Day 20 & 21 Coober Pedy to Curtin Springs Station

The distances in Australia are enormous and we spend most of the last two days driving.

We left Coober Pedy late in the morning after stocking up on everything we needed. The first kilometres on the highway lead right through the opal fields. It’s a weird view with all the piles of dirt from opal mining as far as you can see.

After around 20 kilometres we wanted to take the turn towards The Breakaways, interesting rock formations we wanted to see. Unfortunately the road was closed (due to the bad conditions after the rain).

So we continued driving north on the Stuart Highway. 

The Stuart Highway is the road that goes all the way from the south to the north of Australia and distances to get somewhere are very, very long. We drove around 400 kilometres that afternoon only stopping to get fuel and to have lunch.

In the late afternoon we arrived at the border between SA and NT and this is the spot we picked to camp overnight. It was a small rest area just next to the highway. But it was a very neat and tidy little camp spot.

During the night we gained an extra hour because of daylight savings. Therefore we were already up and running around 7.15 am ;)

Today we wanted to drive to Uluru. It was another 120 km on the Stuart Highway until we took the turn onto the Lasseter Highway. From here it was another 244 km to Yulara (the entrance to the park).

Forecasts told us that the weather was going to be bad for the coming 3 days and it surely was this morning, dark clouds covered the sky and it rained most of the time.

Around noon we arrived at Curtis Springs Station. We decided to prepare some lunch here. Whilst we ate at the parking space we noticed there was a free camp area next to the station. Out of the blue we decided to stay here tonight. We weren’t in a rush and the weather was too awful to enjoy Uluru anyway. So we moved the van to the spacious camp site. Then we walked around the station for a bit and met the local emu that likes to check out all the new tourists.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was just spent relaxing.