Central Australia Road Trip (Pt.2): Alice Springs & the long trip home
As alluded to in part one of our Central Australia trip post, the second half of our drive underwent a major change. Our original itinerary had us heading to Alice Springs and then further north before turning back east on a scenic journey back to Sydney. However a combination of extreme heat, advice from locals in regards to the state of the Plenty Highway and the lack of vehicle preparedness (e.g. only a single spare tyre) added up to the very difficult decision to turn Fran around at Alice Springs and head back South. We’ve included a bit more detail on this below in our itinerary section. But for now, we had a trip to continue on, next stop Alice Springs.
Alice Springs to Sydney
Alice Springs
The drive from Uluru to Alice Springs was a pleasant one. For once we had what was a relatively short distance to drive (only 450km and 5 hours compared to the 10+ hour drives we had been doing) on a good road with nice scenery.
For example, check out this guy below. He is a Thorny Devil and looks much scarier than he actually is. He sat on the side of the Lasseter Highway and we were so excited we turned Fran around to go back and see him. He sat really still so we could photograph him too :-)
The next fun stop was to see Mount Conner. We had actually seen this mountain on the way to Uluru and for a brief moment were tricked into thinking it was Uluru. I guess that’s why they call it ‘Fool-uru’.
Shortly after that we came across a caravan of camels, right in the middle of the road. I was a bit slow with the camera this time, but we did manage to catch them as they moved into the bushes.
In Alice Springs we went directly to our accommodation, the Crowne Plaza Alice Springs Lasseters.
When we booked this hotel back in Sydney we didn’t pick up on the fact that it was linked to a casino and normally would not have been thrilled about that, but the hotel felt quite separate from the casino. We were also there for NYE which actually worked out well as that was where most of the party action was happening.
Oh, the other really great thing about this hotel was the laundry room which has DIY coin-operated machines and was super economical. The timing was perfect as we had saved up a bit of washing by this point.
Alice Springs itself was a pretty chilled town. It had all the amenities you would expect for a town that size in addition to a ton of art galleries displaying local artist’s work. Disappointingly, because we were there during the holiday season, a lot of them were closed. Still we visited what was open and were impressed.
Also cool was all of the street art around the town, which kind of made up for some of the closed galleries.
There’s not a ton to do in Alice Springs itself (especially in early January when we were there) but we had a bit of a look around as well as checked out a decent sun set on ANZAC Hill.
We did a half day trip out to Ellery Creek Big Hole about an hour out of Alice Springs.
The waterhole is a picturesque spot for swimming, walking and picnics. It also has camping facilities. However we only really went for a swim, that is until we got there.
The waterhole itself was quite pretty and the water not as cold as we had been led to believe. But the green, murky colour of the water changed our minds about the swim.
There were a few people in the water but a couple of locals that we spoke to there advised against swimming as the water levels were so low. They noted that the water levels in the past had actually covered most of the sand you can see in the below photo (RHS) and that they didn’t feel comfortable swimming in it at present. We felt the same. Still, it was a nice place to be and hang out for a while.
As mentioned, we were in Alice Springs for NYE which we spent at a bar in the local casino. While I don’t think I’d go all the way to Alice Springs to celebrate future NYE’s, it was a pretty fun night and the locals were very welcoming and fun to party with.
Clare Valley via coober pedy
Our departure from Alice Springs brought some difficult decisions as well as the realisation that we were going to have to back track a little and do another night in Coober Pedy (680km). We considered driving as far as Port Augusta (1227km) but that just seemed silly. So another night in Coober Pedy it was, except this time we stayed above ground in the local BIG4 Holiday Park and cooked our own food.
The following day we made the journey south to our next destination, the Clare wine region (730km). We chose Clare because it was one wine region in South Australia we had yet to visit and had limited exposure to the bushfires.
On the way we made a couple of stops. The first in Port Pirie where Mike’s ancestors had worked and lived, making it a good place to stop for a quick beer on yet another hot day.
The second stop was at Lake Bumbunga in the town Lochiel, in the Clare wine region.
Lake Bumbunga is famous for its bubblegum pink colour which it gets from a salt-loving algae that is attracted to the high salinity levels found in the water. The colour does vary according to the seasons, cloud cover, salinity levels in the water and the time of day and while we got a pretty good tone of pink for our visit, it wasn’t as strong as in some of the photos we had seen. Still, it was pretty amazing to see.
