The Red Centre

Ross and I went on a two-week trip to the Red Centre (aka central Australia) earlier this month for our 5th wedding anniversary and my birthday; we had a fabulous time!  We started off the trip by flying from Melbourne to Adelaide and picking up a camper van. We went with pretty much the cheapest option that we could find, so we ended up sleeping in essentially a tripped out mini-van for ten days. Now, as you all know, neither Ross nor I are very short so it was pretty cramped sleeping quarters and there was definitely a learning curve with setting the bed up each night and tearing it down in the morning before we could drive anywhere.  All in all, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great. For future trips we are either going to go back to our backpacking tent or we're just going to have to pony up and pay for a larger camper.  Now on to the exciting stuff - central Australia!

Uluru

After picking up our camper, we drove from Adelaide to Port Augusta. The two cities are only about 3.5 hours apart but the next real place to stop would have been Coober Pedy which is a further 5+ hours and we hadn't been sure how long it would take to get the camper, groceries, etc. Since it was a pretty easy driving day, we stopped by the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden after we had checked into our campground.  Yes, Ross and I are those weird people who go to the desert and then go to the desert garden so that we can see all of the plants with labels.  It was getting to be late afternoon by the time that we got to the garden, but it was really pretty and it was nice to get out walking after a flight and a couple hours in a camper.

Kangaroos

The next day we drove ~5 hours up to Coober Pedy.  Ross has wanted to visit Cooper Pedy since he was young; I first heard about it from Ross in March when we started planning this trip.  It's a weird little town but the cool part is that, since it gets so hot in the summer (50 C = 120+ F), a good portion of  the houses are built underground. As such, we stayed in a hotel that was underground (Lookout Cave Underground Motel). It was fun and the sandstone walls were gorgeous.  Since we'd arrived mid-afternoon, we went out exploring.  We spent a decent amount of time at the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is all underground and is absolutely gorgeous. We also walked through the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum (the town was founded on opal mining), saw the spaceship from Pitch Black (it just hangs out in the middle of town) and walked up the hill to check out the Big Winch. We also had the best pizza that I have had in the Southern Hemisphere at John's Pizza Bar and Restaurant. Seriously, it's amazing.

This sign greets you as you come into Coober Pedy.

Our hotel room

Serbian Orthodox Church

Sandstone carvings at Serbian Orthodox Church

Spaceship from Pitch Black

The Big Winch

Ross admiring Cooper Pedy's first tree

After a surprisingly comfortable nights sleep underground in Coober Pedy we hit the road again and, after ~8 hours on the road, we made it to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in time to see sunset on Uluru for my birthday. We ended up spending three nights camping at the Ayres Rock Resort Campground, which is outside the park in the 'town' of Yulara. It was school holidays while we were on our trip so Uluru was pretty crowed but the scenery and hiking more than made up for it.

Wild emus

Not far now...

Sunset on Uluru

Sunset on Uluru

The first day that we were at the National Park we spent the entire day (sunrise to sunset) at Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas). We did both of the hikes in the Olgas and we absolutely loved the Valley of the Winds hike (~7.5 km). There weren't that many people around and it was so nice to walk through the canyons of red rocks. I honestly think that the day we spent in Kata Tjuta was probably my favorite day of the whole trip.

Sunrise on Kata Tjuta

Zebra Finch

Sunset on Kata Tjuta

The next day we spent all day (sunrise to sunset) around Uluru. While you can still climb Uluru, we chose not too out of respect for the traditional owners of the land, the Anangu. Instead we spent the morning at the cultural center and then did the walk around the base of Uluru (~10.5 km). We also did a couple side tracks to permanent waterholes and were rewarded with surprisingly lush settings and gorgeous rock art.

It's cold at dawn in the desert.

Sunset

Our last morning at Uluru we drove around Uluru (it actually offers a  pretty different perspective from the walk) and then went back to Yulara to top up on groceries and write some postcards.  From there we drove ~3.5 hours north to Kings Canyon and Watarrka National Park.  We spent three nights at the Kings Canyon Resort and did all of the hikes around Kings Canyon. I really liked all three of the walks that we did as they were all quite different and gorgeous.

Dingo

Australian Ringneck

Kings Canyon

Garden of Eden, Kings Canyon

Spinifex pigeon

Old cattle yard along the Kathleen Springs walk

Kings Creek walk

Kings Creek walk

Eventually it was time to head south again, so we packed up and drove ~9 hours back to Coober Pedy. We again stayed in an underground motel (The Underground Motel) and we also stopped by Tom's Working Opal Mine where we were able to noodle (actual word for looking for opals) in one of the scrap heaps, for lack of a better description.  We both found some small fragments of opal that will be added to our ever-growing rock collection.

Our second underground hotel.

More wild emus

From Coober Pedy, we made the 9 hour drive back to Adelaide.  We got in  Friday evening and returned our camper Saturday morning.  Since neither of us had ever been to Adelaide, we decided to make a weekend of it.  We stayed in an AirBnB in the CBD (aka downtown) and kept ourselves busy exploring the Central Market (amazing Algerian food!), Botanic Gardens (so many birds!), South Australian Museum (great rock/minerals and Aboriginal sections) and the Art Gallery of South Australia (there was an amazing Impressionism exhibit on while we were there). I also did the ParkRun (free, timed 5k) on Saturday morning and we found a cool, art deco theater to go see the new Jurassic World movie one evening.

Mural by our AirBnb

Mural by our AirBnb

Chinatown

Art Gallery

Botanic Garden

Australian Ibis

Eastern Rosella

Little Corellas

Rainbow Lorikeet

Retrospectively, I kind of wish that we'd gone up to Alice Springs instead of spending the weekend in Adelaide but by the time we got back to Adelaide we had driven 3,800 km (2,361 miles) and I'm not sure if I could have handled much more time in that camper.  That being said, the entire trip was great!  The scenery was amazing, the hikes were awesome and we saw some great Australian wildlife (always a bonus in my book). If you ever get the chance to go to central Australia, do it!  It is well worth the time and the effort that it takes to get there.