Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Larapinta Trail - traveling outback South Australia

Today we drove from Port Augusta to Coober Pedy. Just out of Port Augusta we visited the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Gardens and stood where Matthew Flinders stood at the head of Spencer Gulf during his circumnavigation of Australia in the early 1800's.

We then stopped off at Woomera and see some of the early rockets which were launched from there since 1947.

Then it was on to Coober Pedy where we watched a beautiful sunset at The Breakaways about 30kms North of Coober Pedy.

There has been a bit of rain up this way so there is a good tinge of green about the place and it looks pretty spectacular. The flies were very friendly today so I am glad I brought the fly net with me.

Tomorrow we have a flight over Lake Eyre so I am really looking forward to that.

Bye for now

David Petherick

Larapinta Trail Charity Challenge

Well we are on our way to Alice Springs for the start of the 7 day Larapinta Trail walk on Sunday. My wife Mary and I are walking the trail to raise money for our respective charities. I am walking for People Outdoors, our disability respite program, and Mary is walking for our Chilean Women's Charity La Leona. It is a big country and a long drive but we also think it is a great way to gain some appreciation of just how big Australia is. The return trip from Geelong to Alice Springs is about 4,800kms!

On Monday we stopped in on the famous Stawell Gift Athletics Carnival to watch a few races and soak up the atmosphere. We also passed the Big Koala at Dadswell Bridge - there does seem to be a period in our not to distant past that we built a whole lot of "Big" things?

We then travelled on to Bordertown and visited former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's birthplace and the first house he lived in before spending the night in Murray Bridge.

Tuesday started with breakfast by the Murray River on a beautiful Autumn day and was followed by a very pleasant day in the Barossa and Eden Valley wines regions for Harvest Festival. We even spotted Maggie Beer at the Harvest Market at Yalumba Winery. We did manage to pick up a few nice bottles of red to sustain us on the trip as well!

Spent the night in Port Augusta and today we head off into outback Australia on our way to Coober Pedy for a couple of nights.

Australia really is a beautiful country and there is so much to see if only we make the time to see it. We really need to do this more often as it is a great way to recharge the batteries and to step back and take time to think. We need to keep encouraging all Australians to spend more time outdoors.

Well, onwards and upwards.
David Petherick