Kings Creek Station -Day 10

We went across to the Reception/Shop area to charge the laptop and Fergus wasn’t really Humbugging but he managed to inveigle two big slices of bacon from one of the Station Hands. Although he’s only had tiny bacon scraps before he managed to demolish the lot!

Before we could go anywhere Alex had to use the bumper leads to start the car, not sure what drained the battery which is a bit of a concern. We decided to take a run out to Kings Canyon knowing that Fergus had to stay in the Carpark, there’s no way we’d leave him there alone as suggested, I’m sure he would have disappeared by the time we returned. We took some photos of the area then came back towards camp. There are places you can collect firewood from beside the road so we picked up a few bits then returned to camp for a COOL drink. Can you believe it, we finally in need of a cool one rather than hot?

We had lunch/dinner at the cafe while Fergus went walking around the campsite with a young girl who’s family is camped near us. The menu is limited, we had a choice of burgers, Camel, Chicken, Angus, The Drover’s Special or Vegetarian. My GF chicken burger was a delicious bit of chicken breast.

I’m trying to recharge the laptop so we’ve been walking about the campsite checking out the various shelters and have found one with a table near a power point. Time to shut down and let the laptop recuperate.

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Kulgera to Kings Creek Station – Day 9

I think I phoned 5 Alice Caravan Parks and none had any vacancies so we tried Kings Creek Station and after some wrangling they were able to offer us an unpowered site for two nights. There was a lot of traffic coming towards Kulgera, much less going our way. The scenery changed often from Savannah Woodland to Desert Oak “forests’ and completely flat to a rugged Range with scalloped edges. Flocks of Budgies were swooping and twisting all around is and it was nerve wracking waiting for one to be hit by the car. Other little birds sat on the road expecting cars to get back where they came from. When we arrived at Kings Creek Station we were able to get a third night because one booking only needed site for swags.

Our site is lovely and very convenient to a shelter with tables, benches, BBQ and sinks and the amenities are quite close. We’re happy to be here for three nights even though we’re limited in places we can go with Fergus. We can take him to the carparks at Kings Canyon and Uluru but not on the walks because they’re National Parks. Another camper has offered to dogsit in the afternoon but it would probably take us about an hour to get to the Canyon so we don’t think that leaves us enough time to walk The Rim or very far at all. We might drive to Uluru and have a look around.

All the talk around the place is about the border closures and the difficulties people are facing continuing their trips and also facing quarantine on returning home. We’re relaxed about it, we’ll see how things stand when we need to move on from here. If we have to return home to quarantine we’ll be ordering food home deliveries and Alex will be fixing the silicone around our kitchen sink. That should keep him busy for two weeks and distract him from pining for a round of golf! 🙂

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Coober Pedy to Kulgera – Day 8

It was another cold start and the annexe was quite wet as we packed up, there had been a steady stream of people leaving since before dawn. We were not sure how things would pan out for us because 3 people were arrested in Coober Pedy last night after flying illegally into SA. We completed the necessary declarations online and had them saved on the laptop but we crossed the border without being stopped and are now checked into the Kulgera Roadhouse Caravan Park.

We wanted to arrive as early as possible so only made a couple of quick stops, one at Cadney Park where Alex had his version of a “Truckies Breakfast”, DimSim, Spring Roll and Iced Coffee. Listening to conversations on the CB radio can be fun, we enjoyed this little snippet:

“There’s more dead cars on the road than dead kangaroos”

“Yeah, you’re roight!”

In the middle of nowhere Madam GPS also warned us that we were approaching a railway crossing, it was lucky for us we were on a flyover because a freight train was underneath us.

Things are getting tricky, I’ve phoned all the Caravan Parks in Alice and no one has a spot for tomorrow, the people at Stuart’s Well don’t take bookings because people don’t turn up so we’ll try to arrive early and give that a go.

A fellow camper, a Victorian, pulled in beside us here and asked us about the border because NT has shut the border to Victorians, he was worried they’d be put into quarantine so has now left the campsite and they are making a run for SA. He told us that Darwin is shut. I think we’ll need to keep checking the situation but the internet connection is very flighty.

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