Tourist time

Giles Weather Station: Burning Daylight Hours

There is limited tourist fodder out here in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. In fact, if you actually wanted to travel out here, and follow the information provided in the guides, you'd probably get it all wrong.

The main map of Australia in the most recent (just updated) Lonely Planet Guide to Australia, 2007, doesn't even identify the unsealed road from Uluru through to Laverton. As usual, that blank space in the middle of Australia is a useful place to situate interesting notes about tourist places of greater import and attraction, such as Uluru itself. It seems hard to imagine that an (albeit unsealed) road called The Outback Highway, or alternatively, the Great Central Road could be omitted from the leading tourist guide on our country.

A more detailed regional map in the guide itself also shows that if you were to head to Uluru from Laverton, you might well end up trying to get to Uluru via South Australia (which would take an extra 8 hours if you actually did it). Part of the road including Warakurna and the Giles Weather Station that continues on to Uluru, doesn't even exist on the map! The road just peters out to nothing before the NT border.

Another road map I have, which provides detailed road information and (for outback areas) guidance on fuel stops also identifies that there is no diesel or petrol available for the 1700 k trip from Laverton to Uluru. I wonder whether the authors of this bit of information paused to consider how the local communities got their fuel supplies.

With all this misinformation, I was not surprised to see some boy scout tourists at Warakurna filling their car with fuel purchased in Alice Springs (note: there are 4 fuel outlets between Alice and Warakurna) because they thought they might get stuck. The jerry cans were being emptied into their car, next to the bowsers, to lighten their load. They had enough fuel to get to Laverton, a further 800 k away!

For all that, I do agree there are only two readily accessible tourist highlights on the Laverton to Uluru road - a tour of Giles Weather Station at Warakurna (complete with daily weather balloon release), and the Cultural Centre at Warburton. For a 2-3 day drive, it's not yet quite worth writing home about...

Unless, of course, you happen to live out here and it's a highlight of the local event calender for your visiting friends and family. It sure beats taking them to the shop between 2-4pm for a pie!

And, for those who don't like spoilsports, close your eyes for an almost real-life experience of the balloon release at Giles:

Why the great silence?

Humble apologies for the long silence on the blog. It's hard to believe it's been six months since I last wrote something down.

I've been carrying out regularly updated pieces of paper, entitled 'Warburton Blog Entries - To Add' for all that time. Now that the list of blog titles is heading onto page 2 and I have a quiet afternoon, I felt the time had come to bite the bullet again. At last.

Reasons for delay (in order, from May 07):

1. Thought about resigning.


2. Decided against it.


3. Ethical dilemma at work, flurries of activity, misinformation and difficult judgment calls. (Note to self: Next time, call on Ethi-call 1800 672 303)


4. Vincent Fairfax Fellowship (VFF) reading (one packed, double-sided A4 folder)


5. VFF homework, being 'notes to self' and 'various chats with friends' (right up my alley).


6. Went to Sydney for VFF recall


7. Went to Bali for quick holiday


8. Travelled many thousands of kilometres for work, no settled home


9. Organised a week long language course on the Lands (just recently held)


10. Weeks 1-2 Being courted by and courting new 'lub'


11. Week 3 Made successful move on new lub


12. Week 4 Moved office into new lub's house


13. Week 5 Moved house from Kanpa to Wanarn


14. Week 6-12 Got to know new lub


15. Applied for remote Central Australia public service jobs for next year


16. Dad visits Wanarn


17. Panicked about lack of preparation for VFF overseas trip next year


18. Learnt how to use and buy things from eBay


19. Went east for Carrie Balneave's wedding and meet family (mine and Fred's)


20. Attended language course

I thought I was very remiss, but it does rather make sense when you look at it like that!

Here's a picture from Dad's visit:

Four times a year

Yes, to the carefully observant and regular visitor to my long suffering, much neglected blog, you will notice that the title has changed. I am no longer resident in Warburton (as the blog title suggested, correct as at Feb 07 this year) nor in Kanpa (as blog readers would know was really the case). I am now in Wanarn.

Wanarn is about 150k east of Warburton, so now I'm much more centrally located. If you can call 'central' a location that is 1000k from a Coles or Woolworths supermarket. Wanarn is home to Fred, my new 'lub'. He'll absolutely love to have his photo up here on the web, so here it is:

And here is my new address. I plan to keep this address for the foreseeable future, so feel free to update your address books with pen not pencil this time:

PMB 117, Wanarn Community

via Alice Springs NT 0872

08 8955 8000

The curious amongst you, here are a few pictures of Wanarn, taken from the top of the water tank.