I’m currently sitting in the office of our new place in Alice Springs with the evaporative cooling (known locally as swampy) up as high as it goes. The outside temperature is 40ºC, the same as every day since we got here. The heat is ever present, it’s in the bricks of the house and in the water. A cold shower is anything but here. We drove up from Melbourne over the course of six days about two weeks ago now. The drive was a wild mixture of emotions; stress, awe, boredom, relief.
Day 1:
We left on a mercifully cool day after a scorching 45ºC in Melbourne. We had our lives packed up in the car and trailer. Our first leg was a short two and a half hours to Ararat to stay with Charlie’s parents, Jenny and Russel. It served as a good, and very necessary, test run for pulling the full trailer. Our fuel economy was shot, somewhere around 20 litres per hundred kilometres. We were pulling the equivalent of a small car behind us after all! With a little bit of care (and taking over from the cruise control to accelerate a lot slower) Nat kept it down at 15-16 litres, which was far less scary as we’d actually make it between all the road houses on the Stuart without any spare fuel now (we carried a bit just in case).
In Ararat I could finally slow down enough to think about the future beyond packing up the house. I looked at a photo of the car and trailer that Liv sent through, and had to write something about how it made me feel at the time:
It’s here. The part I wasn’t thinking about because I was only focusing on getting out of the house.
We’re crazy.
What the fuck are we doing?
What the actual fuck are we doing?
So, I had to try to get to sleep with that rolling around in my head. I did have a little space to reflect on the community we have in Melbourne coming out to help us. Everyone helping out was so lovely. I love them all. They’re good people, great people. I’m going to miss them all a lot. Caitlin, James, Cat, Charlie, Olivia, Daniel, Shannon, Mads, Amelia, and more I’ve no doubt forgotten in the haze of packing stress.
Day 2:
The drive from Ararat to Moana, on the outskirts of Adelaide, was uneventful but beautiful. We stopped at Nhill for an iced latte, pie, and a leg stretch. We also stopped in Keith for a few photos because it’s just a funny town name. Keith. We took a route through the Adelaide Hills off the main highway and got some beautiful vistas of vineyards. We had been through so many cute little towns that I’d love to stop in at and explore. After pulling up at the caravan park, and settling into our room, we hit the beach for a bit of gentle evening sun and a stretch. We were immediately surrounded by seagulls. We grabbed dinner at the closest open restaurant then headed next door for some local beers at the Prancing Pony brew pub (we didn’t see any hobbit sized rooms).
Day 3:
We started the day with a trip to pick up some emergency fuel supplies (a jerry can and mount of the trailer) then hit up a very well reviewed sandwich shop. Then we hit the road to Port Augusta. We stopped at Snowtown for a bit of grim tourism snapping a photo outside the murder bank, amongst other buildings and a big ol’ wind turbine blade. We stopped at Port Pirie for petrol and a selfie for Nat’s mate who used to host a show on the region’s ABC Local. The rest of the drive through to Port Augusta was quiet, but with beautiful views of the very southern tip of the Flinders Ranges. We spent a bit of time by the pool in Port Augusta and cobbled together some dinner from some bits acquired at a mercy dash to Woolies before they closed.
Day 4:
This was our big scary day with a 264 km stretch with no road houses/petrol stops. We had a few stops to make before that part though. We went to the rocket park in Wimmera and had a look at parts of the museum. Ten years ago I think I’d have been much more interested in the rocketry and planes, and had some sense of pride that we’re doing this in Australia. However my politics have changed significantly and the engineering nerd within me is silenced by the part of me that says “maybe we shouldn’t be making missiles and warplanes? Why not spend that energy making things that aren’t solely designed to kill and maim?” Here are some photos though, because the rocket park itself is such an oddity!
After Woomera things got flat. Spotting a tree became our game, everything was knee high shrubs. Eventually these shrubs gave way to tailings piles and warning signs about unmarked mineshafts. We were in opal country. I tell you what, the miners have utterly ruined that sensitive beautiful desert landscape, and for what? Shiny wet silica. Leave it all in the ground! I regret not taking any photos of this, but to be fair to past me: It was 43ºC outside. So hot that the transmission fluid temperature warning light would come on 20 minutes from Coober Pedy. Fortunately, we just needed to pull over and idle for 5 minutes to cool it off enough to get to our accomodation.
We, of course, stayed in a dug out. Our host was shocked we were moving to Alice Springs, “why would you want to live there?!” We thought that was a bit rich coming from a man who lives in a hole in the ground in a town with no trees and average summer temperatures of a million degrees. It was a fun experience, but smelled like a mix between enamel paint and sour body odour. This must be the unique scent they’re said to have.
I tried to get some cool photos of the inside, but the lighting was no good and my flash kit was very buried in the car. I settled with cracking out the 150-600 and got some telephoto shots of the distant hills in a series of panoramas.
One thing Coober Pedy has going for it is that it’s DARK. I got some great photos of the night sky out there testing my new-ish 85mm f1.4, Orion and the Large Magellanic Cloud.
After a bit of standing around in the warm night, I retreated back inside to watch some Fisk before bed.
Day 5:
We got moving a bit late and found some coffee. It was okay. We weren’t overwhelmed with options as most of the town was closed for the off season. After sucking back our iced lattes we went to a gallery/kangaroo rescue but were informed by the very sour proprietor that we were 6 hours early for the viewing of the joeys (this time wasn’t advertised anywhere). We also dropped in at an opal mine museum and got a bit of the history of Coober Pedy. The town is named for a phrase used by the local indigenous folks that translates roughly to “white man’s holes” and was said to carry a subtext of “why are they living there?” which I totally understand. Most people were on tank water carted into town until the 80s. Tap water there is amazing though because it all comes from a reverse osmosis desal plant. Just the free section of the museum was very informative and had lots of fossils (and casts) that’d been dug up over the years. I couldn’t help myself and bought a tea towel with an unmarked mine shaft warning on it.
Just before heading off we stopped at the spaceship prop from Pitch Black, which was filmed there in 1999. (We ended up watching it once we got to Alice.) Coober Pedy to Marla Roadhouse was a short drive, and we spent the rest of the afternoon sinking $5 bottles of Coopers and playing Lord of the Rings Magic the Gathering.
Day 6: The final stretch
At this point in the drive everything was a blur, the standout here was when we had lunch at Kulgera. I had a great beef burger, and Nat tried the camel! Camel is like lean cut of lamb, it’s got that grassy metallic flavour.
We got into Alice Springs and manically unpacked the car so Nat could go to Bunnings and buy us a trolley so we could move the fridge and washing machine. Despite the 40 degree heat, we got everything inside and in place without much of an issue! We hit the Club Eastside for a celebratory pint (or 4) and a schnitty. We have been back there at least twice a week, it’s a cool place with an interesting cross section of the community. We’ve met a few cool people there too!
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting settled, taking myself on morning walks before the temperature climbs over 35, and moving all of my photo library and processing workflow out of Adobe and into some open source/free tools: Digikam for file management, Darktable for RAW edits, and Affinity for astro stacking. Also, building this new website! I hope to get out into some nature with my camera soon, but it’s just been so very hot lately. The cabin fever will get to me and I’ll be out in the 40 degree heat looking at birds soon enough.