Paddy & Jen Adventures

We headed to Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park, in the Northern Flinders Ranges, where we stayed at Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary. The drive there was interesting – 155 km’s of dirt roads through National Park as well as privately owned stations. We thought we were lucky we had the dust suppressant on in the van but when we arrived at our campsite there was still a fair bit of dust inside. This meant I had to vacuum and mop the floor straight away to get rid of the red dust. We have not done this much off road driving since getting the van and we have now identified a few unsealed areas in the van where the dust has come in. Rookie error not trying it out before we headed off last year!!! We have patched up where we can but there is just so much red dirt & dust that it may be inevitable to keep it out.

Arkaroola is an international dark sky sanctuary, untouched by light pollution, which makes for magnificent star gazing (got those words from the brochure!!). We booked the stargazing tour but unfortunately the moon was a little too bright and there was too much cloud cover. They changed our tour to the Cosmos adventure, which was the most amazing and mind blowing experience (another brochure steal!!). The observatory has a hugely expensive telescope that allowed us to sit indoors and watch the solar system in real time on big screens. We were able to see the moon, stars and planets that were in view that evening. It is beyond comprehension how big the solar system is and how small our own world really is in comparison. How bloody incredible is nature!!!! And how amazing is technology that allowed us to see these things right up close even though they are millions of light years away. Mind blowing!!!!

Arkaroola is also a popular location for four wheel driving. We spent the next day tackling a few rough tracks and then did a gorge walk to check out the ancient rocks up close. Paddy and Paul also went on a guided tour to check out the rare yellow footed rock wallaby.

We left Arkaroola very early morning as we needed to get to the town of Marree (Outback SA) for an afternoon flight we had booked over Lake Eyre. The early drive meant we saw so much wildlife along the way. Emu’s running alongside us, kangaroos everywhere and eagles flying high above us. It was so special to see that we could not resist stopping to get the drone up (away from the eagles!!) and were able to capture some amazing footage. Check out Paddy’s video in our photo gallery so you too can enjoy what we were experiencing.

On the way to Marree we called in to an abandoned outback town called Farina. At this time of year volunteers open up the underground oven & bakery and everyone flocks to it. Not great for gluten freaks like us but a wonderful story of volunteers restoring life back to an old historic town. This is a must for travellers when the bakery is open from May to July.

We arrived in Marree just in time to grab a quick drink at the pub to settle my nerves before taking off. Words can’t describe the flight over Kati-Thanda Lake Eyre National Park. It was way out of my comfort zone to get on a very small plane but nothing was stopping me when I knew the lake has only filled 3 times in 160 years and I was not going to miss witnessing this in my lifetime. Lake Eyre North & South are so massive (144 km long/77 km wide) and the north is currently sitting at 95% full. The sight of all this water is something I will never forget. It was truly magical. Where there was no water (in the south lake) it was a stunning salt lake with incredible colours. We also flew over the Marree Man (click on this link to read all about this mysterious motif of an indigenous man throwing a boomerang) and the Willouran Ranges.

After the flight we met back up with Paddy’s brother Paul and headed back to the pub. We each enjoyed a few glasses of Bailey’s in honour of their mum Carmel who always loved a Bailey’s or two. The following morning Paul headed off back towards home and we had to check out some air bag suspension issues we were having on our van. Paddy was not able to sort it and we eventually had to call to have the van towed back to Copley (100km’s south). We had no immediate plans and nothing booked (we rarely do on our travels!) so we were not too stressed about it. We were lucky the very small town had a very good mechanic who knew a lot about caravans. He worked out pretty quick it was a connection issue and not a leak in the airbag. He knew his stuff so we got him to also do a van service for us whilst we were there. The following morning we were all good to go and hit the road back to Marree to start our adventures on the outback Oonadatta Track.