She wasn’t bad in the heating department and she wasn’t even too much of a wriggler but I am looking forward to my sleeping bag all to myself tonight.

Paul and I woke just before 7am, conscious that sunrise was in half an hour and we’d made vague plans to get up and watch the changing colours on the big rock. At 10 past Paul was up and out. I took another 5 minutes, partly because I needed to put yet more clothes on before I could venture up the hill but also because leaving a snug bed is hard for me at the best of times!

As it turned out we had to wait til gone 7:30 before there was any noticeable difference in the rock and by then I was chilled through. Imagine my amazement/horror when a spotty youth appeared on the hill wearing only tracksuit pants and a singlet! He must be born and bred in deepest darkest Tasmania or something!

Luckily Katie was still heating my sleeping bag when we got back so another 20 minutes (stretched to 30 in the end) was spent warming back up again. Needless to say, pack up was distinctly slower today since my brain was having trouble functioning at such low temperatures and Paul’s frustration was just barely contained!

Anyway, we got out of there ok and set off for Kata Tjuta (formerly known as the Olgas). The two whinge-meisters were all set to stay in the car but we once again worked our cajoling magic and all walked through the Valley of the Winds to the first lookout. Paul’s opinion of these massive edifices was that two of them looked like the top of a submarine! Holly was amazed by the blueness of the sky and Katie found some rocks that she used (quite tunefully) as tapping sticks. Fortunately, these particular rocks didn’t make it back to the car after we’d mentioned the bad luck stories of those who took rocks or sand away from the area. (In the Cultural Centre we’d found a folder full of letters from people returning parts of Uluru and Kata Tjuta and relating the bad luck that had come to them since stealing it – could be hocus pocus but who would want to risk finding out?).

I found it hard to concentrate on the beauty of the place because I was so excited about getting onto the Great Central Road and heading back over the border to WA. And I didn’t have long to wait. As soon as we turned off the nice bitumen roads of the Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park we hit the red dirt.

This road was not particularly better or worse than the other dirt ones we’ve encountered but like all the others it required serious concentration – particularly by the driver but also by the front-seat passenger, who, when not doling out sandwiches, drinks and other refreshments and not playing DJ or mediator, had her eyes glued to the road and her lips as sealed as she could keep them (not enough, if you ask Paul!).

There was probably mostly hard, gravelly road but there was plenty of deep sand (which even once set off the Stability Control alarm), washouts, dry river crossings, dips and crests. The one thing there wasn’t plenty of was other traffic, in fact, we saw more burnt out, upturned cars (20 in only 350km) than we did other ‘active’ vehicles and I lost count of the number of old tyres and bits of tyres lying strewn along the road. The colour of the road changed regularly – sometimes the deep red of the centre, sometimes a soft peachy orange or a whitey-grey and yet others a creamy gravel – and the surrounds were quite spectacular sometimes – the ever-present Spinifex, the changing treescapes and the occasional hill/mountain.

We cruised into Warakurna Roadhouse (our stop for the night) at about 4pm, got a drive-through site in a modest caravan park type area behind the roadhouse and did the basic set up – no awning! The girls proceeded to play in the orange mud where the drips were coming out of our water tanks that had taken another battering from the gravelly road.

I wouldn’t normally mention the fact of doing the washing but this time it was so slow – the water pressure here is abysmal. Apparently, yesterday there wasn’t any water left in the tank that serves the visitors, so I guess we should be grateful for the dribble we were able to get but with a washing machine (ironically called the Speedy Queen) that would normally process a load (I deliberately didn’t say ‘wash’ the clothes – it’s more like ‘freshen’ than ‘clean’!) in 20 minutes it took over an hour!

Dinner was easy – sausages with leftovers from the last few days. We’ve got power here so the microwave is coming into its own for reheating! Afterwards we played Yahtzee which the girls picked up quickly and I was impressed by Holly’s adding up – despite the lack of schooling they’ve had while on this trip!