We left Erldunda Roadhouse, after staying overnight. Surprisingly, we woke up feeling fit and well after last night‘s four bottles of red wine! Our fellow travellers, Brian and Yvonne, who helped us with the red wine, were not so good they told us. It is amazing that some practice helps!
Anyway, we refuelled at the Roadhouse with diesel fuel at $1.50 per litre. We have endured headwinds each day since leaving Coober Pedy so that would have caused the increase in fuel consumption.
After an ordinary coffee in the Roadhouse tavern, we set off on the Lasseter Highway with our destination being the Ayers Rock Resort Caravan Park.
The first stop was at the Mount Ebenezer Roadhouse just to see what was there. Some roadhouses have some good displays. This one had a reasonable display of local aboriginal art.
We moved on again to the Mount Connah lookout. What a stunning sight as we approached the lookout. It is a massive sharp sided rock rising from almost flat land with a low range running away to the west. The colour is mauve but it is almost indescribable as it changes as the sun moved. When we arrived there was only one car and two other people. By the time we left there were about 6 four wheel drives and a coach. It was very busy.
This location was the meeting of another couple with their Kimberley Karavan. They were from Sydney and had done some amazing sounding tracks including the Anne Beadell and Heather Tracks. The latter is rarely used and they did it on their own in a 200 series Landcruiser. They are far more adventurous than we are.
The next stop was Curtain Springs where there were a large number of tourists in all forms of transport from big coaches to small cars and everything imaginable. We met up with a very friendly emu there.
Our next leg was to the Ayers Rock Resort Caravan Park. As we came closer, suddenly the “Rock” appeared with its amazing colours. We received a text message from Russell and Julie to advise us that they had secured a site next to them. So we booked in for $38.00 per night and for four nights. Locating the site was fairly easy.
On arrival we had decided to put up the awning as it is quite hot and not an excessive amount of shade around. Then all was in place and Prue made some nice sandwiches for lunch.
We had a coffee at the caravan of Russell and Julie before going to the resort shopping precinct so Prue could find some more summer clothes. She managed to find some shorts.
Then we returned to the Karavan to get ready to go to a little sand hill in the park. We took drinks (red wine), nibbles, chairs and a table there and had a wonderful view of the great “Rock”. The colour changes by the minute almost and it is wonderful to experience. Many of the other travellers were there too.
Once the sun was down it was time to return to our locations to cook up our dinner. So ends the first day in this magical location.