Words and photos by Craig Seckerson
What is An Englishman’s First Venture into the Australian Outback?
After living in Australia for 5 years, it was time for a real adventure, a trip into the Australian Outback. Our trusty Range Rover Sport would be our chariot of choice for the journey, a standard 2013 RR Sport with an upgraded ECU and the 20’ wheels and low-profile tyres replaced with a set of 19 inch alloys and beefier General Grabber AT 255/55 R19 rubber. I was pleasantly surprised as I was expecting a lot more road noise coming into the cabin from the all-terrain tyres, but they were actually pretty good to drive on tarmac and didn’t really notice any difference with noise compared to the Kumho road tyres.
We had planned to stay in hotels, Airbnb’s and lodges through the journey, so the car was packed with essentials (including lots of water) and a load of extra 4×4 kit rather than camping gear. This included flexible recovery tracks, self-healing tyre foam, compressor, shovel and other items to get us out of trouble if needed. I was previously warned by my Aussie friends, the Outback can be very unforgiving if you get stuck, so I took their advice and tried to prepare for every eventuality and got some good advice from the local auto store.
We set off from our home just South of Adelaide and travelled North passing the outskirts of the Central Business District, it doesn’t take long for the terrain to change and the trucks going from towing 2 trailer rigs into 3 or 4 trailer road trains. A little further North up the Augusta Highway the road narrows to one lane in each direction, so it makes it very interesting overtaking such long vehicles, some can get up to 53 metres.
I am so glad we were in our Range Rover, the 3-litre twin turbo engine has plenty of grunt to deal with the road trains and to get us safely past with minimal effort. Passing the town of Port Augusta, we officially entered the Outback, albeit still on tarmac roads.
What immediately stood out was the friendly wave from the passing motorist in the other direction, even the lorry drivers would acknowledge you and give you a little wave or hand up while holding the wheel, it didn’t take me long to get in the spirit. After nearly six and a half hours driving, we reached our first overnight stop and was an interesting one. After living nearly 40 years on the fringes of London, these little townships in the middle of nowhere are very alien, Woomera is a small town (if I were in the UK we would class it as a small village or hamlet).
Known in Australia as a large rocket range for military testing, as you will see from the sign, there really isn’t much in the town, but there are a few examples of the rockets that have been tested over the years located in the Missile Park, and a visit to the Rocket Range Museum is also a must, it’s very interesting and certainly not something you see every day.
After not a great night sleep, we hit the road again, this time a shorter drive to the first stop of the day, Glendambo, another strange little town, just under 1km long with two very large fuel stations and not much else, but they still served amazing coffee. Onwards further into the Outback to our overnight stop, we stopped a couple of times enroute just to take in the vastness of the Outback, there was a distinct deafening silence in the air, occasionally broken by the roar of a road train thundering past. Looking out into the enormity of nothing, certainly made me feel very insignificant, a small, tiny dot in this huge expanse of land.
After racking up a few more K’s, Coober Pedy came into sight, mounds and mounds of earth excavated from the small personally owned opal mines made it look like there was a very large and extremely active mole. We stopped at the obligatory sign and took plenty of snaps. Having driven a total 10 hours from home, we were still 4 hours away from the Northen Territory border, the sheer size of Australia is absolutely mindboggling, especially a person heralding from such a small island like the UK.
Coober Pedy is quite unique, due to the temperatures experienced in the height of summer, regularly hitting 42°C (107.6°F) and occasionally peaking at 48°C (118.4°F), so the locals live in caves or underground houses, even the hotel in town is underground. So, when in Rome or in our case Coober Pedy, do as the Cooberpedians do, so we rented a cave for a few days.
It is not what you think, yes there is fresh water, electricity and we even had Netflix. The only thing it lacked were windows in the rear of the cave, however, this was great, I had one of the best night’s sleep ever, who knew a cave would be so comfortable!
We spent a few days learning about Opal mining and one of our family’s favourite past times, noodling. The art of noodling is finding a miner’s pile of excavated waste material and foraging through it to find the smaller opals that the miners missed, out here, it really is a case of finders’ keepers.
The piles of discarded rocks are huge, so you end up doing a bit of mountain climbing as you noodle. We managed to locate a few nice pieces of opal, not enough to retire on, but it was great fun and gave us a little memento of such a unique town.
After a few days in Coober Pedy we hit the road again, going East to a very small Outback town called William Creek, this was a shorter drive but this time we were on unsealed roads for the first time. About 1km out of Coober Pedy we were on William Creek Road for approximately 2 ½ hours.
It didn’t take long to hit the corrugated sections of roads, anyone who has driven on corrugated dirt roads before will tell you they are the worst thing ever, it feels like you are going to shake your car to pieces or even separate sections of your spine. I drove slowly, I drove quick, but neither helped the feeling of destroying my car, to make matters worse, there was no phone coverage so I couldn’t google, what is the best way to drive over corrugations.
Anyway, the 2 ½ hour drive turned into about 4 hours of stress before making a right turn onto the Oodnadatta Track and arriving in William Creek, one of the most remote towns in the world. It is a small stop off town consisting of about 8 houses, an airport and a hotel that doubles up as a pub, restaurant and fuel station.
We checked into the hotel for the night then wandered over the road to look at Memorial Park, a collection of rockets and rocket parts that were launched from Woomera and have landed in the vicinity of William Creek, some of them are pretty substantial, I think a hard hat might be in order while visiting the town.
