Distance - 521km (6093km)
Weather - Sunny, Windy 33 degrees
We were back on the road for day 11 of the Long Ride, with the goal to reach Marla in South Australia.
The day started early to beat the heat, although it never came quite as bad as we have had recently. The Love Bus had a quick check over to make sure she was up for the challenge, and it seemed she was. The beautiful thing about the ugly old pig is that everyone wants to have a look or wave at us so we had to make sure she could complete the distance, hopefully we can use this attention to our advantage and raise more funds for the PCFA.
We left Yulara at around 7:30am and headed west down the Lasseter Highway, back the way we had come in. After an hour or so we passed Curtin Springs, we decided to continue on until we reached Mount Conner.
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| Mt Conner, the third of the giant monoliths. |
Mt Conner raises 300 metres above the surrounding plains and is believed to be a part of the massive subterranean rock structure that forms Uluru and Kata Tjuta, essentially they are all the same piece of rock.
The giant monolith sits on private land is very difficult to get to however, tours can be arranged. It's one of those things you would need to see at some stage.
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| Two little birdies enjoying the view |
From here we continued west, the landscape out here surprised me. It wasn't as flat as I imagined it to be, in fact we seemed to pass a continuous vista of sand dunes, it's believed that many have been in the positions they currently are for the past 3,000 years. I swear they were here in 1985 when I can with school.
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| Oh dear, someone has left their thongs behind. |
There seemed to be a much greater number of trees, and very greener, than what I remember. Does this mean global warming is making deserts much more habitable? Or is Australia just becoming colder and wetter? I dunno.
After two and half hours we reached Erldunda, the turning point to head south towards the border.
Erldunda is a roadhouse on the junction of the Lasseter and Stuart Highways which, is actually named after the station it sits on. It now has a thing called the Desert Oaks Resort, the truth is, it's not much different to our destination of Marla.
We grabbed a bite to eat as well as refuelled the Love Bus. After a quick chat to a few bikers heading north we set off south.
The road south took us through many changing landscapes, in fact it seemed that every 20 kilometres or so we were passing through a totally different ecosystem, it was all desert but extremely varied.
Small hills covered in trees soon turned to rocky outcrops, before morphing into rolling red dunes and grass lands. It was quite bizarre yet visually not as boring as I thought it would be.
By the time we reached the South Australian border we were at the highest point of this day although, just 523 metres above sea level. The border crossing is actually one of the best I have seen, probably the reason a number of caravans seemed to be setting up for the night. Bloody tightarses!
After a few obligatory photos we set off for the final stop, Marla, just 159km further south.
Marla Travellers’ Rest is a sprawling roadhouse, hotel/motel, restaurant, service station, supermarket and much more – all in one place. Located on the Stuart highway since 1982, it provides a comprehensive range of facilities for travellers and locals alike. It takes it’s name from the Aboriginal word meaning kangaroo. Strange how we think kangaroo means kangaroo.
The Marla roadhouse is also something that is very different to how I remember it.
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| Shitballs, it's the new location for Twin Peaks |
Situated east of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands in South Australia, Marla Travellers’ Rest is very much the heart of Marla. With a population of just over 70 people, Marla is primarily a service town and it's visited twice a week by the historic Great Southern Railway train, The Ghan, which now frequently passes by directly across the road from the roadhouse.
As we got settled into the motel I saw a television report that said David Lynch was filming another series of Twin Peaks. Marla, must surely be the location. It's a little weird. It started with no one around and then suddenly as soon as the sun started to set people came from nowhere to sit at the bar of the pub. The locals seemed to speak a different language, almost something like that of the Bushmen of the Kalahari (you know, the little bloke from the Gods Must Be Crazy).
Despite what many people had told us, Marla was actually okay, and nowhere near as bad as we thought it might be. The rooms were very basic and infested with flies, but at least it was somewhere to sleep. The meals were quite good, and very reasonably priced, and the beer was cold.
A few painkillers for desert, and then it was off to bed ...
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