Wayne Kerr Does the Desert

[Wayne Kerr]

I loved the sand dunes that are visible from google earth.

We all wished we'd had a closer look before the trip ... they are bloody hard work to cross .

Anyway, back to the road ...

Our next destination was a place where many fear to tread … the still radioactive land of a place called Emu. The trip took us through a defence restricted area and the land of the Maralinga Indigenous peoples.

Emu is where some obviously intelligent chaps from merry old England decided to let a couple of atom bombs during the early 1950s … they then went into Marlalinga to let off another 7. I imagine the fields of Yorkshire or Kent where too important for croquet or polo matches at the time.

Apparently the land should be fit for habitation by the local indigenous folk in about 240,000 years, and as you can see from the photos below the merry old English gents did a great job of cleaning up after themselves. We took the risk of camping near by for the night, but everything did seem to glow in the dark during the evening. I guess the photos tell the story better - .


^ Lots of areas in South Australia are used by the military … gotta get permits before so you don’t shot


^ The Anne Beadell track was pretty bad in this area … lots of camels that Big Kev had it in for


^If it isn’t military controlled land in outback South Australia, its run by the local indigenous folk


^ The local indigenous folk do a splendid job looking after their spinifex gardens … I guess they must have heaps of spare time between hunting kangaroos and goannas


^ Finally made it to the site where the atom bombs were tested


^ Reminded me of bloody Springfield on the Simpsons


^ This is where the merry old English chaps watched the bombs from ... about 7kms from ground zero


^ The whole area was littered with twisted radioactive metal like this … bloody Wally the cook took some home as a souvenir … bloody dipstick


^ More radioactive trash left behind by the merry old English chaps


^ At least there are some warning signs for the local Indigenous folk warning of the dangers of setting up camp in the area


^ Plenty of reptiles around though … bloody resilient bastards they are


^ A lovely specimen of the Gould’s Goanna … great eating they are


^ Lots of lovely little desert plants to … this is the Sturt’s desert pea I think


^ Everything seemed to take on an eerie glow at night … we hoped it was the Coopers pale ale we were drinking rather than the radiation

Here’s a vid of one of the tests ... I think this was shot from the observation area shown above - YouTube - Buffalo Kite Explosion

[buad hai]

How did you keep stocked up on beer? You seem to have consumed more brew than fuel....

[MeMock]

It's pretty easy buadhai, channel 11 on the shortwave or a sat phone will do the trick as there is a great company called beer para drop that does beer drops from airplanes.

The desert rose was correct Wayne, beautiful little flower they are.

Those pommy bastards have a lot to answer for don't they

[Wayne Kerr]

How did you keep stocked up on beer? You seem to have consumed more brew than fuel...

For starters we set off with 18 cartons of beer spread across the two vehicles ... it didn't last long. Our truck had two 50 litre fridges, one for beer, another for food. Reality was that both were just about filled with beer most of the time. The other chaps had a similar set up.

Also the local indigenous folk like their beer so it is quite easy to buy in most biggish towns, and at the time there was talk about the government banning sale of grog to the local indigenous folks, so most places were selling up cheaply to drunken travellers like us.

The beer para drop company is hilarious. You pay a hefty surcharge on top of normal beer prices, but so many of the outback travellers are under prepared and after a hot day in the desertare willing to pay anything for beer. You basically give your credit card card details, geographic location (lat/longs) and the beer arrives in a timely fashion ... mostly dropped from small commercial planes servicing remote areas. Our yeah they only drop tinnies of course, too much breakage with bottles I imagine .

[MeMock]

I wonder if the government will try and shut down beer para drop to try and dry out the Aboriginal communities.

[Wayne Kerr]

I wonder if the government will try and shut down beer para drop to try and dry out the Aboriginal communities.

They seem to be doing such a roaring trade with the cattle stations and travellers that it'd be tough to shut down the beer drop business down ... I guess the local indigenous folk will get onto it sooner or later ... come to think of it they probably bloody own the business anyway .

[astasinim]

I imagine the fields of Yorkshire or Kent where too important for croquet or polo matches at the time.

Have you tried playing croquet or polo on this type of terrain?

[Wayne Kerr]

^ Looks a lovely place ... I guess I can see why the merry old chaps from England decided to use outback Australia to test their fireworks instead

btw ... I sincerely hope the photographer is using an alias

[Wayne Kerr]

We’d just about had enough of the slow going of the past few days, and with Big Kev’s leg improving, we decided to put in a big day and get to the end of the Anne Beadell track and push onto a place called Island Lagoon near Woomera in South Australia. We figured we’d cross the Dingo Fence, stop for lunch at a place called Coober Pedy, and be at the lagoon in the late afternoon to set up camp.

