Alice Springs to Adelaide

   
It is quite a drive from Alice Springs to Adelaide. You certainly need to get into 5th gear occasionally, and you certainly want to rest from time-to-time. First you need a car. I went to see the good people at Hertz a few days earlier and asked them if they had any one-way rentals to Adelaide. They said yes and arranged a super deal for me. I paid $10 per day rental, plus $30/day of insurance for 2 days, making a total cost of $80 to drive a car to Adelaide. Of course I had to pay for the petrol, but the cost didn't work out too much more than a bus ticket, and was certainly less than an airfare. I had always wanted to do the drive anyway so it was a good result for me. The second thing you need is a co-driver if you are doing it in a reasonable hurry, which I was. So, I recruited 2 of my friends from the Uluru tour to come along with me. Chirag, an Englishman, was on his way to Melbourne for Christmas. He decided to come along instead of flying directly to Melbourne from Alice Springs. Monique, a Dutch girl, was on her way to Adelaide to catch a bus to Melbourne. She cancelled her bus ticket from Alice to Adelaide and came along as well.

The drive was long, but always interesting for me at least. The countryside does change substantially and often. The colours are incredible, particularly with so much green around at the moment. I was very lucky to have 2 very capable co-drivers with me so I could relax when not driving myself. We had one close call with a sheep on the 1st day, but survived that and didn't see many kangaroos, so it was all pretty cruisy. We drove about half way, to Coober Pedy, and booked in at an underground hostel there. It was quite late already but we had time to visit a couple of local attractions, then drive out to see The Dog Fence and The Breakaways. It would have been good to have a bit more time but we had to get back to the town to taste "The Best Pizza in Australia" at John's Pizza Bar. Despite being in a little town in the middle of nowhere, this place has won numerous awards for their pizza, and it is a must on the list of every visitor. It did not disappoint. The pizza was spectacular. Maybe not worth driving 800km from Adelaide, but I'd certainly drive 100km occasionally if I could! Well worthwhile. After a few glasses of wine we bunked down underground for the night, and slept very well indeed.

Day 2 from Coober Pedy to Adelaide was long, and we had a few deadlines to keep:
 - Chirag had to check-in to his hostel
 - Monique had to catch her bus to Melbourne
 - I had to meet up with my mates Boulge & Trav to get drunk (I hadn't seen Boulge for 8 or 10 years)
We drove to Port Augusta where we had some King George Whiting and chips. Very nice. My co-drivers were a bit surprised we were at the ocean before Adelaide though! From Port Augusta we had a detour through the Flinders Ranges with a quick visit to Quorn and Alligator Gorge. We then drove down through Clare and on to Adelaide. I timed it superbly, meeting all of our deadlines with about half an hour to spare. Good thing I didn't run out of fuel!
I dropped off my friends, then drove to the airport to drop off the hire-car. Boulge met me there and threw me a FUIC (Farmers Union Iced Coffee) to greet me. Even if we haven't seen each other for years, nothing much changes! It was great to be back in Adelaide, so we went to the pub, met Trav and got drunk. A great night!