A warm welcome was bestowed upon my family and I by the William Creek Hotel staff and it was at the bar I got speaking to a fellow, slightly more experienced traveller. A few beers in, he explained the best way to deal with the corrugations, is to lower the tyre pressure and despite your brain telling you to slow down, drive fast. So that night, I went to bed with slightly more optimism about a smoother journey on the remainder of the Oodnadatta Track.
An early rise and a brief walk just before dawn and we got to see one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever witnessed, a sunrise in the middle of the Outback. I was totally taken aback by the colours that nature could produce, yet again another moment of feeling very small and slightly insignificant at such beauty. Back to the hotel for a hearty breakfast ready for the trip ahead, I had a feeling this was going to be a good day.
Before we set off, I lowered my tyre pressure to 25psi as recommended by my drinking buddy the previous night and off we set. The road was pretty smooth to start with, but we soon hit the corrugations, so against all my instincts to slow down, I buried my foot into the carpet and sped up, full steam ahead.
Wow, the recommendation worked, it wasn’t Rolls Royce smooth, but it was a damn sight more comfortable than we had been experiencing on the first section of dirt roads. Halfway through the journey and about an hour outside Marree was an enormous salt flat, white crystals and heat haze as far as the eye can see.
This was Lake Eyre or to give it it’s official name Kati Thanda, it is dry salt-encrusted lakebed that when the floodwaters hit, it becomes the largest lake in Australia and 13th largest in the world by area (when full). We stop off at an excellent vantage point to get an idea of the scale and read up a little more about the lake.
I am and always have been a bit of a petrol head (as per Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson’s definition of a petrolhead, I have even owned an Alfa Romeo), but little did I know that Lake Eyre was so famous in the automotive world. It turns out that in 1964, Donald Campbell set a world land speed record of 403.1 mph (648.73 km/h) on Lake Eyre in his Bluebird, he completed this achievement while also holding the water speed record and is the only person to do so. It seemed a shame to depart such a unique and significant place, but we wanted to get to Marree in good time and not when it starts to get dark.
As the sun goes down and darkness descends on the Outback the wildlife emerges, adding pressure to the journey. A Kangaroo or Wombat can do significant damage to a vehicle, I have seen friends who have written off cars and Utes after hitting a Kangaroo, it’s not great for the Kangaroo either. Arrived safely into Marree with no incidents we checked into the hotel, there were lots of newspaper cuttings and memorabilia celebrating the successful land speed record set in South Australia, it was great walking around the public areas reading about such a significant piece of automotive history.
The hotel looked very familiar, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, so after a little research online, I found out it starred in the second Inbetweeners Movie, a classic British comedy about 4 English lads on a gap year visiting the Outback (what could possibly go wrong). So much we didn’t know about the State we live in, that’s why I love travelling.
A dreadful night sleep, courtesy of an extremely noisy A/C unit, anyway, nothing a coffee couldn’t fix. We are officially back on sealed tarmac, so out came the air compressor and pumped up the tyres to the correct psi. Today would see us work our way down and into the Flinders Ranges, we are aiming for a large natural amphitheatre called Wilpena Pound, known to the indigenous people as Ikara, meaning “meeting place”. On the way we were lucky to come across some Emu, we were blessed to have a flock of them running alongside the road keeping up with the car, I must admit they are pretty rapid for such a large ungainly bird.
If you ever find yourself visiting South Australia, I would highly recommend a trip to the Flinders Ranges, we are a well-travelled family, and all we kept saying as we drove the offroad areas around the mountains was wow, wow and wow again. We have visited many places in the world, but this mountain range was just stunning, it kept throwing up surprises, including bumping into the shy, quite rare and darn right cure Yellow-tailed Rock Wallaby’s, they were not too shy on this day as we were able to get quite close and took some great photos.
After a great night in one of the darkest places I have ever experienced, that’s why it is a designated dark sky location and ideal for a bit star gazing, you can really appreciate just how many stars we can see from Earth, the limited light pollution around Wilpena Pound enabled me to see so many more stars than I ever did from the UK, quite mesmerizing really.
We began to make our way back down to civilisation stopping at Orroroo, only really to take a picture of a town sign with 2 letters making up a 7-letter name, just saying made our family chuckle. We broke the journey up by stopping in Wine Country, a little hotel in Clare Valley did the trick, there are some amazing wine regions in South Australia, McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley for their rich and bold Shiraz, and Clare Valley for the vibrant citrus flavoured Riesling. Needless to say, we sampled a few glasses and not just the Reisling.
The last day saw the final 3-hour leg in the mighty Range Rover Sport, it hadn’t missed a beat on the 2200km round trip. Despite the Range Rover reputation for being problematic, I wouldn’t have wanted to do the road trip in anything else. We had luxury on the road with plenty of power when needed for overtaking, and it was rugged enough to take on the Outback, the Oodnadatta Track and the off-road areas around the Flinders Ranges.
What a machine, the only issue was me, the human element, not knowing the best way to deal with the corrugations on the unsealed roads. Back home, the Range Rover got a well-deserved wash and wax, so much red dust came off the car, both from the paintwork and underneath, anyway, it looked as good as new and ready to take on some town driving until the next road trip adventure.
My advice as a person who spent most of their life living around towns, if you ever find yourself in Australia, take the time to venture away from the lights of the big cities, it is very much worth the time and effort. So much of the real Australia lives just a few hours inland towards the red centre.
