I have always considered myself a coastal person and consequently never had much interest or spent much time inland, least of all the outback, but that changed on my first leg back in September last year when I headed north to start this odyssey in the Torres Strait, via the Queensland outback.

I remember being struck by the harsh beauty, the vast distances and sense of space, and the silence. In fact spending five days in Burketown is still one of the highlights of my trip so far.

Now, in Darwin, having traversed the continent from south to north, through the “dead centre” I can say that I have an even greater appreciation for the uniquely understated power that the outback exerts on us which I’ve tried to articulate my feelings in the “ENDLESS…” blog in Thoughts of the Solo Traveler section.

This story is more about the places I went, the things I saw and the people I met.

My journey north started on leaving Wallaroo on the Yorke Peninsula and the first decision was which route to take. The road more travelled is via Port Pirie and Port Augusta but I decided to go another way.

Passing through quintessentially Australian towns like Laura and Orroroo to followed the Wilcolo Track north to the Flinders Ranges and my first destination, Wilpena Pound. Arriving at dusk the colours and hot dry air rekindled my longing for the wide open spaces of the outback.

In truth while I’d always had an interest in visiting Wilpena Pound, and it is spectacular, it does feel a bit inauthentic and touristic, a bucket list entry on the Grey Nomad playbook. After a days exploring I decided to head off the beaten track and head to Blinman and the unheralded but magnificent Parachilna Gorge (see photo at top of .

I’d originally planned to overnight at Parachilna but after a dusty trek through the gorge and a quick refresher at the Prairie Hotel I decided to aim up and head for Marree which was only 185km down the road! Despite the fact the Outback Highway is a high speed black top it pays to be cautious as I discovered there are random potholes, more like craters, ready to consume the unawary driver, thankfully Max and I arrived in one piece, but Marree is where the rubber hits the road – so to speak. This is the end of the line, from here on it’s dirt in every direction and most of the roads, or tracks as they’re more accurately known are still closed following the floods they had earlier this year. This could have been a problem but as I discovered when joining sundowners out front of the Marree Hotel that I’d be taking the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek via Lake Eyre which was open!

Safe in the knowledge that I only had 370kms of dirt road driving to go before I hit bitumen again at Coober Pedy I pulled up beside a sleeping road train for the night, awakening the next morning to a cool crisp outback sunrise and whatever lay ahead.

After a quick stop to see what remained of Lake Eyre after the recent floods, a lot of salt and not much water, 200kms later I arrived into William Creek, not much to see here other than another outback pub and dual purpose main street / runway for those prepared to pay $ 1,600 to fly over Lake Eyre (not I, as I bought my drone for less than that)!

The track to Coober Pedy was the best / worst yet, in some of the heavily corrugated sections there was actually a side track to the side track, not that you’d really notice it as the “road” was about 50m wide give or take, it was hard to tell. Passing by Woomera, that cold war relic of our space / atomic age I eventually arrived in a parallel universe, also known as Coober Pedy. This is truly a weird place where people live underground, scratching out a living trying to find opals in what looks like a gigantic ant farm. No wonder this has been the real life set for a number of sci fi movies and some of the locals seems to be living the dream…?

I retreated to stay at the local caravan park rather than risk it on the street given the number of zombies and other alien lifeforms wandering the streets and I needed a decent night’s sleep before hitting the 700km stretch to Alice Springs the next day. In hindsight I think here were as many lunatics in the asylum as there were outside but after a hard day in the saddle getting there I think I could have slept hanging from a tree!

Crossing the border into the NT the next day I noticed the speed limit was upped to 130kph, which helped shorten the travel time, in fact I managed to cover the distance in just over six hours despite the fact that for the first time I can recall I had Max’s cruise control set below the limit!

Alice was bigger than I expected nestled in a gap in impressive MacDonnell Ranges with the sandy Todd River “running” through it. That said, despite it being the major service centre for central Australia is seemed sad and souless, a bit like a war zone with barbed wire and steel shutters on almost every building and too many lost and clearly damaged original inhabitants not coming to terms with living in an urban environment and a culture thousands of years removed from theirs.

