During the night I woke up and layed awake for a while. I decided to check out plans for the morning. I found a nice camping place near the sea.
I also checked the weather forecast and noticed that in the middle of the week the temperatures in Uluru seemed half way decent. (Only 34-35 C and not 40+), so I checked the route and a blog on the trip to Alice Springs, which is 80% the same.
The next morning I shared the plan with Mo and she agreed it would be a good idea, even though it is about 1600 km one way to get there.
We packed up and headed for Port Augusta. Hardly on our way we saw some ‘Loch Ness’ monster, we stopped and found it it was lake Bumbunga, once of the pink lakes we read about and we planned to visit. As it is the mids of summer, it was dry, but when we walked to the ‘monster’ we noticed the ground was a thick crust of salt.
Once in Port Augusta we found a supermarket to get some food and extra water (and beer and wine), fill up the tank. (It is now clear that this car uses almost double of what the previous car used 1:6,5) and we where ready to go. We discussed where we would spend the night in a beautiful gorge in the wrong direction of in the outback on our way. We agree the latter was the better option.
The first camping place we aimed was not very interesting and it was still pretty hot, so we decided to drive on a bit more. It was amazing how quick the landscape changed from trees and bushes to small bushes and grass land and back. It seemed like someone drew a line and then the landscape changed.
In Woomera we checked the service station, but it did not look very appealing. About 20 km further at the Island Lagoon Lookout we stopped for a few pictures and found there was a nice breeze and figured this was as good of a place as any to spend the night. We moved the car a bit further from the road and set up camp. We had dinner at sunset and then turned in. We layed on top of the duvet as it was to warm to go under.
Around 23:00 we woke up as there was a car near. Such a large area, but they had to park next to us. When I noticed they also popped up a rooftop tent I went back to sleep. The next time we woke up to answer a call of nature and looked at the stars. Orion is the easy one on the Southern hemisphere, but this time I found the Southern Cross as well. Looking at stars when it is pitch dark is so amazing!
Leave a Reply