Clare is a beautiful little town and we were so glad we had decided to stop there.
We had one whole day there as a part of a two night stay and used it to walk part of the Riesling Trail. The Riesling Trail is a 35 kilometres long walking and cycling track that runs between the towns of Clare and Auburn. The trail travels past a number of cellar doors and is named after the grape that the region is famous for.
The trail was an opportunity to get our legs moving while checking out the Clare Valley’s wine offerings.
We set out on the trail after mid-morning and in the end only made it to three wineries.
The three we visited were: Tim Adams Wines (great Pinot Gris), Sevenhill Cellars (beautiful cellar door and grounds) and Kilikanoon (reds that punch above their weight).
We spent a couple of hours at Sevenhill Cellars enjoying a cheese board and wine and enjoying their amazing location. Sevenhill Cellars was the first winery established in the Clare Valley and was settled by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1851 to produce sacramental wine. Some of the old structures and cellar are still there.
We also ate extremely well in Clare (and surrounds). We had a stellar meal at a place called Seed Kitchen (pictured below) however we have since found out that they have moved location and changed menus to burgers which is a bit disappointing.
Other gems we discovered included the Olive Bus Clare for a nice quiet place to enjoy a coffee and light breakfast or snack, Velvet and Willow for the excellent coffee and muffins and the Watervale Hotel which had been recently taken over by new owners with grand plans. We can’t wait to go back and check it out when they’re done.
Adelaide
After we left Clare we headed down to Adelaide super excited to have a short drive (140km).
We’ve been to Adelaide a couple of times before and just wanted a quick night stop before the long drive back to Sydney. We didn’t do a whole lot there but did check out Glenelg for the first time, having lunch and a walk on the pier. I think we had literally the worst weather we encountered on our trip that day but it was still good to have a look around and imagine how nice it would be to have a drink on the beach on a sunny, warm day.
We didn’t get pictures of anything we ate in Adelaide but can highly recommend The Moseley in Glenelg for a drink or pub lunch, and EST Pizzeria in the Adelaide CBD for awesome Italian pizza.
Return to Sydney via Hay
Our return to Sydney was long and uneventful (1375km).
For a good overnight stop try Hay where we stayed. I can’t remember the exact motel but there were a couple on the main street and they both looked ok. It was quiet when we were there with not a ton of eating options but a couple of pubs/RSL and cafes for breakfast in the morning.
Also still around was the smoke from the NSW bushfires, as evidenced in the below photo taken in Tooleybuc, on the NSW/SA border and not far from Hay.
We loved our Central Australia trip in spite of the extreme heat. If we were to do it again I don’t think we would go at that time of the year although it did mean less people/ tourists which has its upsides. Next time we will also make sure Fran is ready for those super bad roads and explore more of the Australian Outback.
Itinerary Our planned v actual itinerary
We have included a bit more of a detailed view of our itinerary, the planned version versus what we actually ended up doing.
As mentioned several times in our posts we had to change the second half of our trip (post Alice Springs) and head back south as opposed to the original plan of heading further north and then east to get back to Sydney. While the extreme heat was a factor, we would have managed that. it was really the advice from locals in regards to the state of the Plenty Highway that changed our minds. We had done research prior to our trip and learned that the road conditions do vary throughout the year, but nothing indicated to us just how bad it actually would be.
We had planned on averaging somewhere between 60-80km/h on a corrugated but consistent surface meaning the 750km road could be done in a long day, but recent reports from locals indicated long sections with speeds down to 30km/h. Combined with a lack of vehicle preparedness (e.g. only a single spare tyre) and lack of experience with Fran’s fuel consumption, we made the difficult decision to turn around at Alice Springs and head back South. Refer to the Boulia Shire Council website for latest conditions if you are planning on travelling along the Plenty Highway.
We are still keen to get to places like Birdsville and Mudgee so we’ll have to plan those into future trips (and Mike still has an appointment with Big Red).
If we were to re-do this trip we would re-jig our Uluru and Alice Springs time, removing a night from each, so that we could add Kings Canyon. Missing the Canyon was a bit of a disappointment but I guess that’s just another reason to visit there again in the future.