Once again I felt the need to retreat behind the sanctuary of the unimaginatively named G’Day Mate caravan park, where my next door neighbour happened to be LandyAndy, a crazy Pom who several years ago decided to throw in his job as a bus driver in Manchester and drive his 1991 Land Rover Defender around the World. Evidently he told his family he was just ducking out to Halifax to get some milk, neglecting to tell them it was Halifax Canada, rather than the one just down the road in the midlands! As can be imagined Andy had some great stories and ironically his last port of call before arriving in Australia was Chile, where we’d been recently although under very different circumstances. Andy’s adventures seemed to put my little escapade the shade somewhat!

Andy was an exception because unlike the other legs of my tour I haven’t gone out of my way to meet people and don’t know many old friends out this way anyway. This was deliberate because I was wanting to spend time alone and I’d always planned on spending time off-grid west of Alice.

I knew a little of this country from a trip to the outback I’d made with a mate called Titch back in 1990 and who needed to keep his hours up for his pilot license. He invited me to join him flying in a tiny Piper Warrior he’d chartered out of Alice Springs for a week. I clearly recall the guy at the charter company saying “when you get lost just remember which side of the highway you’re on and turn left or right and follow it back here”, not “if” but “when”…needless to say Titch wasn’t instrument rated and yes, we did get lost. Another memorable thing about this trip was when we were at Uluru Titch mentioned that his cousin Tony was the Case Manager for the Pitjantjatjara people who’s tribal lands straddle the WA, SA & NT borders and that Tony was going to drive up and meet us for a beer. Over the course of the evening Tony mentioned his surname was Weedon and he was originally from the Goulburn area, which was where my mother was from and it turns out all three of us strangers were related! What had also left a lasting impression on me from this trip was that the following day Tony took us to a aboriginal sacred place called Gosse Bluff, which is actually a meteor impact crater. I remember this as being quite a surreal place with a strange energy all of its own and wanted to revisit it on my own.

So the next day I provisioned up and headed west visiting Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, Serpentine and Ormiston Gorges and finding a perfect isolated campsite in the bed of the Finke River near Glen Helen. Thankfully this is the off-season and I had it to myself, exactly what I was looking for, solitude and the chance to relax, unwind and say hello to myself, all of which I did but mostly I did nothing but enjoy the landscape I was immersed in and the sounds of silence.

The next morning I awoke to the delightful sounds birds chirping and headed off to revisit Gosse Bluff which wasn’t quite as I’d remembered it but definitely had a powerful energy to it, apart from any spiritual significance the sheer physical energy required to displace billions of tonnes of earth to form this circular mountain range around 15 million years ago is mind boggling. Evidently the mountains around the rim use to be three or four times as high as they are now and the fact that this is just one of many and at a cosmic level not even a big one shrinks our own significance to very close to zero!

After spending a couple of hours there, walking around the rim and generally soaking up the vibe I decided to go to Hermannsburg which was the original inland mission and in many ways the front line in the well intended but questionable attempted indoctrination of our first Australians aways from their culture and belief systems developed over thousands of years and relevant to their time and place, and the Christian tradition which was, and possibly still is alien to many of them. Despite these concerns I have no doubt that these early pioneers thoroughly believed in what they were doing and put up with enormous hardship to welcome everyone and anyone into their church. The mission and town are fairly run down these days and I suspect this is symptomatic of other missions around the World and reminded me of what I felt on a our recent South American trip the way Christianity has been imposed on indigenous cultures and while some have flourished and embraced these teachings, others have been left confused and rudderless.

One of the unintended consequences of the Hermannsburg mission was to foster the creative talents of local indigenous artists who were able to translate their innate understanding of the land, it’s moods and colours into an evocative western style art that was widely respected and became synonymous with the region. The father of this school of art was Albert Namatjira, an Arrernte man, widely considered a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was arguably one of the most famous Indigenous Australians of his generation. Albert and his family lived on the outskirts of Hermannsburg.

I spent three days and nights in this splendid solitude and will delve more deeply into this time at another time in “Thoughts of the Solo Traveller”.

