This is the end

we wake up early in the morning, we survived the windy cold night, and it is still very cold in the morning that i have to wear my hat and my jacket for the first time in this trip.

Today is the last day of our road trip. we have around 600 km from Glendambo  to Adelaide and then we are done. The plan is to reach Adelaide  before evening, to go to a camp place for the last time, and if  we have some time to look around the city and the next morning give the car back to the rental agency and then fly to Melbourne. Melbourne is where me and Iva split. I will stay there for some  more days and then fly to Sydney , and Ivan stays there for one more day and fly back to Europe.

on the way we have passes 2 ports, one is Porto Augusta and the other one is porto Pirie.

we stop at porto Pirie to have a lunch, and i get a big fish and chips .

there are not that much to see on the way, the road is all sealed road and it is one of the main highways of Australia. it is quite clear that we are close to big cities ports since there are many cars and also Trucks on the road, beside a long freight train which is running parallel to the highway.

 

There are a large white area that i think it should be a salt lake beside the road and even some people are walking on that lake.

and Finally we are there, Adelaide, where you can see even a Tribute to Ataturk.

It is the End of our road trip. we covered 6000 km of the way on 2 weeks driving.

and I can say I will miss this part of the globe. I may come back again one day  or not, I will keep the memories of Savannah Way always with me.

 

To the south

today we leave Alice Springs toward Adelaide.  it is around 1500 km from here to Adelaide, and we have 2 days to cover this distance. I do not expect seeing much on the way.

the road and the vegetation around seems totally different from what we have seen on previous days.

we pass the boarder between Northern Territory and south Australia, where there is some bus staying to have a rest and take some pictures . The language that the travelers of one of the bus is speaking is familiar to me, Ja Ja, Klar, Bestimmt……doch ,…. .

we have a stop on city named Marla to  take a rest and eat lunch. it is not a hot day, just a nice temperature. after lunch we continue our way untill we arrive at Glendambo, another small city . we stop here to take a short rest.

tonight we will stay in a camping ground in Glendambo. we mount or tent but it is a windy night, really windy. we use some extra rope to make sure that our tent will stay stable and not move too much at night. I am not sure if we can sleep with this wind on the tent. adding this point that it is really a cold night,as i remember from my childhood, when i was visiting my village of origin in a city on East of Iran , that had really cold nights despite its warm days. It is how desert is . each of us use 2 sleeping bags and try to sleep, even if i really think the wind will lift our tent with us inside.Lets see where we will be tomorrow, in our tent at Glendambo camping ground or somewhere else  due to the heavy wind, but hopefully still in our tent .i am thinking of Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz now. 

 

 

Around Alice Springs-part 2

leaving Desert Sanctuaries to the next stop, Ormiston waterhole and Gorge which again I do not expect to see much water in this time of the year.

but there were some people there who seems were swimming before we arrived in that shallow green water .

we leave the Gorge . it is around 1:00 PM . we think we drive further and if we see something interesting we can have a stop there. now it is around 30  minutes that we are driving , and we see the sign of outlook to the mount Sonder. we decides to stop and have a look around.

driving further , after around half an hour we reach the sign to Red Bank Gorge in West MacDonnel national park. I can say this is one of the most beautiful places I have seen today. you want to know why, let’s have a look at the pictures together.

Here is the route for this part of the trip in MacDonnel National Park in the center of Australia.

Around Alice Springs-Part 1

Today we are going to have a look around Alice Springs, and I think we will come back again to the city and sleep here at night, or maybe we drive further, we do not know yet. we will find it out.

we leave the Camping place and decide to have breakfast on the way. It is around 8:30 that we reach a parking place with a nice view around on the top of a small hill,so we stop here and have our breakfast.

view from the parking

some minutes after another car drives to the parking place, a couple around 50 get out of the car.  We great each other. The man asks us where we are from. and we answer, Switzerland and Iran, but we live in Germany. They say that they are living in Sydney and they are in a one week holiday in Alice Spring, Then the man asks me if my family is in Iran, and if they are safe there. and I answer yes, Iran is a safe place to live. I get up to go taking some pictures. some minutes after he gets close to me.

-I am sorry young man, I did not want to offend you, he said.

-why? you did not do that, I answered.

-The western mind thinks that everything around that area is not safe, so I just did not think when I asked about safety in iran. But later i thought with me and told myself that there is no war there, but in other countries around, he said.

-No worries, I am used to this kind of questions. most of people in west do not really know that area, so I am familiar with what you said. that is all good, i said.

-yes , actually we have a neighbor who is from Iran…… and he continued talking about the neighbor , and his son who is studying in London.

we are done with breakfast and the conversation is almost to the end. we say good bye, but we know that we will meet them again on the way,since they are going to drive the same way as we want to do.

The first stop after breakfast is Ellery Creek big hole, where we can have a look at the shallow water in this time of the year.maybe in rain season there is much more water here.The next stop is Serpentine Gorge, where I almost see no water, but there we have the chance to go to an outlook on the top of a big hill to have a look at Desert Sanctuaries.It is really hot here and to go for this kind of walk means the body needs much water or you can easily collapse and die because of dehydration. But probably you can survive if you are a small Lizard which is not really small.

The same couple we met in Parking  place. we advised them not to continue the way, because it is really hot and also they did not have enough water in hand

one of the inhabitants of the area

To Alice Springs

Last night was one of the coldest nights I have experienced in our trip , or I can say the coldest night so far. we are on desert area moving to the south. Today we want to reach Alice Springs. It is said that this city is the center of Australia, geographically. The highway we are driving is of a high quality, with a very beautiful landscape on the both sides of the way.Our First stop is Tennant Creek Telgraph station ,which is a historical site 16 Kilometers north of Tennant Creek . The station was built in 1872. If you are interested about the history of this station, you can find more information here.

Food Storage

The next stop is the city where we will have a lunch , then we will drive further to Devils Marbles. There are many blogs and websites explaining about Devils Marbles, so I do not repeat them, But in case of interest you can click here or there.

the next stop is a very small city with population of 11 , according to Wikipedia.We  make a short stop here to have a look at its historical Telegraph station. This  station is also not very different from other small historical places we have seen on the way.we were supposed to have a look at UFO center as well, but it seems that we passed it some minutes ago and we did not recognize it.

It is around 17:00 and we still have 200 km in front of us to reach Alice Springs, Just now a very strong wind pushed our car to the other side of the road, and I say we are very lucky that there is no other car on the road, otherwise our trip had to end disastrously right now.

It is around 19:00 and we arrive at big 4 McDonnell camping ground in Alice Springs, where there are many Cars and also some buses. This camping place is the most crowded one i have seen in this trip. people come here to go to uluru, where we probably will not have time to visit.

Here is the way we covered today, almost 900 km.