Coober Pedy is popular on the tourist trail as an opal mining town. We visited one of the usual "tourist attractions" in the town run by a pushy old Chinaman whose first words to us were "where you from, I’m from Hong Kong". He offers views from his scenic lookout, a look down a hole with a light at the end, pet rocks for sale, and some cheap opal jewellery at inflated prices. Here’s a few photos and comments on the joint. You can find Coober Pedy on Google Earth by clicking here - .


^ The Dingo Fence … designed to keep dingoes out of southern grazing country but wasn’t so successful


^ Reading this sign got me thinking that the poison baits they use couldn’t be so good for the local wildlife or hungry indigenous folks


^ This sign was somewhere near the end (or start if coming from the east) of the Anne Beadell Track … we noted that there wasn’t a similar sign at the western end of the track and each had a few cold beers to celebrate our successful crossing of the track without any mechanical failures or flat tyres


^ This is a shot taken upon our arrival at one of the tourist stops in Coober Pedy ... the fella is the pushy Chinaman owner of the joint


^ Moon rocks, petrified wood, spectacular views ... a clip joint if I've ever seen one


^ One of the little opal shops in town


^ The Chinaman has even been so nice to show you the best place to take a “scenic shot” from


^ Opal mine shafts litter the landscape around Coober Pedy

The local joke is that there are more missing people down the opal mine shafts in Coober Pedy than anywhere in the world. It is quite common for miners (or their partners) to mysteriously go missing after having struck a rich vein of opal … either runaway with the money or pushing up daisies somewhere. No one in the town has a second name and most of the inhabitants are called “Jimmy”. Most people live underground because of the extreme summer heat and many of the hotels and public buildings are built into the rock also. We’d all been there before and since the joint was being bombarded by a dust storm dust storm at the time we were glad to see the arse end of the joint … a few hours later we’d be knocking back some icy cold beers whilst cooking up a storm in the middle of Island Lagoon .

[Wayne Kerr]

Island Lagoon is basically a large salt flat with a number of large “islands” in the middle. This is truly one of my favourite spots of all the places I’ve been in Asia-Pacific. Last time I was there was about 10 years ago. At that time there was a derelict building there with what looked like asbestos blowing around it, but I couldn’t find anything on the net about what it was.

Anyway I recently got talking to a friend on the radio who works at the nearby Woomera rocket range and he reckons it was an old NASA tracking station that once housed hundreds of scientists tracking the early range rocket tests. The old building, to the credit of the yanks, has been cleaned up and all that remains now is a large cement slab … finally found something online about the joint Island Lagoon.

However, we came here for one reason, and that was to camp on the lagoon surface. You can’t really explain the grandeur of this place and it is impossible to give any impression with photos, but I’ve included some here to give you a general idea of what the joint looks like. There is also some great imagery of the place on Google Earth - .


^ First view of the lagoons coming into the place … really looks like a big inland sea from a distance


^ The island after which the joint is named looks spectacular


^ One of my favourite photos from the trip … our campsite on Island Lagoon


^ Wayne Kerr’s trusty tent in the middle of bloody nowhere … does it get any better than this?


^ I must have inhaled some of Paul the cameraman’s whacky tobaccy or something as I tried to get a bit “artistic” with these shots


^ A shadow of an infamous desert Yowie

[Wayne Kerr]

The next day had us travelling over the border into our home state of NSW. The delays associated with Big Kev’s run in with the camel had us a bit strapped for time, but after more than 3 weeks in the bush the last thing we were worried about were our jobs and commitments back home. The main thing on our mind was some good draught beer and a counter meal at the Silverton Pub. Some of you may know Silverton as the home of many Australian films, notably Mad Max II and A Town Like Alice. Google Earth has some decent photos of the place - .

The locals let us stay in an old bunk house out there, I guess they knew we’d inject a fair bit of money into the local economy at the pub. As you can see from the pics there’s not much in old Silverton these days, except Mad Max’s car. There was a tree there too … I was quite surprised that the local indigenous folk hadn’t turned it into didgeridoos, boomarangs, or firewood. The town is struggling these days, but the locals are really lovely people. Go and get pissed at their pub if you ever get a chance … I guarantee you’ll have the time of your life.


^ Snapped one last picture of Island Lagoon on our way out of the place


^ The Silverton Pub … home of Mad Max II … as you can see from the photo below you should have no problem finding this joint


^ The township of Silverton … not much there except an old church and a few old houses


^ The small bunk house the locals let us stay in … nice beds and running water was a real treat after a few weeks in the bush


^ The Silverton Pub by night … Mad Max had his car parked out the front, and was much shorter than I imagined, you can see him holding up the bar in the picture below


^ Big Kev is on the far right telling the locals his story about how the camel broke his bloody ankle … one of them was the local nurse and told him she thought he was full of shit and it looked more like gout than a broken ankle. Boy did everyone in the pub give him heaps, but he still claims it was a camel, I guess we’ll never know.