I arrived back into Alice as the SAFL grand final was kicking off and watched it with a rowdy congregation of locals and travellers at the Alice Springs Brewing Co. which just happened to be next to G’Day Mate. Talk about changing gears – from one extreme to another in 200kms!

The next morning I saddled up and headed for Tennant Creek along the way stopping at the Devils Marbles, a collection of giant round rocks somehow perched precariously each other, I have no idea what natural forces created such an odd thing, or how they’d stayed like this for millenia? Not surprisingly this is an aboriginal sacred site and they ask you not to photograph the most impressive ensemble, which I respected, but even the more mundane are bizarrely interesting.

Arriving in Tennant Creek was a reality check, this is what disadvantage looks like, it is without doubt one of the bleakest most soulless places I’ve ever been to and I immediately changed plans and kept driving. After about 25km I came across Threeways Roadhouse, just in time to watch the Preliminary Final NRL match between Penrith and Brisbane, with about a dozen road train drivers and other assorted odd bods. It was a great match and the house provided free pies to go with the beers that were going down a treat, the fact Brisbane won made it better but there was a catch with the free pies which came back to haunt me later that night!

There was still about an hour of daylight and I decided to push on not knowing where I’d end up. As fate would have it after 80km I chanced upon Banka Banka Station, a classic NT cattle property that has added a campground to their income stream and for the princely sum of $ 15 I got to stay on grass under trees and with hot and cold ammenities including flushing toilets which came in very handy later that night thanks to the free-be pies and Threeways!

I was now in cattle country where the stations are measured in the millions of hectares and the cattle are numbered in the tens of thousands. This is where some of Australia’s oldest and most iconic stations are located including Newcastle Waters, Wave Hill, Burnett Downs and Helen Springs. These stations that are bigger than some European countries were communities in themselves in days gone by and stayed in the same family for generations until recently when most are now owned by large agribusiness corporations. Established in 1883 and covering an area of 10,353 sq kms with around 45,000 head of cattle Newcastle Waters is the third largest inn then NT and was owned by the Lewis family (sadly no relation) for over 50 years and was the inspiration for Mary Durack’s classic “Kings in Grass Castles”. I visited and could feel the history of the place, and it seemed fitting that the Drovers memorial is at the front gate.

Another 300 odd kms up the road my next stop was the legendary Daily Waters, a short detour off the highway but a seemingly in a World of it’s own, somewhere between Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee. As is usual in these parts the pub was the central attraction and judging by the number of bras hanging from the ceiling there must have been a lot of unsupported ladies leaving the premises over the years. Even though the sign said no animals allowed the in situ cows, chickens and dogs obviously couldn’t read or chose to ignore these instructions, and that didn’t include the assortment of two legged animals lurking in thew shadows. Keeping everything together was a lady with an unmistakable Fijian smile and frangipani behind her ear, Alisi, who seemed to take it all in her stride. I asked her how a young lady from Fiji finds her way to Daily Waters and her response was as expected, everybody’s got to be somewhere, which seemed entirely appropriate as who should turn up next, you guessed it, LandyAndy! After a round of introductions and refueling it was time to escape this madness.

I’d heard of Mataranka but never knew where it was until I arrived there, 170kms later. Famed for its thermal pools at Bitter Springs me expectations were high only to be let down by the overwhelming smell of bat shit and several jellyfish like humans bobbing around in the said pools, not to mention the fact that I was now in croc country, and the pool had only recently reopened after a resident croc had decided he too felt it was on the nose. Not for me either, move on.

Somewhere between Daily Waters and here things had changed, it’d gone from arid dry head and red sand scrub to humid tropical heat and vegetation, I’m not sure where I crossed that line but cross it I had?

Deciding to leave Mataranka to the crocs and jellyfish I pushed on the Katherine, and beyond to check out the Gorge View Eco Resort where my wife and I had booked a glamping tent for the following week after she joined me in Darwin the following Sunday. I’m glad I did as it was overpriced and underwhelming, no gorge, no view and no glamp – just camping in a basic tent with no a/c and the actual gorge was about 10k further down the road.

