Two guys, three girls and 2500 kilometre road trip

When Anal decided to make his third trip down under I wasted no time in thinking about where to take him.

On his previous trips in 2008 and 2010 he’d already covered up plenty of territory – clocking up some 3000 kilometres on his trips down the east coast from Cairns and following the Great Ocean Road from Adelaide to Melbourne.

A trip that had been on my bucket list for a long while was checking out Australia’s Red Centre.  Climbing Ayers Rock before they close it to the public.

I knew a few friends were also keen on hitting the Northern Territory and it wasn’t long before we had a car-full.

As always, we were fairly pressed for time. We had a little more than a week and wanted to cover a fairly ambitious 2500 kilometres.

In ten days we had time to explore Darwin – with day trips out to Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park.  After this, we began our long journey south. We managed to squeeze in an ogle at the Devil’s Marbles, a swim in Mataranka’s thermal springs, camping at a cattle station in Kings Canyon, a boat trip in Katherine Gorge and sunset at Uluru.

We ate too much, drank to excess, disgraced ourselves (more than once), drove thousands of kilometres, hit a kangaroo at high speed and lived to tell the tale.

Anal was flying in from London and so instead of first coming all the way to Sydney – he decided to transfer in Singapore to a flight direct to Darwin.

We all organised to jet north earlier on the 20th of April – taking the budget airline Jetstar from Sydney.

At $191 one way, it wasn’t the cheapest – but it also wasn’t prohibitively expensive.

So off we went at 1305 – landing in Darwin at 1715.

Anal wasn’t due until the wee hours of the next morning – and so after checking in to our hotel we decided to head out and explore a bit of Darwin.

We spent all of Wednesday exploring Darwin. Cruising up and down the city’s main street towards the casino – Skycity – for afternoon cocktails.

After a full day of exploring all that the city had to offer, we collected our rental car and began our adventure.

Our first day trip was to the Litchfield National park.We checked out the impressive Magnetic Termite Mounds – before heading to the park’s main draw card – its pristine pools and powerful waterfalls.

What should have been an easy 230 kilometre round trip blew out dramatically, when we hit complications in the form of a bit of a wet hurdle.

The loop road we were minutes from completing – was swallowed by a swollen river.

We survived and after a long time backtracking, we tore back to Darwin – collecting a Kangaroo on our way.

The next day we were up early again to for our adventure out to Kakadu National Park.  Kakadu is a little further from Darwin – about 150 kilometres each way, but with four (fairly) capable drivers (and a fifth aspiring one) we were fine.

We managed a tour of the Adelaide River to see the Jumping Crocodiles and the pretty cool Aboriginal Rock Art. That night we ordered pizzas in and had a relaxing night and a special screening of Wolf Creek – before our long trip south.

Sunday the 24th of April is when it all really began. We had a fairly early start for our long drive south. We were staring down the barrel at a 315 odd kilometre journey but the roads in the Northern Territory are pretty good and the speed limits are lax.

We probably arrived in Katherine around lunch time, and, after a cheeky McDonald’s break – we turned left onto the road to the Gorge.We opted for a river cruise into the gorge and spent a while exploring the visitor’s centre before heading off. Not a lot was open the day we went on account of the recent heavy rains, but just give five adults a packet of zinc sticks and a boat – and they’ll take care of the rest.

We hit the supermarket on our way back to the hotel to pick up some supplies for a BBQ.

A few (too many) drinks ended in an early night before our long drive the next day.

On Sunday we hit the road early for our long trip to Tennant Creek.  We had around 675 kilometres to cover – making it our longest day on the road.  We started off with a quick dip in the thermal springs at Mataranka and a bit of breakfast.  

Apart from a stop for lunch, we pretty much just tore it down the the Stuart Highway towards Tennant Creek.

More fast food – this time Red Rooster – and a few drinks before retiring to our hotel room at dusk, at the recommendation of the manager.

The next day we had another early start as we continued our way south towards Alice Springs. We had around 510 kilometres to cover and so wasted no time in hitting the road.

First stop was Karlu Karlu (The Devil’s Marbles) which were cool to see before the day became too hot.After a quick stop, we continued on towards Wauchope for breakfast. We stopped at the Wauchope Hotel and were rather pleasantly surprised at the quality of food – considering the place’s location and clientele.

Next up was a quick toilet break at Wycliffe Well – the UFO capital of Australia.

We had another quick stop at the Tropic of Capricorn marker before tearing on towards Alice Springs.

We arrived at Lasseters Hotel Casino early in the afternoon, giving us enough time for a swim before going out to to a BBQ at Betty’s friend’s house.

After eating plenty and drinking many a little too much, we returned to the casino for a nightcap.

Today we had breakfast at the hotel before our (relatively) shorter day – just 310 kilometres – to Kings Canyon. We stopped off on the way at Tnorala Conservation Reserve to check out Gosses Bluff – a massive formation – thought to be the eroded remnants of an meteorite impact crater.

We also manage to stop off for a look at Kings Canyon before continuing to our accommodation for the night at Kings Creek Cattle Station.We managed a quick sunset camel ride around the property, before lighting our fire and enjoying our tasty camel burgers, and a few beers.

Wednesday, April 28th was probably the day we had all been looking forward to – heading to the very heart of the Red Centre – Uluru.

We gunned it towards Ayers Rock – so I could finally tick climbing it off my bucket list.

The climb was far from easy and took a good few hours, and so in the early afternoon we stopped off for some over priced supplies, before heading back to check out our very cosy cabin at the Ayers Rock Resort Campground.

We had a lazy afternoon, managed a bit of a swim at the resort before getting freshened up and heading back to the Rock to secure prime positions to watch the sunset.

We had a bit of a slow start on Thursday.

Around eleven we made our way to Ayers Rock Airport for our scenic flight over Uluru – which is a fantastic way to view of the area.

In the afternoon we got back in the car and made the short ride out to Kata Tjuta, or the Olgas.

We had just enough time for a quick dip at the hotel before getting all dressed up for our fancy Sounds of Silence dinner.

Some people would probably say we overdid it that night … considering our behaviour … less than model. In any case we ate well, drank plenty, and had a great night.

We were feeling pretty dusty when we checked out of the campground early the next day and made our way back to Ayers Rock Airport, for our flight back to Sydney. In the end, we paid about $215 a pop for our one way tickets with Virgin. We left at 1400 and touched down in Sydney at 1730.