^ A giant red gum tree near Silverton Pub … one of few left in the area


^ Close up of the big red gum - bloody 500 years old

[Wayne Kerr]

After a touch of the high life in the swanky bunkhouse, we thought we’d do a bit of a pub crawl then make a run for home. After all it was Saturday so we stopped off at pubs in Broken Hill, Wilcannia, and a place called Nevertire. I only have one picture of note for this part of the trip and it is of the Marios Hotel in Broken Hill … the biggest knocking shop in western New South Wales. Embarrassingly my 4 GB memory card was full by this stage, and I regretted not spending an extra $50 or whatever for the 8 GB card … too much memory is never enough on a trip like this.

We ended up going back across the Great Dividing Range around midnight and rolled down to Johnny Longprong’s shack on the mid north coast of NSW about 3 am in the morning. We stayed up all that night drinking his home brew and crapping on about how much fun we’d had. Here’s a few photos taken from the deck of Johhny’s shack the next day and the last two are from a beach just up from him the next day. It was great to be home for a few days before jumping on a flight back to Thailand .


^ Broken Hill Hotel … one of the biggest knocking shops in outback NSW


^ Mid-north coast of New South Wales … small island off the coast in front of Johnny Longprong’s place


^ Pic from the small headland in front of Johnny Longprong’s place back on the east coast of Australia


^ View up the beach from Johnny Longprong’s place


^ Beach just up the road from Johhny’s place


^ Beach just up the road from Johhny’s place at dusk

[buad hai]

^Nice waves. Why isn't anybody riding them?

[MeMock]

Because nobody lives in Australia

[Wayne Kerr]

^Nice waves. Why isn't anybody riding them?

Lots of great surf breaks along this part of the Australian coast ... but since it is just a small township of say 2,000 people the handful of surfers are probably down the beach at one of the reefs. Doing this thread has made me homesick .

[Jock Itch]

Mate - reading this post has made me homesick........ and I live in Oz most of the time !!!

Great post Wayne - geez that Right hander looks enticing !! - reminds me of that break down south where we used to frequent ! - until we had that visit by the man in the grey suit !! - those white pointers are enough to keep anyone out of the water !!

I can't believe none of the lads tucked a fishing rod into their suitcase for the trip - some amazing bits of waterway that you passed. Serenity's one thing, but a fresh barra on teh Barbie is another thing all together !!

That roast roo looked similar to the epic roasts "tassie Highland" style, though we had to settle for povo-pack wallaby mostly down there

[sabang]

^ Now thats a point Itchy. Around Broome & Derby is classic Barra country.

[Wayne Kerr]

Great post Wayne - geez that Right hander looks enticing !! - reminds me of that break down south where we used to frequent ! - until we had that visit by the man in the grey suit !! - those white pointers are enough to keep anyone out of the water !!

Yep I remember that day well mate. They were some big white sharks giving us a hard time. Mostly hammerheads these days though, which tend to keep to themselves a bit .

I can't believe none of the lads tucked a fishing rod into their suitcase for the trip - some amazing bits of waterway that you passed. Serenity's one thing, but a fresh barra on teh Barbie is another thing all together !!

This trip was aimed finding the good spots. Next year we are going to do it properly, hopefully over a few months and lots of fishing ... you in or not?

That roast roo looked similar to the epic roasts "tassie Highland" style

Yep remember those times in highland Tasmania well. In fact I think it was you who taught me how to do the roast wallaby this way one night up on cradle mountain in the snow ... I should have called it Roast Roo Jock Itch style .

[Marmite the Dog]

Not much of a lagoon. Where's the water?

[Wayne Kerr]

Not much of a lagoon. Where's the water?

Up in the clouds somewhere I imagine. Lagoon fills up during the wet season and is full of life, and the during the dry season all the water evaporates off it.

[MeMock]

Looks perfect for taking a pommy shower doesn't it

[buad hai]

Not much of a lagoon. Where's the water?

Have you been reading this thread or do you just look at the photos?

[Marmite the Dog]

Have you been reading this thread or do you just look at the photos?

Guess...

[MeMock]

Poms can't read remember Buadhai

[Johnny Longprong]

Thanks for the company on the trip, the memories in photographs and your gift of truth embellishment. Jock Itch asks why no-one took a rod. Truth of the matter is, you may know a lot about fish, but you are bloody hopeless at catching the buggers and we didn't want to embarrass you.

Today, I got hold of some cheap Vannamei cooked prawns for fishing bait (21/30's). I will post the shots of the Bream I catch with them over the backside of the current moon. Have fun in the big smoke. hahahaha. Poor bugger.