As usual I arrived at sundown and trekked to a lookout at the entrance to the gorge which was spectacular but I was told the gorge is actually about 8km long and the only way to really see it is by boat or chopper. This turned out to be a good preview and worthwhile recce, so I cancelled our booking at the Gorge View and booked a gorge cruise for the following Monday.

While I was at the lookout I met a delightful young lady called Laura who was from Adelaide and was working as a remote areas nurse currently based in Katherine. What a champion, an unsung hero doing the hard yards at the front line and not getting the respect or pay they deserve. Good on you Laura.

After camping at the gorge and restocking in Katherine I headed to my next port of call, Kakadu via an odd little place called Pine Creek which didn’t seem to exist.

I had great expectations for Kakadu which were initially not met, despite the impressive park entry sign nothing seemed to change, the same scrubby flat landscape and nothing to see here. The ranger station was deserted, the creeks and waterfalls were dry and it was 43 degrees and 99% humidity, what was I doing here? I eventually found a couple of tradies who were working of refurbishing the ranger station for the non-existant ranger who suggested the best thing to do was to go to Cooinda for a beer and the visitor centre at Jabaru, only 130 km and further 50 km away! I took their advice, resisted the urge for a beer and made it to the Information Centre with 10 minutes to spare before closing time. A helpful guy there called Max started by telling me I’d come at the wrong time of the year because it was hot and dry but notwithstanding I should go to the Nourlangie rock art, Cahills Crossing to drive across a river full of crocs and go to Ubirr for the sunset! So tomorrow was set and I headed back to Cooinda to catch the sunset and have postponed beer and spend the night.

The sunset was spectacular, I got to see my first Jabiru and croc , the beer was cold and the camping was reasonably priced. Goodnight.

The next morning as I was getting ready to leave I was re inflating my tyres after a bit of off-road work when a young German lady and her naked 18 m.o. son approached and asked what I was doing? It turned out that Helena and her son Merlin were travelling alone in a hired campervan and didn’t have a clue where they were going or what they were doing. I suspected she was escaping a bad situation back in the GDR but didn’t want to go there with her. I explained that when travelling on sandy or corrugated dirt roads it was a good idea to lower the tyre pressure but once back on the hardtop you needed to pump the tyres up to normal pressure. I also asked her what her plans were and she said she wanted to travel across to Broome, I said if she did that she should take the highway via Fitzroy Crossing and not the Gibb River Road as she was in a 2WD rent-a-van. I had an uneasy feeling as I headed out of the campground and decided to turn back and ask her if she knew anyone in Australia if she needed help, she said she didn’t so I gave her my mobile and said she should call me if she needed to. She seemed grateful and relieved and I felt better that I’d done the right thing. I wish her and Merlin well and hope they don’t need to call!

The previous evening on my way back to Coolinda I’d noticed a sign to Mirrai Lookout and decided to make this my first stop for the day. On arrival there was one other car in the car park and the driver, Earnie, was about to start the trek to the lookout. We decided to walk together and it turns out Earnie who hails from Yarragon in Victoria is on his own solo circumnavigation but going the other way and had just done WA and the Gibb River Road, he reassured me that it wasn’t as bad as it’s reputation and Max should be good to go. We trekked through the scrub and heat to the top of the mountain, climbed the impressive lookout tower and marvelled at the lack of view, you literally couldn’t see the wood for the trees! Anyway it was a good walk and talk even if there wasn’t an outlook and on arrival back at the carpark who should pull in but LandyAndy. I did the introductions, he asked what it was like, we said crap, he said he’d give it a miss and we all compared notes on our days plans and decided to go our separate ways but to rendevous again that night at the Kakadu Lodge campground in Jabiru.

On the way to my next stop at Rocks I’d overtaken an older style campervan with UK plates and the URL www.drivingoz2uk.com written on the back. This caught my attention due to the similarity of our URL’s and when it pulled in beside me in the next carpark at Nourlangie introduced myself to the driver, another Andy but an Aussie this time, enquiring if he was just starting his trip or on the final leg? Andy explained that he’d actually finished his trip and was now living in Darwin but originally from Narrabeen and we knew a few of the same people. I was interested in the route he’d taken to get here and he went on to explain that it had taken him and his wife twelve years to complete the journey during which both their daughters were born, they’d encountered all sorts of experiences while on the road and that his favourite country was Iran! This surprised me but he said the people he met there were wonderful, generous and hospitable, and petrol was the equivalent of 2c/litre but you never paid for it because you needed a permit so people gave to him wherever he went and when they did leave they took 8 jerry cans full of fuel which got them across Pakistan for free too! Once again my big adventure seemed quite small by comparison.

It turns out Nourlangie is the real deal, this is what I’d expected to find at Kadadu and more! Towering rock escarpments and massive caves with extraordinary ancient rock art adorning the walls that is in remarkably good condition given some of it is up to 20,000 years old!!! It’s hard to believe that the history of this place you are standing in goes back tens of thousands of years and many thousands of generations. It also struck me that other than the rock art and a few ashes and bones there was so little evidence of such a long human occupation, obviously each new generation were content to follow the same lifestyle of their predecessors, they didn’t need or want to advance their knowledge or build monuments to themselves, living sustainably and evolving as necessary as the climate slowly changed. That was until about 200 years ago when everything changed in an instant, white men, guns, horses, property, religion, alcohol and money – this alien invasion must have come as such a rude shock and it’s no wonder many of our First Nations people are still finding it hard to make the transition.

Aside from what you can see at Nourlangie it’s what you can feel that’s equally powerful, there is definitely an energy about the place and somehow the spirits of all the people and animals that have lived in this place for so long have been absorbed into the landscape and make their presence felt.

After having my World view rocked (literally) at Nourlangie I needed some light relief in the form of crocodiles and headed for the infamous Cahills Crossing where you can drive over a causeway across the East Alligator River surrounded by wild crocs who are not necessarily waiting for you but the barramundi that come in with the tide. I went there, drove across the causeway, saw a couple of disinterested looking crocs and waited for the real show to begin, which it didn’t because the tide wasn’t high enough to flow over the causeway and bring the crocs their dinner, but there were signs and pictures of what it could be like when it was more exciting…and dangerous!

Ubirr is only about 5km from Cahills Crossing but couldn’t be more different. Another sacred site straight out of the Dreamtime, more amazing rock art including the iconic Rainbow Serpent, incredible natural rock formations and the best place in Kakadu to sit and contemplate the sunsetting over the wetlands and distant red glowing mountains. No wonder it has had such spiritual signifigance for tousands of years, and even to us white fellas it has great gravitas.

After being transfixed by the whole sunset experience at Ubirr I headed back to meet with Ernie and Landy at the Kakadu Lodge in Jabiru. What a culture shock! The whole place looks and feels like what you’d expect of a mining town to after the tide goes out and the mines shut down, all very tired unloved and 1980’s…even the famed Crocodile Hotel looks like it needs to be euthanised. Despite it’s promising name the Kakadu Lodge was equally run down and despite the Ranger uranium mine being the initial catalyst for the establishment of the town, and shut down in 2021 on environmental grounds, the town is now powered by solar and ironically the whole place suffered a blackout because the solar couldn’t cope, just as we were trying to cook dinner on the electric BBQ! (Chris Bowen, are you listening)!

Eventually the light came back on, we finished cooking our steaks and parted ways agreed to stay in touch, I’ve got a feeling this won’t be the last time I cross paths with Landy!

The next day was the final leg into Darwin but after the lack of crocodile action at Cahills Crossing I decided I’d stop by the “Adelaide River Original Queen Jumping Crocodile Cruise” at Wak Wak (seriously) which was as expected, very touristic and despite the crocs being wild they performed like circus animals, they even had names, but at least they showed up!

After getting my fill of both crocs and tourists I headed into Darwin via Humpty Doo, how very NT, you couldn’t make some of these place names up unless you were a Territorian…Rum Jungle, Larrakeyah and Fannie Bay to name just a few. I shuddered to think what lay ahead in the Big Smoke! But, as they say, that’s another story.

So that’s it, it’s taken me nearly as long to tell you about my trip North as it was to actually drive the 3,000 odd kms I travelled. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I did doing it!